"Booby Prize"

Santa Cruz, CA, where I work, help run a business and live has been named the 195th, "Best Places for Business and Careers" out of 200 by Forbes Magazine. The five cities that scored worse than us include:

196 Modesto CA
197 Visalia CA
198 Detroit MI
199 Stockton CA
200 Salinas CA

Fuck yeah, we beat detroit!

They even dedicated an article to us entitled, "Booby Prize"

Santa Cruz has no growth. But that's cool. As for recovering from that 1989 earthquake, we're working on it, okay?
Surf, in Santa Cruz, is the only thing that's up. On a hot Sunday afternoon in March bikini-clad undergrads from the University of California strolling along Pacific Avenue seem to draw inspiration from their school's mascot, the banana slug. With no sign of urgency, they meander among homeless panhandlers, past stores like hemp-peddler Avatar Imports and Mama Chola's Pagan Pantry.

Volkswagen vans clog parking lots near the beach as their owners, paunchy middle-aged surfers, gaze out over the crashing waves. For many years parking meters held no fear for Cruzians because a clown, wearing rainbow-striped pants, a wig and a big red nose would drop coins, gratis, into meters about to expire. It was his fey form of civil disobedience.

This kind of whimsical, lethargic atmosphere has cemented the image of Santa Cruz (pop. 250,000) as a bohemian utopia by the sea. But the same qualities that make it a haven for beach bums and students make it a frustration for anybody trying to do business. The city's five-year average job growth, --0.9%, ranks number 190 among FORBES' 200 cities. Santa Cruz has 300 days of sun a year, and its setting is supremely beautiful. But if this is paradise, how come no one is coming here to work?

The cost of living is 41% higher than the U.S. average. During peak commuting hours, traffic into and out of Silicon Valley--30 miles away--can be bumper-to-bumper. Politically, too, gridlock plagues the place.

Santa Cruz's citizenry is a squabbling, self-canceling mix of rich Silicon Valley executives like Netflix (nasdaq: NFLX - news - people ) boss Reed Hastings, service workers from restaurants and hotels, and 15,000 navel-contemplating university students. (Courses in the UC catalog include "Bob Dylan as Poet" and "Politics of Obesity.") Everyone is an activist. Petitions are forever being drawn up, fists raised and shaken. To get to the barricades here, you have to take a number.

Pot smoking they've managed to agree on: They're for it. A ballot initiative instructing Santa Cruz police to make adult marijuana arrests their lowest priority passed in November by 60%. They also agree on development. They're opposed to it.

The community's history of blocking construction goes back to 1974, when environmentalists stopped a plan to build a hotel and convention center. This victory led to the creation of a park that now costs $250,000 a year to maintain.

In 1999 the city council tried, unsuccessfully, to ban a Borders bookstore by requiring a special permit for ground-floor stores of more than 16,000 square feet. Two years later Outback Steakhouse tried to open next to a clothing-optional retreat house and meditation center. Permission was denied. In 2004 protesters prevented Home Depot (nyse: HD - news - people ) and Lowe's (nyse: LOW - news - people ) from moving into vacant factory space on the western edge of town. In 2005 petitioners crushed plans for a new hotel and conference center on the site of an aging hotel.

In 1989 the Loma Prieta earthquake devastated Santa Cruz's downtown. Seventeen years later reconstruction still isn't finished on one 15,000-square-foot parcel. As part of an effort to attract richer tourists, the city has tried for 13 years to convert a group of crumbling buildings near the city's boardwalk into an upscale hotel. Opponents have kept the project stalled by arguing that the building would compromise their views.

Santa Cruz's biggest problem is space. There isn't any. Of 700 acres zoned for commercial and industrial use, only one substantial site (20 acres) is unbuilt. "If someone wanted to grow here into a major campus--like a Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) or a Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people )--we couldn't accommodate them, because there's not enough room," says Ceil Cirillo, director of economic development for the city. Over the past decade companies including Texas Instruments (nyse: TXN - news - people ), Lipton, Wrigley (nyse: WWY - news - people ) and Raytek have closed manufacturing plants on the outskirts of town. Some of that same space has since been taken over by UC, Santa Cruz, which pays no property taxes.

In lieu of manufacturing, the city wants to expand tourism and to create a "research-and-design" sector composed of young professionals drawn to the area for its beauty. They would work in fields like computer gaming, graphic design and architecture (provided, of course, they didn't design anything too big).

The most successful could afford to buy homes (the median price is $700,000). The less so would have to move along to somewhere less paradisaic. Says Chamber of Commerce Executive Director William Tysseling: "People will suffer a lot to live here." There's your next Chamber of Commerce slogan.

This is all a real hoot to me. I understand why a stuffy financial institution the likes of Forbes Magazine would have a problem with the generally laid back, at times communistic business ethic here in Santa Cruz. This probably ain't a good place to start a business or raise a family financially speaking. Most people who come here eventually have to leave because of something to do with money....they ran out or can't earn enough or can earn more elsewhere. Unfortunately there are a lot of generational Santa Cruzans that have had to pull the moving trigger themselves, for the same reasons....that's particularly shameful!

I'm understating the fact that it's near impossible to raise a family here. The struggles and sacrifices are too great. Those who succeed do so with a lot of assistance and/or have kick ass salaries over the hill.

Somehow, individually, I've been able to scrape by for 11 years in the surf city. I've been a part of two businesses, one of which sank and one which only floats with the help of love, magic and sweat. I personally understand the struggle well. I live it.

I'm here though because I'm dumb enough to love it! I'm crazy enough to try and stay. I'm silly enough to adapt. I've lived in a closet....and a van. At times I have worked three jobs at a time (currently two)(there's a saying here...are you gonna live to work or work to live?) I'm strange enough to embrace the culture and wild enough to ride the waves....the crazy, silly, stupid, beautiful waves of soul that distinguishes this place from any other I have been to before.

It's hard to get to Santa Cruz and even harder to stay...but for me it would be even harder to leave. It's not every body's cup of tea but for now it's for me. Struggle on!

thank heavens we beat modesto.