Close-Up: Two Boom Towns Fresno the Last Real California

By GARRY WILLS Garry Wills'' latest book is Under God.

To the astonishment of its citizens, who have maintained a hangdog pride in being off the beaten path, Fresno has become one of the fastest-growing major cities in America. In Fresno people had always felt that they were in California but not of it -- a little bit of Iowa under the palm trees. Now their sleepy farm town is growing nearly as fast as crops planted in the dull, rich land of the surrounding San Joaquin Valley.

Why the great influx? Fresno, so proudly un-Californian in the past, is one of the few places in the state that have not already reached a choke-off point for high prices, pollution, crime or the fear of those things. The city is growing by fleeing itself -- in developments rising, tier on tier, northward toward the banks of the San Joaquin River. A local columnist calls those living in the posh new homes "branch and chain people": executives for the local branch of whatever banks, credit companies, insurance firms are represented here. Yet even less affluent people are selling medium-size homes on expensive property elsewhere to build bigger places for less money in Fresno. Over and over one hears that the land and home bargains are still here -- though one hears just as often an apprehension that they are about to run out. People repeat, almost like a mantra, that this is a peaceful community, a good place to raise kids. Mayor Karen Humphrey says, "The city is like the Midwest, very family oriented, very friendly."

Friendly it surely is. At the huge People's Church, presided over by a local celebrity, G.L. Johnson, and his 16 assistant pastors, I run a gauntlet of "greeters" using all their skills for instant intimacy. Opening the service, Pastor Johnson says, "Turn to your neighbor and smile, turn all around and smile. I like fellowshipping. I like to see people hug a lot." As one leaves the huge parking lot, a sign proclaims, YOU ARE NOW ENTERING THE MISSION FIELD, and people drive out smiling the gospel of Fresno. A prosperous-looking dentist's office has on its sign: DR. SO-AND-SO, D.D.S., DENTISTRY FOR SMILES.

Those smiles draw some people here, but others wonder how long the small- town feeling, or the friendliness, can last. The metropolitan area has a population of 477,400 (it was 358,800 a decade ago), and the number is expected to double in the next 10 years. The U.S. government used Fresno as a dumping ground for refugees created by its actions in Indochina, particularly the mountain Laotians called Hmong. There are 31,000 Hmong in the area, many clustered in a neighborhood known as Ban Vinai -- for the refugee camp some of them came from. The ethnic mix has placed heavy burdens on the school system, and gangs are forming among the young.

One of the more endearing things about Fresno is its combination of optimism and self-deprecation: when it turned up at the bottom of a list of cities ranked according to "livability" during the 1980s, it went along with CBS's spoof of Dallas, the mini-series Fresno, starring Carol Burnett. Citizens, including the former mayor, took parts.

But city government is no laughing matter as Fresno faces new problems like pollution, which has been added to the seasonal scourges -- droughts and freezes -- that always imperil Fresno's huge yields of cotton, grapes, nuts and cantaloupes. The struggle for water is perennial here, as elsewhere in California. Russell Fey, a former city planner in Modesto who now teaches urban studies at California State University, Fresno, thinks the city should prevent "leapfrog" growth by instituting zoning regulations. But the electorate resents regulation; residential water meters are only now being installed in older Fresno homes, in part because voters have been so resistant.

The city council currently sits in a small chamber, where Mayor Humphrey presides over the other six members with enthusiastic informality. Her council includes two Armenians, one Hispanic and one African American. Mayor Humphrey sees the new $33 million city hall being constructed as a riposte to those who write off the downtown or who cling to the image of Fresno as an agrarian market town. Despite her claim about the place's Midwestern qualities, she sides with those who believe the city can meet its challenges only if it thinks in terms as cosmopolitan as its new population. The city hall is the very model of a computerized managerial center. Its council chamber has a Big Brother-like screen on which blueprints and other exhibits can be projected. The building is meant to say that Fresno, off in its corner, is becoming a crossroads of the world.

The mayor's critics say Fresno should not get too big for its britches. It remains a hick town in some ways, short on cultural resources. The main entertainment events are football games in the Fresno State Bulldogs' stadium, / to which towns people flock, all wearing red shirts, and tailgate parties are the nearest thing to a town meeting.

Is the flashy new city hall a space vehicle that has crashed in a deserted spot, or a civic control ship about to take off? The populace is divided on that. But even the gloomy ones are surprisingly good-natured as they grumble. For in Fresno even root-canal work can be dentistry for smiles. If loopy optimism and defiance of the odds are what made this state in the first place, then un-Californian Fresno may be the last real California left.