Here is the Chumash Casino, perhaps the most booming and certainly among the most popular attractions in the Santa Ynez Valley.
The Santa Ynez Valley lies on the outskirts of what could be called the west coast’s own equivalent of Megalopolis: a nearly continuous stretch of infrastructure rich metropolitan development spanning from San Diego in the far south, all the way to Santa Barbara some two hundred fifteen miles to the north. The Valley is, in turn, roughly thirty miles north of here, but it would be a considerable stretch to attempt including it in “western megalopolis” proper. The neighboring—and I use that term loosely—cities of San Diego, Los Angeles, and Santa Barbara are all booming port cities in their own right, the greatest of which being Los Angeles and Long Beach, which in conjunction comprise the largest port in the United States as a whole. The Santa Ynez Valley itself has few large buildings, comparatively limited infrastructure, does not lie directly on the coast, and has a fairly low population density. If anything, it is more like the vacationing areas of the eastern seaboard, where denizens of the urban sprawl flee to in search of sanctuary from the oppressive humdrum of everyday urban life, complete with its own beaches, our very own Chumash Casino, sweeping farmland, and quaint, village-like atmosphere. In terms of meteorological phenomenon, floods and heavy rains pose an occasional problem, while hurricanes, tsunamis, and blizzards are flaw out unheard of. The Valley is basically as far away from Megalopolis as one can get, aside from Hawaii or Alaska, so commonalities and correspondence are quite few and far between. The majority of residents live in the suburbs, and undeveloped land comes largely in the form of loamy farmland and dense wooded areas. The coast is rather rocky and sheer, sharing more in common with the Atlantic Periphery than the many estuaries of Megalopolis. Few immigrants make their way to Santa Ynez, leaving it generally homogenous, very much unlike the metropolises of America’s Eastern Coast.