Zócalo's Connecting California
Is Ventura County building a wall to keep the rest of us out?
Anti-development forces in Ventura County are at it again, fighting for a long extension of existing rules that have made new housing scarce and stalled spending on public transportation.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has come under fire for proposing to build a wall along the Mexico border to keep undocumented immigrants from coming into the US. Syndicated columnist Joe Mathews says Ventura County is moving ahead with a similar idea, minus the focus on the undocumented. He says Ventura is trying to build a legal wall along its southern border — in this case, to block out sprawl. In doing so, however, he says the county is not meeting the needs of its residents, its workers or Southern California in general.