Central Valley

Farmers from around the nation gathered on acres of dusty flats in this Central Valley town on Tuesday to ponder displays of shiny new tractors, plows and dairy machines. For a trade-show crowd accustomed to swapping ideas on crops and livestock, the topic of Rudolph W. Giuliani's breakfast speech was a sober diversion: terrorism.

To builders and boosters, more often than not, goes the privilege of naming a place. This town on the western flank of the San Joaquin Valley was founded 122 years ago as a railroad junction, and an official of the Central Pacific line seized the moment to honor an old friend back in Ohio, a grain merchant named Lathrop J. Tracy. Tracy himself never set foot in the town. One April day in 1918, however, a son, Rufus Tracy, was lured out for a visit.

Like a grinding tectonic shift, a demographic temblor rocked California in 2001. Experts saw it coming, but the census confirmed the trend: The growth boom focused for a century on the Golden State's coast has shifted to the agricultural heartland of the Central Valley. These days, the go-go growth spots are fast-changing farm towns and evolving commuter villages in the state's sprawling belly.

Plant viruses that have plagued wineries in Napa and Sonoma counties the last two years have started threatening some table and raisin grape vineyards in the Central Valley, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported Thursday. Although the diseases so far have affected a tiny percentage of the region's grape acreage, they potentially could devastate vast areas unless growers take precautions, the agency said. "This is a serious problem that could affect them very directly," said Deborah A.

In the Central Valley, Cruz Bustamante trumpets his devotion to farm workers, Arnold Schwarzenegger touts his ties to farm owners, Tom McClintock vows to safeguard water for crops, and Peter V. Ueberroth tells voters he grows walnuts and grapes. California's agricultural heartland has become hotly contested terrain in the gubernatorial recall race. It can swing statewide elections between the two major parties, and it promises to play a pivotal role in the Oct.

Residents of the fast-growing Central Valley are largely content with life in California's agricultural heartland, but voice sharply different views over how to manage a development boom poised to continue for decades, according to a poll released Tuesday. Three out of four residents said they are happy with life in the sprawling region from Redding to Bakersfield, but they can't agree whether it will remain a desirable place to live.

Convinced that sprawl begets smog, Central Valley air quality officials are expected today to become the first regulators in the nation to force builders to pay air pollution fees for new development. Builders would pay less if their new homes, shopping centers and office complexes were designed in ways that limited automobile use -- by locating banks and dry cleaners closer to houses, for example, or linking bicycle trails and walking paths to schools and work centers.

In a different country and different language, Pang Chang's father told him that if he wanted to survive year-to-year, grow vegetables. But for long-term fortune? Plant trees. So in the flat, open Central Valley, where the summers burn and the winters can bring freezing snaps, Chang grows mangoes, papayas, 20 varieties of guava -- some never before cultivated in the U.S. -- and jujubes. Not to be confused with the jelly candy sold as movie snacks, jujubes, or Chinese dates, are honey-sweet fruit little known outside Asian communities.

Dianne Feinstein, who opened her campaign for governor stressing her differences with traditional Democrats, Saturday began to close it out with a most traditional call for a populist uprising on her behalf. Aboard a packed four-car campaign train, Feinstein traveled the Central Valley from Bakersfield to Sacramento, grasping at the underdog spirit of the President who made that mode of campaigning famous.

These weren't exactly dream jobs the vending machine manufacturer was offering in its "help wanted" ad. This was tedious assembly line work, affixing decals and buttons to Coke machines for maybe seven bucks an hour. On the swing shift, no less. So when 835 would-be workers showed up at a Ramada Inn a few months ago to apply, the recruiters at Vendo were nothing short of amazed. The line stretched so long that the firm eventually quit taking applications.