[PragmaticIdealist]

In many ways, San Bernardino, and the San Bernardino metroplex, including Redlands and Loma Linda, are attempting to, in a massive way, replicate E.S.R.I., which located its headquarters in the valley because of the quality of life the area offers and which touts that livability to the high-value employees the company recruits.

I have a friend, myself, who was being courted by E.S.R.I. to leave his country of origin and move to Redlands, which he, personally, loves. But, all his other friends who live mostly in Los Angeles have dismissed the city and the rest of the Inland Empire as undesirable in an attempt to persuade him to move closer to the coastal metropolis.

My friend is precisely the guy that San Bernardino needs to live in the heart of a resort-style inland metropolis and to commute the 5 miles to the E.S.R.I. campus by way of the light rail. It's just a matter of fixing the simple problems in the built environment (like the huge blocks, the wide streets, and the ridiculous amount of surface parking) while changing the city's image and making more improvements to the public realm. San Bernardino is really the only city that can do so, and it actually has a pretty amazing array of inherent assets. Ontario and Rancho Cucamonga will probably develop in an Orange County way with nice and sterile projects that are pleasant but that lack authenticity, and Riverside will mature into a Pasadena that is cultured and genteel, but not as big as Los Angeles and San Francisco. San Bernardino, though, has the space and the existing urban environment to provide that necessary sense of maturity while ensuring build-out takes decades to achieve.