In 2003 I was attracted to Isleton, California, a small town in the Sacramento River Delta that appeared to have fallen asleep around noontime in the 20th century. The town appealed initially to my feelings of nostalgia, and I hoped to document a passing way of life. I planned to focus not on Isleton’s people – they’re like all of us – but instead on its old-fashioned ethos or sense of place.
Starting in 2005, however, developers bought up both properties and imaginations in Isleton, raising boomtown hopes for residential expansion and tourist influx. I expected to witness the loss of another small community to residential and commercial exploitation, in what has become a common pattern: mushrooming look-alike homes, a mall, and a ‘boutiqued’ Historic Main Street.
By that time I was aware of the ecological fragility of the region. “The Sacramento River Delta,” according to the Wikipedia, “was declared the nation's most endangered waterway system by the environmental group American Rivers, due to water shortages caused by the Delta's environmental problems, declining fish populations, and aging levees….” So my agenda changed to documenting ‘Development as Loss,’ and the earlier photographs in this series were exhibited with that title.
But next I witnessed a bust that typifies or even exaggerates the housing crash and depression – economic and spiritual – of so many American communities since 2007. The quiet little river town of the 20th century, failing to metastasize into another suburban development, now offers a still-life portrait of what has happened to boom-bust real estate markets in California, Florida, Arizona, and elsewhere.
So this is no longer a document of a town asleep in time, but of one undergoing rapid and unanticipated change. What looked at first like local uniqueness became a microcosm of regional and national socio-economic changes that few, and certainly not I, could have foreseen.
Isleton is located on Andrus Island in Northern California’s Sacramento River Delta. The Delta is a vast and fragile ecosystem that channels an important part of the state’s water supply. Dirt levees, first constructed in the 1890s by Chinese laborers, hold back the river. Its location on the river made Isleton a relaxed boating and fishing spot with bait shops, bars, marinas, and a bit of gambling. And no fast-food franchises. The town calls itself "Crawdad Town U.S.A." and hosts an annual crawdad or crayfish festival on Fathers Day. It contains a picturesque Historic District, one of California’s old segregated Chinatowns – though this one burned and was reconstructed after 1923. Typical contemporary Isleton residents were working families or retired folks, in socio-economic terms mostly lower middle class. Average income is about 75% of the national average (even farther below California’s average).
The San Francisco Chronicle interviewed citizens, planners, and environmentalists when development was imminent. Long-time resident Steve Calvert said that Isleton was "a classic little river town, like something out of Mark Twain. You can sit on your houseboat with a beer at sunset and catch a catfish, listen to the birds."
Development despite eco-fragility:
The San Francisco Bay Area and the capital in Sacramento were expanding, and Isleton came close to being swallowed into the commuting perimeter. In 2006, despite concerns about the strength of the dikes that contain the river, developers proposed to build 650 homes, which would double the population. In Steve Calvert's words, "If all those homes go in, a few guys will make a lot of money. But everyone else will lose the whole reason for being here."
The fragility of California’s water system and especially the levees of the Delta has long been a concern of environmentalists, who point out that dirt levees are subject to ‘boils,’ where moving water creates weakening underwater holes or pits. In the event rising floodwaters, serious boils could develop and swell rapidly. The Jones Tract levee break of 2004 flooded 12,000 acres and gave warning of danger. Also, the main two-lane highway that provides access can already become crowded on weekends, making it hard to imagine an effective evacuation plan.
Despite such concerns, development began in 2006 under the auspices of Del Valle Homes of Modesto. Forty acres were graded to accommodate the first 250 homes. The development corporation might be said to have bought off opposition with unfulfilled promises. An old casino-hotel was renovated and offered for use to the local historical society. A disguised mall was proposed as an extension of the Main Street Historic District, with buildings in faux Victorian style.
The development was to be “The Delta Dream.” As in Hawaii and the Gulf States, its new homes were meant to stand above flooding from broken levees. All homes would have full ground-floor garages, with living quarters above. The idea was that only the owners’ cars would be ruined. (There was no specific design provision for attic canoes.) These homes were all approximately 3300 square feet, three stories tall, situated on narrow lots. I wandered into the fenced site and asked a construction supervisor if any smaller homes were planned for retired folks like me, and he said not in any plans he was working on.
As construction began, commercial property owners began tarting up the town as an attraction to both residents and tourists. A booster claimed – almost accurately – that in anticipation of boom times, every building in the historic district had been renovated by its owner or had been sold to a buyer with renovation plans. New artsy-craftsy boutiques and even a latte shop took over from long-closed Chinese groceries, empty storefronts, and older local merchants. The big sign at the end of town that had advertised card games at the Hotel Del Rio and Casino was replaced with one proclaiming that Renovo Communities was “Building the Delta Dream.”
Busted:
The Dream became an economic nightmare. Since 2007, real estate, new construction, and downtown business are mightily busted. Currently, RealtyTrak lists 19 of the 32 homes for sale in Isleton as foreclosures. In the tract of 250 homes that launched the Dream, only eighteen were built – and these were never hooked to the grid or offered for sale. Everything just stopped. The model homes stand in tall and empty isolation in a depressingly empty area where a watchman with a pickup truck prevents pilferage. The large bulldozed area around them has grown a beard of weeds.
In town the C&C Cafe, where solid local citizens ended to congregate at lunchtime, has closed - as has the Main Street Chamber of Commerce office and Visitor Center. The building housing Joe’s Crawdads bar and restaurant is for sale, restaurant included. The lot of the boat shop next door is empty of boats. The latte maker who once feared his rent would rise has shut his doors; his landlady now receives no rent at all. So many storefronts in the historic district are for sale or lease that one boutique posts an ‘Open for Business’ sign, as if folks might not otherwise believe it. One man, still working on his building renovation, said there might be plans to begin home construction again. He hadn’t heard when.
The portfolio:
My photographs are the visual side of this narrative. I hope they’re the stronger part. I’ve organized them roughly by chronology and content into several ‘movements’:
The first is the Sacramento River itself, in all its beauty – partly natural, but mostly sustained by its levee system. (It’s hard to speak of a ‘natural’ Sacramento River and Delta, with its course reshaped for a century and a half by mining residue.)
The second is the town as one might have entered and explored it starting in 2003: sleepy, old-fashioned, perhaps downright backward, with an aura of seedy charm.
The third is ‘where we live,’ the homes of Isleton. These range from a burnt-out shack to a Victorian-style farmer’s mansion, with emphasis on the modest side of the curve.
The third is ‘what we drive,’ which in a small town is an important part of the individual’s and the family’s persona. It’s just as good an indicator of self-image and status as are employment/unemployment, religion, income, or neighborhood. I’m a Ram, you’re a Jeep, you’re just a Subaru.
The fourth is ‘tarting up the town,’ the visual displays that said ‘we’re joining the boom and expect to make it.’ The developers announce The Delta Dream, and landlords and merchants gussy-up the town with a colorful mural and new paint jobs. Boutiques offer merchandise that only a tourist would buy. We begin to see gated properties, and a marina just up the river with double mobile homes and shiny cars.
The fifth ‘movement’ is the high point in constructing the Delta Dream, physically as well as psychologically. These images take us all the way from grading the soil to constructing a mini-castle.
And finally the outcome, for the foreseeable present: Construction stopped, local businesses closing, homes for sale, and weeds growing between the town and its dream of the future.
Kirk Thompson
September 2009
Background and sources:
The Chamber of Commerce presents a nostalgic history of Isleton at:
Glen Martin, San Francisco Chronicle environmental writer, reported on Isleton’s development, “Delta Blues,’ Monday, May 15, 2006:
For wider background, visit the Wikipedia entry for Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta:
