Din of hammers, oil wells signal Bakersfield boom

Two years ago, State Farm consolidated its insurance centers in Rohnert Park in the Bay Area and Fresno into its Bakersfield office. The company expected that 35 percent of the Rhonert Park workers would take the transfer. After taking bus tours of the city with its vibrant downtown and tree-lined neighborhoods, 70 percent of the workers took the transfer.

"People come here and they say, 'Oh my God, there are amenities and people can speak full sentences.' It's the perception versus the reality," said Richard Chapman, president of the Kern County Economic Development Corporation.

Chapman said the area's workforce, while reliable, needs to be better educated and trained. Many young people tend to go away to college and not come back. "We have 100 job openings for welders, but companies aren't going to train you," Chapman said.

Bakersfield has boomed before — it saw huge population and economic growth when the economy surged in the late 1990s and into the early years of the new century. But it fell hard when the bottom dropped out of the housing market. Now, it's housing that's helping to make the city attractive again.

The median price of a three-bedroom home is $130,000 — down from $216,000 in 2007 — which makes the region appealing to employers looking to relocate.

It's also a cheap place to do business. In a recent analysis of the taxes and fees charged by 421 U.S. cities, the annual Kosmont-Rose Institute Cost of Doing Business Survey rated Bakersfield a "low cost" city for doing business. Los Angeles was rated "very high cost."

Much of the boom Bakersfield is enjoying is because high oil prices and new technology for extraction have revived the $10 billion industry that seemed dried up 25 years ago when Kern County set out to diversity its economy and expand its tax base. Some estimates place up to 80 percent of California's oil under Kern County soil, with an estimated 12 billion barrels trapped in shale, the largest deposit of any county in the nation. Today's $100-a-barrell prices have inspired the innovation needed to extract it.

Chevron is expanding its offices, and other oil companies and related industries are eying land for development.

Kern County also has embraced 21st century energy by pre-zoning project areas for wind and solar. The value of wind energy projects is assessed at $7.5 billion. Wind will generate 3,000 new Kern County jobs this year, the industry estimates.

Recently, philanthropist and retired oil executive Gene Voiland bought the Bakersfield Blaze, a Class A farm team of the Cincinnati Reds. His stadium project is part of a new high-end shopping complex on the affluent west side of the city. PG&E is removing an antiquated oil-burning power-generating plant to clear 200 prime acres for the project.

"I've moved here four times while I was in the oil business, and I'm retired here because I thought it was the best place I've ever lived," he said. "It's a good town. People do their jobs."