Field Poll: Quality of life plunges in California

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Californians are bummed out.

The Golden State's residents rated their quality of life at its lowest mark in almost 20 years, citing the economic downturn and stagnant personal finances, according to a joint UC Berkeley and Field Poll.

"Residents are reconsidering the image of the Golden State and showing more ambivalence toward it," said Jack Citrin, a Berkeley political science professor who co-wrote the report. "The changes going on - socially, culturally, economic - have made people here less Pollyannaish about the reality of life here."

The poll, based on a telephone survey of 898 registered voters in February, showed that only 39 percent considered the state "one of the best places to live," compared with the glory days of 1985, when 78 percent gave the state the highest rating.

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Most voters - 47 percent - said immigration had no real impact.

Yet of those who said immigration had changed California, 39 percent said it lowered their quality of life, while 10 percent said immigration made life here better.

Brian Peterson, 45, a landscape gardener in Yreka (Siskiyou County)...said his community near the Oregon border has lost jobs in the timber and mining industries because of more stringent state regulations and pressure from environmentalists.

"The location is excellent," Peterson said. "I love my local community. But the state politics suck. It comes from either Sacramento or Washington, D.C., and they don't know what's best for us up here."

Peterson said illegal immigration - as opposed to legal immigration - has negatively impacted the state's quality of life. That's part of the reason he's the unofficial spokesman for the State of Jefferson, a group of secessionists who would like to see Northern California counties create their own state.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/03/17/BAJB1IDRUH.DTL