Land Speculation in Southern California: Energy Monopoly, Fiscal Crisis and the Future

A bstract . Increasing automobile traffic congestion and longer trip times on interurban trolley lines in southern California after the second world war led to the contruction of freeways. The trolleys were denied access and the efficient electric railway system was sold to bus lines , partly as a result of a conspiracy between bus manufacturers, tiremakers , and oil companies. This producecl "the golden age of land speculation" in the region. Floodplains, earthquake zones, blowsand areas and the tops and sides of crumbling cliffs were dotted with sprawled residential developments. The energy crisis of 1973, produced by the oil companies and the Arab oil cartel , turned boom into bust. As inflation and rising taxes produced by soaring property values put intolerable pressure on urban homeowners , they forced legislators to limit increases in assessed values and to restrict government spending. Now the public is challenged to produce order out of fiscal chaos and speculative ruin.