How is Orange County, California doing in TTL by 2024, more specially my hometown of Laguna Beach? Like, what are its politics and culture like?
Also, does Mendocino exist in TTL (both town and county in NorCal)?
Is Sacramento still the state capital of California or has it moved?
By 2024, Sacramento is the capital of the state of California.
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Mendocino was founded before the POD for the TL-191 series. By 2024, it’s a small community with several popular hotels. However, unlike in our world, Mendocino never became the location for an artists’ colony. There are no analogues to the Mendocino Music Festival or the Mendocino Film Festival from our world.
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I’m not sure if Orange County was founded in a similar manner and in the same year compared to our world, since it would be not terribly long after the Second Mexican War and the beginning of the political, social, and economic changes that led to a more militaristic and conformist US society to OTL. I’m assuming, because of the conservative butterfly effect in the series, that Orange County also exists in TTL.
By 2024, the population of Orange County is lower compared to our world, at just over two million people. There has been less suburban development in Orange County compared to OTL, though there was steady exurban growth in the county between the end of the Tech Recession in the mid-1990s and beginning of the Great Housing Crash in 2019. The county is more rural and has a more agriculturally-based economy compared to our world, with somewhat lower levels of commercial development. The commercial and military aerospace industries are major sources of employment in Orange County.
Orange County, as elsewhere in Southern California after the end of the Second Great War, saw the construction and improvement of its roads and highways. However, automobiles would not enjoy a monopoly in the county. By 2024, the public transportation system is more developed and extensive in Orange County compared to our world, with all of the large incorporated cities in the county having their own downtown trolley systems. The Southern California Transportation Authority (SCTA), which is analogous to the Pacific Electric Railway Company from our world, manages a network of trolleys and electric buses that connect the cities of Orange County with each other, as well as with Los Angeles and San Diego, where the SCTA also maintains citywide electric trolley and bus lines.
The Democratic Party held a monopoly on power in Orange County during most of the 20th Century, and as in our world, gained a reputation in the state for its political conservatism. However, without anything analogous to the political career of Richard Nixon from OTL, Orange County did not gain sny national notoriety for its conservative politics. It wasn’t until the 1980s, with the return of the Republican Party as a successful national political party, that the long Democratic Party monopoly in Orange County began to face real challenges. During the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s, the Republican Party began to gain a greater share of the vote in Orange County as it successfully appealed to groups such as white collar workers and university students.
Unfortunately, as in our world, there was discrimination in Orange County that was directed against Mexican Americans. Although the legal firms of discrimination were repealed in Orange County after the end of the Second Great War, this did not lead to immediate social equality.
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By 2024, Laguna Beach has a lower population compared to our world, though not significantly so. As in our world, Laguna Beach became a popular place in the 20th Century for artists working in different mediums. There are art festivals in Laguna Beach, though there are differences in details. There isn’t anything analogous to the Pageant of the Masters or the Sawdust Art Festival from OTL. Laguna Beach does host a popular annual film festival in July, which is known as the Laguna Film Experience.
Laguna Beach is a popular tourist destination, as well as a popular surfing location.
In 1967, during the lead-up to the Fourth Pacific War, large numbers of people left Laguna Beach for the US interior for fear of a Japanese attack on the West Coast with biological or chemical weapons. This mass flight is commemorated each year in Laguna Beach with a run across the city known as the Stampede. There are memorials in Laguna Beach for the two Great Wars, as well as the Fourth Pacific War.
Laguna Beach, as a place that was hospitable to artists, was a center for the American Nihilist cultural and artistic movement in the 1970s, and later for the different Staccato subcultures of the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s. During the 2010s, Laguna Beach was also one of the cities in California that became the site of parties and impromptu festivals by adherents of Ios culture, a subculture that involved its adherents wandering between different cities around the world in search of parties that played Ios Sound music. These kinds of parties quickly wore out their welcome in Laguna Beach, as elsewhere in the world, because of how destructive they could be, and the subculture around Ios Sound all but disappeared after the beginning of the Great Housing Crash.
Laguna Beach, as elsewhere in Orange County, generally supported the Democratic Party, though it was one city in the county where the Socialist Party could find some support. By 2024, the Republican Party runs the city government of Laguna Beach.