Cobb

You do realize that Laguna Hills and Laguna Beach are not the same city, right?

I had that vague notion even as I wrote this uncharitable screed. I figured somebody was going to call me on it - I didn't even bother to find the place on the map.

I remember because my friend (call her Coleen) made a point about that. Laguna Hills was different from Laguna Beach. How would you rate them on the snob scale, relatively speaking? I seem to recall that the racetrack is closer to Laguna Hills.

I have been to Laguna Beach several times, with the cutesy restaurants, 'art' galleries and no-talent beach volleyball. I've also been down to the shore just south of there. I like that place. I assumed that Laguna Hills was above the shore up where Donald Bren is rumored to live.

Dang. Now that's hate.
Shame.

I'm new to California so I'm still a little confused as to why somone would want to build a home on the side of a cliff. Especially knowing the history of the area.

Well, James, first you have to spend about an hour on the 405 going 7mph and then you have to spend an hour on a hilltop with an unobstructed view of the sunset. Suddenly the light goes on. It's kinda the same prestige as an apartment in a highrise in NYC. It took me a long time to understand why anybody would want to live in the same building with 1000 other people.

Ed. Yeah, that's evil ain't it? Even my mama called me on this one. But don't forget I'm a writer. The sad fact of the matter is I don't even remember "Colleen's" real name. Sad facts don't always make for good writing.

Laguna Beach is a trendy beach town full of rich liberals. Laguna Hills is just another random city in southern Orange County. Apart from sharing an area code and the word "Laguna" in their names (along with Laguna Woods and Laguna Niguel), they don't have much in common.

"It is, just glancing at the wreckage of these homes (Median price in Laguna Beach is/was $1,400,000) shockingly evident that the selling price of homes on the edges of cliffs or even "safely" back from same just took a giant slump. Deeper than the slump the earth took under these homes..."

Any way you slide it, these Lagunas gots mad money.

As a Canadian, you hear about these Cali quake things from time to time and we tend to think why live in that state at all. Are there some really safe areas in Cali and some defined fault lines (like the "hurricane alleys" in Southern US), or is it all random, could hit anytime, anywhere?

Ya know Cobb, I was driving to my soon-to-be fathaer-in-law house in Fontana when I noticed the mountains. I've never been that close to the mountains and it was beautiful. I talked with her father and I told him about it and he mentioned how much cheaper the homes were compared to Los Angeles. I thought about walking in my backyard and seeing the mountains - then I came to my senses. I'm from Chicago. I need a city and flat land. What happens when the boulders siting on top of that mountain decides to go for a stroll. There is only one thing separating a giant bolder toiling over my girl's father house and the expressway - sorry, freeway, and that is his house. I would be probably react the same way with Laguna Beach. So beautiful. but I'll pass.

Fontana used to be a socialist steel town. The mountains out there are nice when you can see them through the smog. But when steel left Fontana, it died and the property values, which were already pretty low, crashed. But now it's part of the Inland Empire and that's the fastest growing part of the country.

Around the time I read City of Quartz by Mike Davis, I was interested to find out the geological state of SoCal. Sure enough I found that most of Orange County and a lot of expensive property there and near Marina Del Rey were built essentially on the geological equivalent of quicksand.

Actually, there's a town called Corona which is very stable, geologically speaking. In fact it ranked highly in the whole country. So IBM built big data centers there. A lot of LA companies shuffle off their backups to Corona. Now, just like every other place in California with a name, new houses are going for 400k in a place that was formerly cow pastures.

The other very geologically stable area? South Central LA. So I've long known that property values in SoCal have nothing to do with geological sense. We're all ready for earthquakes, relatively speaking. Not many pictures on the mantle, not too many ornaments on the Christmas tree. It's deep in our subconsciousness. That's why terrorists don't scare us, especially after the riots.