California's Northern Third (State of Jefferson?)

howdy it's kyle talking about california's northern third this is not an official name for this part of the state just a term that i use to reference the areas north of wine country north of sacramento and north of lake tahoe the northern third of the state it's a part of the state that a lot of people are not familiar with it's often overlooked and under appreciated and in this video i want to talk about this part of the state what makes it tick what are some of the unique challenges it faces what's the economy like what makes it different from the rest of the state and i'll talk about that long-standing movement to break off from the rest of california and form state of jefferson i want to first discuss this part of the state in relation to the rest of the state there are 58 counties in california and this area is the northernmost 18 counties this map shows the current population trends across the state at the 2020 census the state had a population of 39.5 million people and the 18 counties in the northern third at the census had a population of 1 million 241 000 and that's up from 1 million 217 000 in 2010 so very little population difference at all in the northern third of the state since 2010. the counties highlighted in that orange or peach color are counties that gained between the 2010 and 20 census but have lost populations since the pandemic started and most of these counties are the really expensive counties along the coast the counties highlighted in teal are the ones that gained population between the two census and are still gaining population today the counties highlighted in red are the ones that lost population between the two censuses and they're still losing population today so i'm going to zoom in to just the northern third of the state and you can see three very distinct patterns of population growth as you can see all but one of the coastal counties gained population at 2020 would have lost population since the counties in the central have gained and are continuing to gain and all but one of the counties highlighted in red have been losing population for quite some time now so compare that map to this physical map of the state the three different areas for population growth trends are pretty easily seen on this physical map and i'm going to go into greater detail as to what is going on in these three different parts of the northern third of the state the largest city in the northern third is chico with about a hundred and two thousand people it's located within butte county which has a population of two hundred and eleven thousand is the most populous county in the northern third chico is known for two main things one it's home to one of the california state university campuses and it's usually referred to as chico state and the city is also home to the sierra nevada brewing company which is the largest company in the northern third of the state so the combination of chico being a fun city with some great outdoor activities nearby in the mountains and it being pretty cheap is why it's been growing a lot lately however the city also got a population bump for a bad reason the nearby town of paradise had more than half of the buildings in the city burned down in a wildfire the population of paradise was 26 000 in 2010 it is now 4700. many of the folks who lost their homes in paradise moved to chico or another nearby town called oroville and still others moved to different parts of the state or country the next largest city in the northern third is reading with a population of 94 000. it's growing fairly slowly is located within shasta county which has 182 000 people and reading sits at the northern end of the sacramento valley so once you go north of reading you're going into the cascades and where you see mount shasta after the sierra nevada brewing company most of the major private employers in this part of the state are in redding it's the corporate headquarters to the black bear diner which is like the cracker barrel of the west i remember when there were just a few of these places now they're all over the western u.s redding is also home to preemploy.com which is a large company for online background checks it's also home to apex technology network engineering it's also home to seco which does land surveying gps equipment other tripods who doesn't love a bunch of nerdy geoscientists so with a decent job market beautiful outdoor areas in the mountains outside of the city and at low cost of living reading has become a popular spot for people from other parts of the state to move to the next largest city in the northern third is yuba city with about 71 000 people and the yuba city marysville area is the largest urban center in this part of the state there are almost 200 000 people between the two counties of yuba and sutter and this area has been growing a lot in recent years it's just close enough to sacramento so people that want to live in a smaller town but work in sacramento can do so by living in yuba city so all three of these urban centers chico reading and the yuba city area are all located within the sacramento valley and that is the part of the northern third of the state that has by far the most people the sacramento valley is also one of the most agriculturally productive parts of the country almost 20 percent of the world's almonds are grown in the sacramento valley almonds alone contribute almost 2 billion dollars to the local economy this area also grows 40 percent of the world's prunes which are dried plums this area is also big for growing of olives and the making of olive oil all of the walnuts grown in the u.s for commercial purposes come from the central valley and a good chunk of those come from the sacramento valley there are also a lot of apricots and oranges being grown but not nearly as much as the southern part of the valley but unlike the southern part of the valley there is some water up north and there is some rice being grown up there and agriculture is the largest segment of the economy for the northern third of the state see look at all the major companies in the northern third of the state are either in chico or redding and this is also the part of the state that has all the agriculture so of the northern third of the state the sacramento valley area is the area that has the most jobs and most population growth the next largest urban center in the northern third is the eureka arcata area along the coast the city of eureka has about 27 000 people and the city of arcata has about eighteen thousand eureka is a nice old city has some beautiful old victorian buildings an old historic downtown next door arcade is its cooler twin brother it's home to humboldt state university and so you look at this map these are counties that grew between the 2010 and 2020 census but they are losing population now and this area has seen some economic downturn quite a bit in the past five ten years or so prior to 2012 the large majority of marijuana grown in the u.s came from humboldt or mendocino counties this was by far the main part of the economy for this part of the state and law enforcement looked the other way for the most part however in 2010 california voters voted against legalizing marijuana and then 2012 colorado and washington did so with it now being legal in colorado and washington growers can grow there not have to worry about law enforcement looking the other way they can just do it legally and keep in mind the big rise in the marijuana growing in this part of the state came after the big decline in the timber industry in the 1970s and 80s california is ranked number five in the country in terms of timber output and this portion of the state is where you have a large chunk of it coming from but it has gone down a lot in terms of industry importance back in the 1950s and 1960s there was back country road building a lot of herbicides being used slash and burn and there were too many trees being harvested to be sustainable by the 1970s laws were enacted to help fight the complete deforestation of the area by the 1980s the price of lumber dropped by almost 50 percent and that really hurt the economy of these coastal counties in 1990 the spotted owl was placed on the endangered list and this really made a lot of people in this part of the state angry however the spot of the owl just became the scapegoat the lumber industry took a major hit in the 1970s and 80s and again the prices dropped by 50 percent in the 1980s and as the economy of some of these counties dependent on timber went down the rise in opiate use went up and humboldt and lake counties are the two worst counties in the state for opiate issues and in a lot of these areas have a major problem with opiates you also have a large problem with housing upkeep and as a result this is just about the only affordable part of the california coast in which to live you can find a cheap house but it will likely need a lot of work and the third part of the northern third that i want to discuss is the northeastern corner of the state which is high desert all the counties in this part of the state have been losing population for at least 15 years and this has just always been the most economically depressed portion of california for at least as long as i've been alive there are only about 70 000 people for this fairly large part of the state it's very lightly populated and i've always been kind of a california pride kind of guy back in the 1990s i was exploring the entire state for the first time but i would realize when you go to the northeastern corner of the state you really don't have any california pride and you will see more flags looking like this than the california state flag and this is the part of california where you'll see the most reference to the quote-unquote state of jefferson a lot of americans have heard about this concept of the state of jefferson just recently but this is something that goes back to the 1930s it's important to note two very important things that happened in california in the 1930s one is that this is the time when he's hard to see the rise of hollywood all of a sudden celebrities and movie stars and going to see the moving pictures became the big thing and to this day this is a very important part of the california economy but it's a long ways away from the northeastern portion of the state also in the 1930s you had a lot of dust bowl people relocating to the san joaquin valley and we're talking straight up grapes of wrath here including my family so my mom side of the family originated from oklahoma in the dust bowl came out the central valley in california in the 1930s and this is the time when you started to see the rise of the movement for state of jefferson the original concept of jefferson was that we are a small part of the state we don't have many people and we're being overshadowed by the folks in the bay area la and the rest of the state in 1941 was the first wave of organization for forming the state of jefferson so in the early years of the movement it was much more geographic now it's almost entirely political and i don't really know what is supposed to constitute this state of jefferson so here's a handful of maps that showed the quote-unquote state of jefferson throughout different times in history there are a handful of counties that have always been a part of this jefferson movement but some of the other ones have been changed a lot through the years when it was entirely geography the entire northern third of the state was considered part of jefferson and this also included most of southern or southeastern oregon so here's the original concept for state of jefferson and this includes all three of the far northern coastal counties of the state these coastal counties are underrepresented in terms of population but humbles and mendocino are also left leaning so with the new jefferson movement being almost entirely political and not about representation these two counties have been left out as well as the cities of chico and redding which have distanced themselves from this jefferson movement and like i was saying earlier in the video chico and redding are about the only two parts of this part of the state that really have a strong economy so even though the state of jefferson movement is entirely political not everyone agrees with them politically agrees with the whole concept of jefferson now i would like to discuss the physical geography of the northern third the sacramento valley takes its name from the sacramento river which goes throughout the valley it starts high in the mountains and eventually goes through the city of sacramento a lot of the areas along the sacramento river in the valley are part of a national wildlife refuge which is good because much of this area floods to the east of the sacramento valley is the northern extent of the sierra nevada range and to the north of the sacramento valley is the southern end of the cascade mountain range the highest peak in the northern third is mount shasta which stands at 14 179 feet this is the fifth highest peak in the state the second highest peak in the cascade mountains with only mountain rainier in washington being higher and it's the 22nd highest peak in the contiguous u.s it's one of several active volcanoes it's a composite cone or stratovolcano it erupts roughly once every 600 years or so and this is a volcano that the u.s geological survey considers one of the most dangerous ones potential for a major eruption another prominent active volcano is mount lassen this is the largest lava dome in the world it stands at 10 440 feet and it's located within lassen volcanic national park this is another active volcano last erupted in 1915. if you visit lassen volcanic national park you'll see steam vents hot springs mud pots some of the same geologic features you find in yellowstone national park with all of this volcanic activity this is the part of the state where you have a lot of geothermal energy being produced the largest of these is called the geysers which is just north of wine country in the far south end of the northern third and overall california is number one in terms of geothermal power and most of that is in the northern third of the state the state as a whole produces 70 percent of all of us geothermal power and 6 of the overall state energy production is from geothermal there is potential for a lot more geothermal power to be produced in this part of the state also of interest is something called the sutter buttes so on this map there's a little dimple in the central part of the sacramento valley and those are the subtler buttes they're not really buttes and they're not really mountains they're volcanic remnants the tallest one stands at 212 feet and they rise very prominently from the flat valley floor and this precipitation map clearly shows the divide between rainfall along the coast as opposed to the valley or the high desert the coastal areas are very wet get a lot of rain and it's much more like you would expect to find along the oregon or washington coasts because of the moderating effects of the ocean you don't get very cold temperatures along the coast so even in winter the vast majority of the precipitation is rainfall and the combination of the rainfall and climate is what leads to this area having the tallest trees on the entire world redwood national park sits in the northwestern corner of the state and highlights some of these giant trees the coastal areas are gorgeous but these aren't the kind of bees that they're laying out they're going to tan it's going to be usually pretty chilly there the towns of crescent city eureka and arcata are three of the very few towns in the contiguous us where there's a decent likelihood of a tsunami occurring in 1964 there was a huge nine-point earthquake in alaska which sent a large tsunami down the coast most of the west coast has elevations rising pretty quickly from the coast or big cliffs but the cities of eureka arcada and crescent city are low lying along a lagoon in the bay so as a result a tsunami can hit these areas in 1964 a pretty big one hit crescent city there's also potential for a major offshore earthquake with a cascadia subduction zone there have been numerous earthquakes in the six and seven range on the moment scale that have been offshore near eureka and the coastal areas of this part of the state is where you have the largest earthquake risk but the natural hazard for biggest concern is wildfires these are most prominent in the foothills and mountain areas where you have canyons that can funnel the winds and fan the flames and you combine that with dry conditions or bad drought conditions and you can have really high chance of wildfires in this part of the state from a hazard standpoint i would say wildfires are kind of like the western version of tornadoes really scary they can destroy a house really easily between the coastal area and the sacramento valley is where you have a lot of vast wilderness in this area you'll find the trinity alps the whiskey town shasta area the yala bali wilderness and berryessa's snow mountain national monument very few people live in this part of the state so it's a great way to escape the nearby large urban centers of the bay area so those are the main points that i wanted to discuss about the northernmost portions of the state and with california having almost 40 million people it's really easy to forget about some of these more lightly populated areas out in the rural parts of the state the parks that don't have high tech or hollywood and the parks you don't normally think about when you think about california so i want to shed a little bit of light on some of these lesser-known parts of the state including the northern third i hope you enjoyed this video if you did please give me a thumbs up to let me know you approve and subscribe to this channel if you're interested in learning more about us geography i'm talking about stuff like this cross-country road tripping and everything i do comes from a little more nerdy type perspective but yeah thanks for watching geography king signing out

Channel: Geography King

Views: 80,256

Keywords: geography, geography king, state of jefferson, jefferson, california, volcano, shasta, sacramento, redwood, lassen, chico

Id: xSd9TBJnaN0

Length: 17min 26sec (1046 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 24 2022