Fresno is a small-minded, unhealthy, smoggy, highly unemployed, crime and poverty ridden city often ranking at the bottom 95% or worse of all those "nice cities" lists. For example, the most recent in early '97 polled residents, and Fresno was dead last in California in terms of quality of life issues such as crime-safety.
One of the first
things a newcomer notices about Fresno is the lack of trees and
landscaping and all the aging buildings downtown in a mish
mash of dull tangled industrial iron and cartoon-color billboards.
Or that 100+ degree heat. (It was 112F last Aug 13.) Or
that smell -- of automobiles and agricultural pesticides
and chemicals of all sorts. Unless it is winter --
![[foggy satellite image ]](fog.gif)
when the Fresno sky is a cold sweat-shirt grey
and the icky-sticky chemical laden smog
is trapped in Fresno's near perpetual inversion layer. Even the sprawling
hyper-growth manicured suburbs and malls cannot escape
that. The inversion layer traps heat in the summer, cold in the
winter, and one wonders?...does it trap human spirits, ideas, and
civic pride all year round?
It's often been said that the Valley is not really a part of California, and the proliferation of Rush Limbaugh bumper stickers on beat-up pick-up trucks seems to confirm this. For example, it is typical for Fresnans to complain about crime, potholes, high taxes, and poor education, and all in one breath, and with no irony in their voice. Well, everybody knows that spending money on parks or education and cleaning up the billboards are conspiracies by the "arts and croissants crowd". There lies the problem.
The Fresno Factor
The term; Fresno Factor , was defined well in the August 14 1997 issue of the Fresno Bee newspaper by columnst Jim Wasserman:.
"... the more apparent it is that Fresno suffers from serious psycological defect."This poor city acts acts like someone who who was locked up in closets as a child. It's mired in that suspicious argumentetive melodramatic intregue addicted mentality of a victim who wouldn't enjoy its dreams if they did come true."
"...whatever that Fresno Factor is, ...it kills the city's best energy.... It's sick.
"It's emarrassing when Fresno, with so much natural and human potential “ and a lot of desire to reach it “ [acts] like some petty suspicious small-minded victim."
..."Only people with petty, small minds....only a Fresno mindset...
"No. Never. Won't. This ...is mental illness."
Fresno -- it's a state of mind.
One wonders?; In what other city are the citizens assaulted by worsening air pollution, polluted city water wells closing like dominos, or uncontrolled population growth and its related crime and urban sprawl, yet the citizens continue to vote for the very people who promote the root causes of these? [Laughing!] Well...perhaps all of them!!
Fresno -- it's a state of mind? This is a difficult concept to convey to out-of-towners, as well as to folks who have never lived anywhere else.
It has been a long standing big joke in Sacramento that developers have us country rubes in their pocket. Bee columnst, Eli Setincich said we have the the best politicians that developer's money can buy.
In Fresno, "environmentalist" rhymes with "Communist". In Fresno, the solutions to crime are bigger jails and a bland "jail biscuit" diet for the juvenile delinquents! I do not joke, this is what Fresno's politicians pitch to get elected! In the mean time the FBI has indicted a score of local big-shot old-money pro-growth developers and their politicians in Operation Rezone for crimes relating to extortion, election fraud, racketeering, money laundering and in general, -- ripping us all off. The names are familiar, some are on our street signs, our maps, -- now they are in our headlines! Is that the smell of old money long putrid, recently exposed? Oh really? In the words of Fresno hero Gomer Pyle; "SU-PRISE! SU-PRISE! SU-PRISE!" Did Fresnans learn anything? Sadly, the biggest growthmaniac politician only needed utter "controlled growth", and he has a ticket to ride. The Joker got re-elected!!! So, I'm in a bad mood...
(laughing....sigh....the big joke in Sacramento stands...)
Seemingly, Fresnans will merrily skip down any yellow brick road to hell as long the politicians promise them it leads to Oz, no questions asked. Well, the politicians do have to be God fearing Republicans. [cough] Does our fact-ignoring Mayor REALLY own a religious radio station? Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
You get the idea. Fresnans don't want any Librill!s with hi-falutin' ideas about spending money on something besides prisons. Fresnans seemingly have an inate fear of turning Fresno into a "Utopia" or even a Sacramento! When a Fresnan says crime or our parks "are not too bad", he is bragging contentedly. The Fresno Factor. Who in Fresno can remember that crowded, manicured Woodward Park was supposed to be a bird sanctuary? Who in Fresno can remember when the San Joaquin River Parkway dream was a dream of naturalists, not of the new developers who "managed" to get on its board of directors?? Who can remember that?
But Perhaps I am being too harsh?.... Could any people buffeted by 30+ days of 100 degree summer heat, -- then by relentless winter weeks on end without the sun in the bone chilling fog do any better? Perhaps the angry desperation in these people of Fresno is a tribute to human spirit in the face of adversity!
Perhaps delusion and self-centered diversions are a healthy manifestation of human adaptability; of survival itself. Why must we demand that the true working heroes of the West act like Leave-It-To-Beavers and not abuse amphetamines, alcohol, morality, or television in the trenches of suburbia? Indeed, is it any wonder that the pressure cooker of Fresnobia leads the nation in arson and car theft? What can we expect from the real heroes; those who can survive, even thrive in this environment to fill our nation's nut and fruit baskets? ?
