page_title: Inland Empire
section_title: Housing
hierarchical_section_title: Inland Empire / Economy / Housing
caption_attribution_description: The Inland Empire of California, from the air, with the 15 running north. This shows the housing sprawl in progress. Location: approximately 34.147897,-117.499638
context_page_description: The Inland Empire is a metropolitan area and region in Southern California, inland of and adjacent to Los Angeles. It includes the cities of western Riverside County and southwestern San Bernardino County, and is sometimes considered to include the desert communities of Palm Springs and the rest of the Coachella Valley; a much broader definition includes all of Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
  The U.S. Census Bureau-defined Riverside–San Bernardino–Ontario metropolitan area, which comprises Riverside County and San Bernardino County, California, covers more than 27,000 sq mi and has a population of approximately 4 million. Most of the area's population is located in southwestern San Bernardino County and northwestern Riverside County. At the end of the nineteenth century, the Inland Empire was a major center of agriculture, including citrus, dairy, and winemaking. Agriculture declined through the twentieth century, however, and since the 1970s a rapidly growing population, fed by families migrating in search of affordable housing, has led to more residential, industrial, and commercial development.
context_section_description: Since the 1950s, the area has changed from a rural to a suburban environment. The region now comprises numerous cities known as bedroom communities that are suburban cities to Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Diego. Affordable home ownership is the primary motivation behind the growth in these Inland Empire cities as homes in the region are generally less expensive than comparable homes in Los Angeles and Orange counties. The steady rise in population and the demand for housing has led to a dramatic increase in the building of single-family homes on parcels of 0.25 acres (1,000 m²) or more, as opposed to the construction of high-density development such as multi-story apartment or condominium buildings. This low-density development has caused sprawl in the Inland Empire. Additionally, land that was used for agriculture is now being sold by owners for conversion to shopping centers, industrial warehouses, and more. Due to the lack of one central city in the Inland Empire, and the smaller geographical footprint that suburban cities tend to have, this continuous development has become seemingly unplanned suburban sprawl as local interest and zoning laws may quickly change from one city to the next city. The Inland Empire was declared the nation's worst example of sprawl according to a study by Smart Growth America in 2002.
  During the housing bubble collapse of the late 2000s, foreclosures rose by 3,500 percent. In 2010, the area ranked fourth in the nation in the number of foreclosures, with one filing for every 133 households. The problem of abandoned homes became so great that the city of Perris initiated a program to paint the brown lawns of abandoned homes green as a way to cut down on the appearance of blight.
caption: Housing construction in Fontana, looking northeast along Interstate 15. Since 1980, the city's population has grown by 150,000.
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