The CEAV Project - The People

The Cal Expo land is important - of first importance. As land, it has intrinsic value, aside from any markets that buy and sell such things. But, it isn't wilderness either. If it were, we wouldn't be talking about Cal Expo at all. We'd be talking about how to remove all evidence of human occupation and putting things back exactly as they were - one-hudrend or five-hundred or a thousand years ago.

In these pages of the CEAV website we will explore many aspects of the relationships between the people and Cal-Expo - an alternate vision of Cal-Expo that could be realized if our leadership has the will to make it so. In these introductory remarks, we discuss the relationship between place and people - the common ground upon which the purposes of the people of California and those of the mission of Cal-Expo must meet if the future of the California State Fair & Exposition is to have anything at all to recommend it. We believe CEAVE, or some CEAV-like project, has the best chance of creating that common ground. But if the people do not agree, do not act to see that it becomes a reality, it isn't going to happen.

It is up to you, those reading these pages, to decide, for yourselves, whether what we have proposed is worth the fight - for battle there will be, that much is guaranteed.

The Place & The People

The site is in the middle of a relatively large city. It has a mission and a public purpose that has been defined for more than a hundred years, to the benefit of the people of California. Though that mission and the site it lives on may have fallen out of date and into considerable disrepair, neither the mission nor the land are any less valuable to the people of California than they were when the Fair first started or, when it relocated from downtown to its present location.

While the staff and managment of Cal-Expo may talk about being "environmentally conscious", insuring us that their facilities will be "green", in fact, their CX/NBA plan essentially contradicts any claim to environmental sensitivity. Sports-complexes, town-houses, shopping malls and the like pretty much place the intrinsic worth of the land at zero. Under their plan, it has only market value; a value based entirely upon the things that people put on the land. That value, the "market value" of the property, may increase enormously, no matter how it is developed. But as something to be valued for its own sake, or used as some demonstration of 'environmental soundness' in its stewardship and managment - forget it, there is none. Even the public purpose - the Fair and Exposition, stand to depreciate in value and eventually be subsumed into the landscape of human occupation due to the pressure of increasing "market-value" that tends to sweep anything and everything out of its way. In market terms, there is no intrinsic worth to the environment.

Still, one stubborn fact remains. It is that Cal Expo, along with many other enterprises, employ the language of 'environment' in the packaging and sale of their plans. They are compelled to, even as they destroy it in pursuit of their singularly focused "market values". The reason is simple. The people that they are appointed to serve do recognize the value of both the mission and the environment in terms that lie outside ordinary market calculus. We have a place that is worth preserving, as 'place'. We also have a purpose that is worth preserving, as 'purpose' - in this case, the mission of Cal Expo, itself,

"...to create a State Fair experience reflecting California including its industries, agriculture, diversity of its people, traditions and trends shaping its future -- supported by year-round events."

Often these two elements, place and people, conflict in ways for which there is seemingly no way to reconcile. However, in the case of what to do with/about Cal Expo - what its future might look like in terms of these competing interests - there is something unique to both the land and to its stated purpose that doesn't happen very often. Namely, the mission to showcase the best of California, literally its future, appears to be increasingly a future that is vitally and fundamentally engaged in preserving its environment. Our commerce, our agriculture, our resource managment, our education is all intensly engaged in re-addressing the long-standing imbalance between human occupation and the task of finding places to occupy that will be fit for humans. In a very short period of time, a couple of decades perhaps, the message has become the market. It appears it will remain so for a very long time.

The uniqueness of Cal Expo is that it is situated precisely, in mission and environment, in a circumstance to exploit that growing market for a healthy environment by serving a mission, its stated mission, that will help make it so. I can think of no other coincidence of intention and place on this earth quite so aligned as the current position of the Cal-Expo mission and its site.

Yet, it is clear from the plan that Cal-Expo's Board and management have handed us, the only plan they will even consider, that they completely fail to grasp this fact. Instead, they would reach for the very solution that would simply exagerate the imbalance, in keeping with the worst practices of the 20th century. Not only would they destroy the environment in the process, but almost certainly destroy their own mission as well. It would be a double tragedy which the people of California should not permit to happen. This natural alignment of people and environment which, as CEAV suggests, offers an ideal concept-ground for Cal-Expo's future, will not likely happen again. We will either take advantage of this 'gift' or, pave over the opportunity forever.

This is essentially what the CEAV Project is about. It makes of the environment and the growing number of advanced products, technologies and practices that support it, the very thing to be showcased; to express the industry, agriculture, traditions and diversity of our people. Above all, to become the hub of a global showcase entirely suited to the growing consciousness, invention and imagination of the people of the 21st century that is sure to follow. There is nothing mysterious about it. It is simply a 'perfect storm' of the best of California looking for a place to demonstrate what we are capable of doing if we really put our minds and imagination to the task.

For the moment, however, the people of California have yet to be heard. Cal Expo, it seems, is determined to see that we will not be heard. Instead, they would turn a deaf ear to anyone who is not smitten by their idea of putting a huge parking lot with baskeball court; another neighborhood and shopping mall; a giant, football-field sized, warehouse for commercial exhibits (any kind of exhibits, as long as they pay the rent); and, a few ancillary amusements on the side; all in the midst of our city.

In this section of our website, then, we will be taking a look at the people side of things; who we are, what we really want and how a CEAV-like project might enhance our own missions - missions which our children and their children will inherit.