San Diego's sunshine has turned noir. Lauded as one of the nation's best-governed cities in the late 1990s, America's self-proclaimed "Finest City" now has the reputation of being among the most poorly managed.
For the third time in 16 months, San Diegans will trudge to the polls Tuesday to pick a mayor, someone to preside over a City Hall rocked by a $2-billion public pension debt; the threat of bankruptcy; federal fraud investigations; the corruption convictions of the acting mayor and a city councilman; the resignations of the mayor, city manager and auditor/controller; and acrimonious feuding between a crusading city attorney and other public officials. Because a runoff is likely, San Diego might have no duly elected mayor until November.
Historically, Sunbelt cities -- whether San Diego, Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, Tampa Bay or Jacksonville -- have featured strong business leadership, weak labor, powerless minorities and compliant politicians who advocate low taxes and a lean menu of public services. Yet these once-sturdy conservative urban regimes are unraveling. The Sunbelt's central cities (but not the suburbs) are going the way of Los Angeles -- growing minority, labor and liberal influence in City Hall and a governmental emphasis on expanding public services and rebuilding infrastructure. Even Barry Goldwater's Phoenix has a Democratic mayor. San Diego's mayoral election is but the region's latest referendum on conservative continuity versus liberal change.
Modern San Diego came of age in World War II. In the postwar era, the defense industry brought unparalleled growth and prosperity, but it collapsed when the Cold War ended, sending unemployment soaring. Bowing to business pressure, San Diego politicians embraced a local version of supply-side economics: low taxes and low debt, a small public sector and a business-friendly government. This formula appeared to work. By the late 1990s, San Diego had reinvented itself, with tourism, high-tech and real estate the pillars of a more diverse and healthy economy. Urbanist Richard Florida praised the city as a new "creative class" model of economic development based on technology, talent and tolerance.
Yet beneath the accolades lay serious problems: woefully inadequate infrastructure, a large and growing low-wage services sector, a school dropout rate that's alarmingly high, and one of the nation's least affordable housing stocks.
