Andrea Schulte-Peevers [Planet - Los Angeles & Southern California

You might have a great number of expectations about what youll discover when you arrive in sunny Southern California. Surf, endless fun and sun, youth culture inventing itself before your eyes, and the legends of Hollywood and the Old West surrounding you everywhere. And they are all here. But just for a moment, let us give you a slightly different take on the mythology of Los Angeles and Southern California.

Theres a jutting outcrop of barren and heat-blasted rock high above Death Valley known as Aguereberry Point. The only way you can reach it is by taking the twisted and treacherous road wrenched and hewn in the 1930s by the eccentric prospector (Pete Aguereberry) after whom it is named. From here you can look out across 100 miles of one of the most desolate and forbidding landscapes on the planet and ask yourself, Why on earth would human beings ever risk their lives to cross this barren, hellish place? To the east youll spy the desolate mountains that pioneers just barely made it through; while to the west you will be able to make out towering mountains, their peaks covered with snow and the promise of life-giving water.

From this elevated viewpoint you can begin to imagine that even the slightest hope of what lay ahead was enough to keep early settlers alive for the last leg of their westward journey. If they did survive, their dreams would have been fulfilled. Among the wonders they found were alpine mountains soaring to over 10,000ft; coastal plains and beaches without equal; soil as rich as anywhere on earth, able to sustain livestock and produce wine, vast groves of fruit and fields of vegetables; and weather and sunlight thats the envy of all who live anywhere other than the Mediterranean. This was Southern California, the land of dreams and dreamers. And it is no less wondrous now.

Todays Southern California, or SoCal as its new natives call it, is the culmination of the efforts of generations of such dreamers. Bear in mind that on the pages that follow were talking about one half of a single American state. It has an economy roughly the equal of Spain. Its universities are plentiful and world class. From Los Angeles, the imagery spun by Hollywood dominates the digital transmissions and cultural trends of the entire planet. Surf, sand and sex will endure as long as there is a SoCal coast.

But SoCal is not a finished work. It remains one of the most dynamic places on earth in which to live and play. Just consider space probes, Disneyland, the internet, automotive and fashion design, the movie industry and its attendant media slaves all are headquartered in or managed from here. The regions growing pains have largely found an equilibrium. The problem now is growth itself.

The nightmares of the 90s the race riots and the catastrophic Northridge earthquake among them seem already to belong to a different age. But perhaps its because of this very adaptability and equanimity that SoCal has found that the human wave continues to crest and threaten. Every New Years Day, the largest commercial for living here the Rose Parade snares the imagination of folks freezing in Wisconsin or struggling to make ends meet in the American rust belt. Many of them choose to move here. With this burgeoning humanity come the attendant problems of horrific traffic and skyrocketing costs of living and real estate. Public transport is woefully inadequate, so everyone hits the freeway where average rush hour speed is a whopping 17mph. Sheer human impaction is a palpable force and begs the question that Rodney King so famously asked: Cant we all get along?

The current mayor of Los Angeles Antonio Villaraigosa, himself of Mexican descent is a fellow with bold ideas about social initiatives and its extremely difficult to envision a return to the infamous Zoot Suit Riots of the 40s or the uproar that followed the all-white jury verdict in the Rodney King beating case. You may be astonished to see the ethnic and racial mix of colleagues and friends walking along boulevards and beaches or gathering for meals together in SoCals plethora of world cuisine restaurants. As we joke locally, Whatever happens in SoCal today will happen to the rest of the world a few years later. We can only hope that, in terms of race and ethnic relations, this timetable speeds up enormously. Time and again, SoCal has proven itself to be resourceful, resilient, adaptive and innovative. With global warming threatening, you can bet the bank that Caltech, UCLA and other universities are directing their brains toward solving the issues.

The myths surrounding SoCal have somehow come true. You truly can surf in the morning in pleasant climes, spend the afternoon skiing down alpine slopes and end the day with alfresco dinner in the desert. Who wouldnt want to live here, even with the horrifying commuting times? Who wouldnt want to visit, or perhaps become a part of, one of the worlds greatest and most successful natural and social experiments?