Part Two: THE QUEST FOR WATER
In Part one of this program Dr. Gray Brechin explained that San Francisco grew in only 30 years to the largest city on the West Coast due to the convergence of people and gold/capital. However the city needed another essential ingredient to maintain growth: water.
Brechin describes how water was important not only for people and fire protection, but for industry and to give value to dry land that had been bought up by real estate speculators. As the first wave of destruction of Northern California was bought about by gold mining, the second wave was caused by the quest for water, the damming of rivers, and the flooding of land for reservoirs, even inside the protected space of Yosemite National Park.
Brechin explains the connection between the building of Los Angles and the draining of farmland in the Owens Valley. He ends with an intriguing sketch of the creation of the Bureau of Reclamation that made the quest for water a national issue. The Bureau claimed to supply water to small farmers but ended up becoming the the greatest builder of cities.
Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin was published by U.C. Press in 1999. Brechin recommends two books by his mentor, the late Lewis Mumford: The City in History (1961) and The Pentagon of Power (1970).
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:01 — 19.9MB)
