May 14, 1999

Remember in "It's a Wonderful Life," when George Bailey is shown what would have happened had he never lived? For one thing, the savings and loan he managed could not have survived the run on deposits during the Depression panics.

If set in the present, he and his new bride would never have sacrificed their honeymoon money to keep the savings and loan afloat; on the contrary, he'd have cleaned out its assets, set off on a spree, and let the taxpayers bail out the defunct establishment.

Do you ever wonder what Fairfield would be like today if redevelopment had never happened here? Isn't it possible that private enterprise and individual initiative might have created a more functional and aesthetically pleasing town? It's doubtful things would be much worse, considering that redevelopment is ecomically self-cancelling in its game of revolving neighborhood blight. Maybe older retail sites such as Mission Village, other clusters of shops on North Texas, the Geri-Towne Mall, etc., would be fully occupied and bustling with activity.

If the redevelopment agency hadn't messed with the "invisible hand" of supply, demand, commerce, and uncoerced demographic groupings, perhaps we'd even have a charming and prosperous downtown with a wide variety of retail outlets--imagine Placerville without the hanging effigy. I'm not suggesting that nobody would have built a mall, just that downtown merchants should never have been hit with competition partially funded with their own taxes.

Anticipating the opening of the redevelopment agency's Edwards 16-plex theater, Solano Mall Cinemas 6 will close, as have Fairfield Cinemas I and II on West Texas Street, and two cinemas on North Texas. The new balance after those closings is a net increase of two screens in Fairfield. Quite a commercial massacre for two more local film choices.

But that's only the movie trade. The redevelopment agency has leveraged our property taxes to grant cost reductions to nationwide business chains, cannibalizing existing stores. This maneuvering by city officials has resulted in neighborhood instability, with Fairfield locked in a never-ending shuffle of commercial centers while basic services lack proper funding. It's time for the (citizen) empire to strike back!

© 1999 Cynthia Hahn