Niches

I remember driving past the Castroville artichoke restaurant during the housing madness of the early 2000s. I was living in Oregon and there was this churning migration as one group of people moved to the cheapest place they could find displacing another group of people who then moved to the cheapest place they could find. And so on.

But Monterey county is a place of highly defined and long settled communities. Wealth is certainly a factor, but I reflected that someone living in Seaside would be highly unlikely to move the thirteen miles to Castroville just to get a cheaper place to rent. Even though the economics and class of these two places is somewhat similar. Such a thing would be quite common in Oregon.

Or to take another example, I am staying at a friend's ranch in Big Sur. But I only say “Big Sur” to paint an accessible picture of where I am. Within Big Sur, there are the south coast communities—Gorda, Willow Creek, Chalk Peak, Pacific Valley, Lucia, Esalen, Big Creek, etcetera. There are the Big Sur Valley niches—Apple Pie Ridge, Pfeiffer Ridge, Deetjens, Coastlands, Coast Ridge Road, Nepenthe, Molera, etcetera. There are the cliff dwellers along the roadside north of Little Sur. There are the north coast communities of Garrapata and Palo Colorado, both of which have many different divisions such as Long and Green Ridges, the bottom of the canyon, the upper canyon. Though they might well have much in common, a wild hair from Ragged Point is socially a very different creature than someone living in the Big Sur valley and working at the Post Ranch.

The other night at monday night dinner, someone told the sommelier that I was living in his neck of the woods, meaning the north coast. It lessened my already low opinion of him when he responded,”Oh yeah, I live in Palo. Where are you?”

"Up above Bottcher's Gap."

"Oh yeah. I used to go there for boy scout camp."

Well, I'm not at the Boy Scout Camp which is way down below Bottcher's. I am above Bottcher's, which would perk the interest of anyone with even a vague curiosity about this area. There is no one else above Bottcher's. And culturally I am not down in Palo at all. Call it north of the Little Sur and south of Garrapata.

This intense specificity of place is not unique to the Monterey area—or maybe I should say the Monterey/Pacific Grove/Marina/Charmel/Carmel Valley/Jamesburg/Cachagua/Charmel Highlands/North Coast/South Coast/Big Sur valley/Seaside/Mid Valley/New Monterey/Sand City/Pebble Beach regional association of approximate localities—but it is more highly defined than anywhere I have ever been. Pacific Grove proper is definitely not Pebble Beach and not Monterey. And living down by Lover's Point is a class away from living up off of David Avenue. And don't even think of telling someone in Jamesburg they live in Cachagua. Oak Grove is not Monterey and not Seaside, and I don't even know what Del Rey Oaks is about. Partington Ridge is a cousin to the Big Sur Valley, not an outlier.

I don't mention Salinas at all because the Salinas valley and environs are a different world, connected only by political geography. Hence the idea that moving from Seaside to Castroville or Prunteucky is a major migration.

The only thing like this I have experienced elsewhere is in the neighborhoods of Portland. The structure of that city, where each major eastside arterial street tends to have its own small, pre-automotive merchantile section, lends itself to organic, individual neighborhoods. But as Portland has become gentrified, as there become fewer and fewer areas to redevelop, that neighborhood camaraderie has descended into cliquishness. Having less meaningful distinction from each other, the neighborhoods now over-emphasize their separateness. For instance, an early-stage gentrification St. Johns resident is likely to look with disgust upon the foibles of late-stage Hawthorne gentry. A north Portland early, early stage gentrification neighborhood might look down its nose at the decadence of nearby Mississippi Street. I remember most of these areas when there was plenty of crack and prostitution to go around.

But Monterey county was long settled before WW II shipbuilding gave Portland its major growth spurt. And access to water, both of the potable and of the ship-receiving kind, had as much to do with the individuation of places here as trendy redevelopment and increasing wealth in Portland. I kind of like it this way, how the brush strokes of community character can be so nuanced and deep-rooted. It fits an area whose stunning diversity of ecosystems and microclimates give rise to it. It's a good thing.