Settlement in the Sierra

* Deforestation in the Mid-1800s

Resource Use: Changing Needs Through Time

Regional Economies

* Social and Economic Analysis

COMMUNITY WELL-BEING IN THE SIERRA

Management Scenarios and Strategies

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Consistent with the changing settlement pattern and resource use in the Sierra, our assessment of well-being is based on a broadened understanding of the relationship of Sierra Nevada residents to resources. Our assessment of community well-being in the Sierra is unique because it focused on communities rather than county-level data. The measure of well-being is composed of two elements: (1) measures of community capacity drawn from the knowledge of local experts and (2) measures of socioeconomic status.

Communities

The SNEP social assessment is based on an improved understanding of communities and an expanded definition of human dependence on the Sierra Nevada ecosystem. Communities located in or near forests have long been called resource-dependent communities. Well-being of these communities has historically been discussed in terms of community stability, and viewed as a function of a steady flow of timber products to ensure stable employment in the timber industry. This idea of community well-being is based on an antiquated view of forest communities, particularly for many Sierran communities today. As illustrated in the earlier discussion about major employment sectors, the well-being of a majority of Sierran communities is dependent on far more than the flow of timber products and jobs in the wood-products industry. Even communities historically reliant on the wood products industry are generally less dependent on it than they were a decade ago. This decreased dependence is due to a combination of factors, including increased concentration of the industry, declining labor demands associated with mill modernization, the movement of wood processing facilities closer to urban consumers and away from forest areas, and declining timber harvest levels. In addition, other sectors of the economy, particularly those sectors linked to recreation, tourism, and recent in-migration of retirees and others, have grown and therefore further reduced the relative impact of the timber industry. The timber industry is but one strand of the tapestry of well-being in Sierra Nevada communities.

Ecosystem dependence today may occur with no apparent economic relationship to the ecosystem. Many residents choose to live in Sierran communities because of the aesthetics, the symbolism, and even the perceived sacredness of the natural landscape. The Sierran landscape in this vein is highly valued, albeit noneconomically, and is a vital part of a human sense of place and community.

The focus on communities for well-being assessment represents a significant improvement over studies of well-being that have relied on county-level data. County data are too general for the purposes of assessing well-being at the community level because differences between individual communities are often obscured through averaging. Well-being for a single community may be very different from well-being for the parent county. For example, well-being in the community of Graeagle is higher than the average level of well-being in Plumas County, whereas the well-being in Kings Beach in the Lake Tahoe area is considerably lower than the Placer County average. In addition, county measures for foothill counties such as Kern, Fresno, Yuba, and Placer include large Central Valley populations that are not part of the Sierra.

Community Capacity Component

We invited local experts, knowledgeable about community issues, local institutions, and resources, to workshops to help assess well-being. The experts consisted of planners, community development professionals, current and former county supervisors, education administrators, business people, health and human service providers, and long-term residents with diverse backgrounds and experiences. These experts focused on community capacity assessment but also offered valuable insights into local socioeconomic measures and determining boundaries of regions and community aggregates.

Community capacity is a dynamic and multidimensional measure of the collective ability of residents to create and take advantage of opportunities and adapt to a variety of circumstances. The measure represents both a state or dimension of well-being and the dynamic ability of community residents to improve well-being. High capacity suggests a higher level of well-being for a given economic status than low capacity and also reflects a high ability of local residents to improve well-being. Experts assessed three primary components of capacity: physical capital , which includes physical elements and resources in a community such as sewer systems, housing stock, schools, and open space; human capital , which includes the skills, education, experiences, and general abilities of residents; and social capital , which includes the ability and willingness of residents to work together for community goals. A low-capacity community is one in which residents generally do not work well together, do not have or use existing resources effectively, and adapt poorly, if at all, to change. Low capacity, then, reflects a reduced ability to improve local well-being, including socioeconomic status.

Socioeconomic Component

Well-being was assessed in part using a socioeconomic scale consisting of five separate measures. The socioeconomic scale, developed from 1990 census data, includes measures of home ownership, education, poverty, unemployment, and homes with children receiving public assistance income. Higher levels of home ownership and education, and lower levels of poverty, unemployment, and homes with children receiving public assistance are presumed to indicate higher socioeconomic status.

The socioeconomic scale and the measure of capacity reflect different dimensions of well-being and together offer a comprehensive picture of the state of well-being of communities. It is important to point out that the combination of high capacity and high socioeconomic status does not mean that all residents of a community aggregate enjoy a high level of well-being. Similarly, low socioeconomic status and low capacity do not mean that all residents experience low well-being. Just as some families enjoy a higher level of well-being than others in the same community, some groupsethnic, occupational, or othermay collectively have considerably lower well-being. Some of these distributional effects were identified in the capacity workshops, yet they remain beyond the resolution of much of the SNEP well-being assessment.

What We Found 180 Community Aggregations

A total of 180 community aggregations in the six regions were identified in the Sierra Nevada core area. The community aggregations are based on Bureau of the Census block group boundaries, input from county planners, and information collected in workshops with local experts. In many community aggregations a majority of the population is associated with a single community. In others, residents are linked through common service centers, community service districts, or school systems.

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