Conservatism, Urban Growth, and the Rise of the New Economy in the San Diego Borderlands Daniel Elkin University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

University of Arkansas, Fayetteville ScholarWorks@UARK Theses and Dissertations 8-2018 Zona Libre: Conservatism, Urban Growth, and the Rise of the New Economy in the San Diego Borderlands Daniel Elkin University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd Part of the Economic History Commons, Latin American History Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Elkin, Daniel, "Zona Libre: Conservatism, Urban Growth, and the Rise of the New Economy in the San Diego Borderlands" (2018). Theses and Dissertations. 2894. http://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/2894 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UARK. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UARK. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Zona Libre: Conservatism, Urban Growth, and the Rise of the New Economy in the San Diego Borderlands A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History by Daniel Elkin University of San Diego Bachelor of Arts in History, 2009 University of San Diego Master of Arts in History, 2012 August 2018 University of Arkansas This dissertation is approved for recommendation to the Graduate Council. _______________________________ Michael Pierce, Ph.D. Dissertation Director _______________________________ Kathryn Sloan, Ph.D. Committee Member _______________________________ Patrick Williams, Ph.D. Committee Member _______________________________ Steven Rosales, Ph.D. Committee Member Abstract Both the rise of conservatism as well as the neoliberal turn of the twentieth century have received much scholarly attention in recent decades. Often, these two subjects are examined separately, with the former focusing on questions of party realignment in the United States and the latter on global economic shifts toward privatization, finance, and the segregation of labor types across international boundaries. As a result, efforts to trace the dual movement between questions of domestic politics and international economy are left underdeveloped. “Zona Libre: Conservatism, Urban Growth, and the Rise of the New Economy” remedies this gap by exploring the linkages between conservatism and neoliberal globalization, arguing that instead of a top-down innovation of business, the contours of the New Economy were dictated from the middle-up by middle-class homeowners wary of the impact of growth and development on their quality of life. The San Diego-Tijuana corridor, a uniquely urban binational space on the U.S.-Mexico border, proved an early microcosm between 1965-1995 of both the political and economic forces that would come to transform the United States moving into the twentieth-first century. After World War II, growth liberalism created a government-subsidized class of white homeowners seeking to safeguard their quality of life. Fearful of the potential impact of traditional smokestack industries and the physical and political presence of an industrial proletariat, they forced business interests to seek binational solutions. But, as international economic integration between San Diego and Tijuana accelerated, these same homeowners demanded tighter border controls. In the end, the reorientation of the region’s economy to globalization birthed a brand of conservatism dedicated to a new nativism centered on protecting quality of life. ©2018 by Daniel Elkin All Rights Reserved Acknowledgments All scholarship is a collective effort. I have been fortunate to have worked with some of the best and brightest ever assembled at the University of Arkansas. To start from the beginning requires a heartfelt thank you to my graduate school cohort, namely Madeleine Forrest and Michael Powers who were nothing but supportive in our years together. Nate Conley proved, time and time again, to be my best friend in the program. We started this journey together and finished together, riding the highs and lows along the way, each talking the other off the ledge at different points. Thank you, Nate. In terms of mentors, I stood on the shoulders of a brilliant collection of scholars to produce this dissertation. Patrick Williams and Kathryn Sloan pushed me to new considerations and inspired me to explore topics far different than anything I anticipated when I arrived, making me a far better thinker in the process. To my advisor, Michael Pierce, I am forever indebted. His tireless efforts, gentle pushes, and gracious encouragements made this project possible; his brilliant insights made it worthy. Lastly, I would like to thank my partner in life, Ashley Whiting. Scholarship can be lonely work, save for when you live with another historian. Always international in her outlook, she challenged this Americanist to look further and cross borders both mentally and physically. It is something I will continue to do in all future endeavors. Dedication To those that carry the fire and light the spark. Table of Contents Introduction…………………………………………………………………..………………...….1 Chapter 1: City in Motion…………………………………...………………..………………….15 Chapter 2: The Impossible Dream...…………………………………………..…...…………….45 Chapter 3: The Ultimate Population………………………………………..……………………74 Chapter 4: Islands on the Land………………………………………………..…………….….118 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………..………………….167 Bibliography……………………………………………………………..……..……...……….176 Figure Figure 1.1 Map of San Diego County……………………………………………………...…….14 Introduction What America is, California is, with accents, in italics. - Farnsworth Crowder, Journalist, 1946 This dissertation is about white middle-class homeowners on the U.S.-Mexico border who contested global capitalism. Instead of a top-down examination of the ways in which business shaped American society, this story is one of expectations being dictated from the middle up, creating the shape and character of the modern New Economy, which segregates low-wage industrial production in the developing world while prioritizing a high quality-of-life dependent service economy in the United States for members of the white middle class. San Diego, California, from very early in the twentieth century, proved a bastion of white middle-class homeowner politics. This oasis of leisure on the west coast attracted mainly midwestern retirees seeking to escape the hustle-and-bustle of industrial capitalism. As a sanctuary from smokestacks, San Diego developed a civic culture moored to principles of clean growth and dedicated to principles of open space, natural beauty, and the absence of an industrial proletariat. Multiple booster regimes came and went, all hoping to bring the traditional markers of capitalist growth to the city, and each found themselves forced to navigate a minefield of white homeowner resistance.1 Mid-century liberalism, with its wide-scale subsidization of white 1 The historiography on San Diego is limited, but existing works portray a city defined by corruption, greed, fiscal mismanagement and incoherent municipal politics. The main point of overlap is San Diego’s ambivalence toward growth. See Anthony W. Corso, “San Diego: The Anti-City,” in Sunbelt Cities: Politics and Growth Since World War II, ed. Richard M. Bernard and Bradley R. Rice (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983); Mike Davis, Kelly Mayhew, and Jim Miller, Under the Perfect Sun: The San Diego Tourists Never See (New York: The New Press, 2003); Steven P. Erie, Vladimir Kogan, and Scott A. Mackenzie, Paradise Plundered: Fiscal Crisis and Governance Failures in San Diego (Palo Alto, California: Stanford University Press, 2011); One exception celebrates San Diego’s commitment to innovation and argues 1 homeownership only deepened the power of this class. With the numbers to effectively wield the nation’s most progressive instrument of direct democracy, California’s ballot initiative system, white homeowners effectively mobilized to influence, delay, and undermine area-booster’s efforts to develop industrial capitalism in San Diego. In this way, these white homeowners, more than the bankers and chamber of commerce types, are responsible for the development of a New Economy designed to protect their quality of life.2 White homeowner resistance to change is a familiar topic in the existing literature on twentieth-century American politics. Homeowners feature as central characters in narratives on the nation’s rightward turn constituting as they did the shock troops of Richard Nixon’s “silent majority” in the late 1960s as well as the “Reagan Revolution” of 1980. Their resistance to social changes ranging from civil rights to the sexual revolution are identified as catalysts for major electoral party shifts. Combined with top-down descriptions of business interests managing this rightward turn from above, the birds eye view of the historiography on modern conservatism presents a coalition of component parts forming the ideological opposite of the liberal welfare state.3 For a long time, the primae facie need to identify the ideological opposition to liberalism business led a successful reinvention of the city. See Mary Lindenstein Walshok and Abraham J. Shragge, Invention and Reinvention: The Evolution of San Diego’s Innovation Economy (Palo Alto, California: Stanford University Press, 2014). 2 Leisure, closely tied to quality of life, played a significant role in southern California appeal for both vacationers, but more importantly, retired white homeowners. See Lawrence Culver,

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