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Local election news was, for the most part, positive this week. But, initial returns, reflect a paltry 17+% of Santa Cruz County residents who cast ballots for DonaldTrump, the post-election mood in Santa Cruz is dark. Rationalization of the Republican’s unexpected success range from misogyny to myopia. But it seems worthwhile to at least consider the possibility that one of the central causes of the Trump outcomewas not so much a political revolution by working class white men as it was a reflection of long-term economic evolution… one in which the victory could just as easily have been on the more liberal left as its was on the more conservative right. If true, this has serious implications for Santa Cruz County and its residents. We tend to give to much credit to politics and political decisions as the cause of and the solution to our problems. We pay too little attention to the underlying economic forces – most of them inexorable – and to finding effective strategies to ride these waves of change successfully. It is hardly a new notion that many once-middle-class-but-blue-color workers have been relegated to lower-paying jobs reflected in widespread voter grumpiness. But the effects of these economic changes and their political impacts are occurring in many other segments of our workforce as well. It is not just the shrinking incomes of these downwardly-mobile workers but also the escalating costs of living a “middle-class lifestyle” – increasingly at the far-limits of the reach of many families. Moreover, it is not just blue-collar workers that are suffering the economic changes, but also many who have well-paid jobs that are increasingly vulnerable to obsolescence. These changes are affecting white-collar workers as well as blue, multi-generational residents as well as immigrants, the degreed as well as the under-educated. The proportion of workers less affluent than they used to be continues to grow. More than 40% of the U.S. workforce is described by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics as “contingent” – a combination of part-time, contractual, short-term, and other “low-security” jobs. The conversion of once desirable careers into dead-end jobs is growing – in large part the result of increasingly sophisticated computer programming, artificial intelligence, robotics, and new science. Below is a graph that projects the probability of jobs being lost as a result of improved computing (borrowed from Kevin Wheeler’s Future of Talent slideshow). Produced in 2013 it is already possible to see many of these impacts in the job market. We are rightly concerned about changes in political direction. But the notion that we actually chose candidate X because we sincerely liked him or her seems a less probable motivation than that we are willing to vote for a more radical pitch if it offers hope of a radical change of direction. This is not to say that political decisions don’t have real impact; of course they do. But the underlying issues in which many voters are most interested – the quality of their lives and the standard of their living supported by their earnings – are largely beyond the reach of political decisions. We may be able to address some of the resulting effects through public programs, but the nature of work and the supply and demand economics of employment are largely beyond our control on a macro scale. The obvious local questions relate to the social and economic impacts of these changes in employment and income on Santa Cruz County. It is easy to relate some of today’s most powerful local trends to these types of economic issues. Housing. Trends in housing favor people who bring money with them. The astounding proportion of homebuyers who purchase our increasingly-expensive real estate for cash has fallen from the record levels of 2-3 years ago but continues to be remarkably high. And rents are at a level that fewer and fewer local job holders can afford. It is easy to see the wave of conversion of former cottages into more upscale housing extending from the coast towards the mountains and from the mountains towards the coast. Education. While the direct cost of a Cabrillo education is established by the state – making it one of the great opportunities for local self-improvement – the indirect costs of living here, our inability to create efficient transportation networks, and the ambiguities in the evolution of local jobs constrain many prospective students. The cost of UC education is a frightening hurdle for those without means, particularly given the uncertainty of future employment and the constraints of large student debt. Our public K-12 schools are improving but are locked into operating revenues dictated by the state – a per-student revenue stream that forces local schools to operate at state-wide “average” costs in one of the most expensive cost-of-residence environments in the U.S. There are an array of other disturbing local trends as well – homelessness, the provision of health care, public safety, infrastructure from water to transportation to parks – that reflect changes in income demographics – a squeezing of middle-income residents into to higher and lower categories of “affluence” and reducing the number in middle quartiles of income distribution. What other local characteristics might be influenced in the future by downward mobility of workers throughout the state and the nation as well as in Santa Cruz County? Retail. There are a variety of forces at work in retail – online sales, “recreational” shopping trends, reduced consumption. The interesting questions are, “How will local demand change? What products, product-quality, and retail brands will be in demand?” It is conceivable that shopping areas in Santa Cruz, Scotts Valley, and/or Capitola could look more like Los Gatos… or more like Watsonville. Construction. Even if there is an increasing in financing available and an easing of regulations that would permit the development of housing affordable to local workers, will there be local workers to fill those new residences – or will such housing accelerate the trend of Santa Cruz as a bedroom community? Will the cost of housing and the gradual sale of “middle-class” baby-boomer residents result in continued “upscaling” of housing through the remodeling and consolidation of residential properties? Higher Education. The increasing importance of education to individuals’ economic independence as well as national economic competitiveness makes UCSC and the research and economic development opportunities that come with it increasingly influential in our economy. But there are threats to even this powerful presence in Santa Cruz. The availability of national research funding, and the ability and willingness of the state to reduce the gap between the cost of delivering education, and the ability of students to pay for it depend upon the vitality of the economy and the resulting capacity of the state and federal government to provide the funds necessary for UC operations. Further, competition for these resources both within the UC system and national and international institutions suggest additional challenges for UCSC's future. Climate Change. Think of the range of business opportunities and catastrophes that could result from both natural and political outcomes of choosing to address or not address climate change. Will the hills of Santa Cruz become one of the last habitable urban areas in California? Will UCSC’s environmental and coastal research become a seed of local industry comparable to Stanford/Palo Alto of the 1960s and 70s? And, less extreme, will we solve our local issues regarding water and community power before being overtaken by the costs and loss of control in a climate-impacted world. Character. Our “personality” as a community is elegantly diverse: artistic, philanthropic, inventive, eccentric, self-reflective, political, environmental (both politically and as in “love-with our environment”)… But this personality is little more than a reflection of the people who live here. For many of today’s residents the choice of Santa Cruz as their home was not dictated by their level of affluence. Current economic trends – forces that may well be beyond the control of politicians, corporations, or the electorate clearly make this no longer the case. Our hope is that our collective wisdom and some good fortunewill steer us to an attractive future. It does not seem likely that our national “body politic” is either the central cause of our suffering or a sufficient remedy no matter who is steering the ship.