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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Pleasure Policies: Debating Development Plans In Southern California's Wine Country, Kevin Yelvington, Laurel Dillon-Sumner, Jason Simms Dec 2013

Pleasure Policies: Debating Development Plans In Southern California's Wine Country, Kevin Yelvington, Laurel Dillon-Sumner, Jason Simms

Jason L Simms

On 11 March 2014, the Board of Supervisors of Riverside County in southern California, USA, voted to approve the Wine Country Community Plan, culminating a nearly six-year policy and planning process that would pave the way for the expansion of the Temecula Valley’s wineries and wine tourism complex. The exercise in state-led development was a triumph for the plan’s major proponents, but this does not mean that the Plan was accepted by all elements of the community nor does it mean that the approval process was a smooth and orderly one. This article takes as its frame of reference an …


Turning Water Into Wine: The Political Economy Of The Environment In Southern California's Wine Country, Jason Simms Aug 2013

Turning Water Into Wine: The Political Economy Of The Environment In Southern California's Wine Country, Jason Simms

Jason L Simms

This dissertation examines questions of water sustainability in contexts of wine production and state-led neoliberal development in the Temecula Valley, southern California, where wine tourism is at present being harnessed as an engine of economic growth. Natural and anthropogenic forces, such as global climate change, desertification, urban development, and the marketization and commodification of natural resources, affect the distribution and availability of water throughout the globe. As a result, the use of water, and associated political and environmental processes and consequences, in the production of global commodities, including wheat, citrus, and coffee, recently have come under increased scrutiny. Given wine's …


Wine Tourism In The Temecula Valley: Neoliberal Development Policies And Their Contradictions, Kevin Yelvington, Jason Simms, Elizabeth Murray Nov 2012

Wine Tourism In The Temecula Valley: Neoliberal Development Policies And Their Contradictions, Kevin Yelvington, Jason Simms, Elizabeth Murray

Jason L Simms

Wine tourism is a growing phenomenon, with tourists enjoying not only wine but a rural lifestyle that is associated with winegrowing areas and the elusive essence of terroir. The Temecula Valley in southern California, a small wine-producing region and wine tourism destination, is experiencing state-led plans for a vast expansion of production and tourism capacity. This article traces the challenges inherent in this development process, and questions the sustainability of such plans regarding the very environment the wine tourists seek out, especially regarding the availability of natural resources, mainly water, needed to fulfill these plans. The article concludes with a …