Yesterday the other DrC and I spent the afternoon driving around the seaside resort community of Santa Barbara. I believe Santa Barbara is the most beautiful city in California.
A more stunning collection of fine Mediterranean/Spanish Colonial architecture does not exist anywhere in the state, very likely in the nation. Of course I'm not alone in this opinion, with the result that homes in SB are not affordable.
Indeed, home prices are so high that people who hold modest jobs very often commute many miles from places like Lompoc and Santa Maria. Of course this living pattern is not uncommon in California.
Speaking of Lompoc, we were there last week and it has really cleaned up its act in recent years. Time was Lompoc combined the worst features of a military base gate town and a rural slum. No longer. Today it looks quite prosperous, a place a person would not mind calling home.
It is likely the phenomenon in the previous paragraph is responsible for the improvement as salaried people who work in Santa Barbara have bid up home prices and brought shopping dollars to the retail community. In other words, Lompoc has been gentrified, after a fashion.
