Current and Future Development of Irvine - Assignment Example

Introduction The of Irvine has a Mission ment, embedded on five values. The mission ment s that the mission of the employees is to “create and maintain a community where people can live, work and play in an environment that is safe, vibrant and aesthetically pleasing”. The values are innovation, integrity, professionalism, flexibility and responsiveness. Its commitment and belief is to provide quality municipal services and cooperation and teamwork to achieve its mission. i) Describe the Irvine City Irvine city was designed by Mr. William Pereira, a Los Angeles architect and Raymond Watson, an employee to Irvine Company. The city is divided into townships known as villages. The six lanes within the city separate the townships. The townships have houses of similar designs, commercial centers, and institutions. The city’s design resembles the shape of a necklace, as the residential areas surrounded by two commercial districts; the Irvine Business Complex and Spectrum. The streets have landscaping allowance, with rights of way serving as bicycle corridors, parks and greenbelts. These help in preserving ecology of the city. There is control of home appearance by the home owner’s association. House roofing, color paints and landscaping are controlled. Each village was designed and planned to have a distinct architectural theme. The city was incorporated on December 28th, 1971, with Charter Law as its form of government, City Council under control of the city manager. The city has a population of 223,000 hardworking communities, who have chosen the city as their home. Its population has grown steadily for the past 40 years. The population growth percentage is 20% between 1970 and 1980. Ever since that time, it has stagnated to a growth of 2% per year. The city relatively started with a young population base. Irvine is now ranked the 98th largest city in the US according US Census Bureau. ii) Explain its functions as a part of the region by interpreting available statistics and other relevant information. Education The city has four high schools; university High School, Irvine High School, Northwood High School and Woodbridge High School. There are colleges and universities that offer higher education. These are; university of California, Irvine, Concordia University and Irvine University among others. Libraries are also available within the city. The Heritage Park Regional Library and Katie Wheeler Library offer services to the natives. Economy One of the economical activities in the city is tourism. Destination Irvine program provides information for vacation and destination for meetings, events and other business initiatives. This program is run by Chamber of Commerce. Various companies have set their headquarters in Irvine. This has created jobs to the locals and attracted foreigners in the city. Transportation Automotive The city is traversed across with several major highways. The streets and intersections owned by the city have a proper infrastructure to accommodate traffic population. This is aided by signal timing, wide streets and road layout. Transit services The Orange County Transportation Authority is in charge of controlling bus routes in Irvine. A commuter rail to Los Angeles from Irvine eases traffic in the major highways. OCTA has implemented a major service with trains operating every 30 minutes. A fixed route transit system, stopping at Irvine Transportation Centre connects Irvine Spectrum Centre and Orange County Great Park. The city also operates its own mass-transit bus service called the iShuttle. This serves employers, residential areas, shopping centers and transportation facilities. Freight Rail Freight rail provided by ATSF Transportation contributed growth to Irvine. The city has 71.6 km of off-road bicycle trails and 454 km of on-road bicycle lanes. This encourages the use of bikes as a means of transport. Travel Time Individuals who travelled to work by driving increased between 2000 and 2010 by 1.4%. The average travel time to work place stabilized at 25 minutes during the same period (Web). iii) Discuss the city’s current and potential contribution to the region Population Growth A projection of the city’s growth in 2010 was approximately 5% of the actual 2010 population estimate. For the 2008-2035 periods, the population is forecasted to increase from 7.0 to 8.7%. In average, the population is projected to be 3478 or 1.6%. This will make the city’s population reach 309,977 by the year 2035. Housing Growth Housing growth has surpassed the pace of population growth. The annual rate of growth for houses stands at 27% per year (1149 units). The growth is set is increase to 1.7% or 1373 housing units per year by 2035. The housing stock has 52.7% single family units. Employment The 2000 census revealed that the number of jobs in Irvine increased by 16% in 1990, an annual increase of 2555 jobs. The number was projected to increase to 203831 in 2010 and 82661 between 2010 and 2035. By the year 2035, Irvine is projected to garner 28.6% of employment in the county of Orange. In 2010, the number of jobs reached 205319. It declined by 10.5% against the projected figure. The jobs included wage and salary jobs, business fraternity and self employed persons. The total job count does not include unpaid volunteers, family workers and private household workers. Manufacturing jobs included those people employed in various sectors like food, apparel, metal, petroleum and coal, machinery, computer and electronic product, and transportation equipment. There was a decrease in the number of manufacturing jobs between 2007 and 2010 by 16.1% (Southern California Association of Governments pp13-16). Construction industry includes residential and non residential construction. There was a decrease in jobs by 34.4% between 2007 and 2010. Retail jobs in the city include motor vehicle and parts dealers, furniture, electronics and appliances, building material, food and beverage, clothing, sporting goods, books and office supplies. There was a decrease by 12.5% of these jobs between the same periods. Professional and management sector include those employed in technical and professional services, management of companies, and administration. A similar trend followed by 10.4%. During the same period, minor changes were observed the share of jobs by the various job sectors. The share of education- health jobs recorded an increase from 16% to 18.6%, as the construction jobs declined from 5 to 3.7%. Professional-management sector remained the largest job sector in the city by 28%. Other large sectors were Educational-Health sector covering 18.6%, manufacturing sector (10.8%) and the retail sector covering 9.1%. Salaries An increase in average salaries was recorded between 2003 and 2009. An 11.8% increase was recorded. The finance-insurance-real estate sector recorded the highest salary of $95,062 per job in 2009. Leisure-hospitality sector provided the lowest annual salary of $22,408. An increase in retail sales by 14.5% between 2000 and 2005 was recorded as real retail sales decreased by 30.9% between 2005 and 2009. Public Education K-12 enrollment increased in the city by 27%, about 6470 students between 2000 and 2008. A similar trend was depicted in public elementary school by 20.6% (2603 students). The same trend was maintained in total public school enrollment for grades 7-9. The increase was recorded at 25.8% (1430 students). During the same period, total public school enrollment for grades 10-12 increased by 41.9% (2437 students) (Southern California Association of Governments pp. 19,20). Regional Median Home Sales prices for homes dropped by half in the year 2009, rebounding slightly in 2010. The retail sales trend followed closely depending on personal income, employment and consumer confidence (Southern California Association of Governments p.18). Summary The City of Irvine depicts various trends in different sectors. The construction sector is declining due to completion of projects as educational, professional-management sectors show an upward trend. Other sectors like finance-insurance-real estate sector may reach their climax and stagnate. The city is said to have utilized its resources to its best and now require provision of services. That is why there is a steady incline in education, and professional sector. The city of Irvine strives to offer the best services to its inhabitants. It has a long successful history of office, apartment and retail master planned community investments. Its villages will continue offering quality homes designed for long term purposes. Works Cited http://www.cityofirvine.org/. Web. 9th Feb. 2013. Southern California Association of Governments, Kang, Sukhee. Profile of the City of Irvine. 2011. Web. 9th Feb. 2013. http://www.scag.ca.gov/resources/pdfs/2011LP/Orange/Irvine.pdf Read More