INDIAN WELLS — One hundred miles of state highway separate Indian Wells from the border city of El Centro.

 

The trip along Highway 111 takes less than two hours by car, skirting the Salton Sea, passing fields of peppers, tomatoes, and corn, through business corridors with billboards and placards in Spanish and along newly coiffed medians and towering palm trees leading to the resort cities of La Quinta, Indian Wells and Palm Springs.

 

The highway is well-maintained, but 50 years after President Lyndon Johnson declared a war on poverty, the miles and lifestyles between El Centro and Indian Wells seem harder and farther.

 

“The richest nation on Earth can afford to win [the war on poverty],” Johnson urged the nation in his first State of the Union address. “We cannot afford to lose it.”

 

To address income inequality and mark the 50th anniversary of Johnson’s war on poverty, President Barack Obama last week designated five communities as Promise Zones. The neighborhoods, which include a stretch of central Los Angeles, will receive preferential treatment for federal grants, tax incentives to businesses and other support to combat poverty.

 

Along with L.A., the White House designated zones in San Antonio, Philadelphia, southeastern Kentucky and the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.

 

“In a country as great as this one, a child’s ZIP code should never be what determines his or her opportunity,” Cecilia Munoz, director of Obama’s Domestic Policy Council, wrote announcing the program.

 

But a ZIP code can be a major deterrent to economic gain, said Sergio Rosales of Heber, a rural outpost along Highway 111 between El Centro and Calexico.

 

(Statistics: Communities along California Route 111)

 

Rosales works at a swap meet in Calexico and “economic reasons” prevent him from moving north and west along Highway 111, he said in Spanish.

 

Along with high unemployment and limited educational opportunities, he said poor political representation contributes to the imbalance between his community and the affluent cities of the Coachella Valley.

 

“Meanwhile, the community deteriorates,” said Rosales, 46. “There’s less income. There isn’t decent work. There’s more sadness, more depression. There’s a big difference in lifestyle and education.”

 

 

The unemployment rate in El Centro, nearly a quarter of eligible workers, is one of the highest in the nation. A scarcity of jobs means many families cut back on food and health care.

 

Imperial County ranks second in the nation in child hunger.

 

Along with higher poverty rates and unemployment, fewer residents have finished high school in the rural communities in the eastern Coachella Valley and Imperial County. While nearly all residents of Indian Wells are high school graduates and average incomes there top $89,000, only about one in every three people in Mecca and North Shore finished high school and incomes average under $10,000.

 

The poverty rate from Indio to Calexico ranges from one quarter to half of the population: 21 percent in Indio, 56 percent in Niland, 25 percent in El Centro. .

 

These dire conditions would likely be worse if many people in the eastern valley didn’t find work in wealthier cities. The two sides are connected by the tourism and service industries, with people in the eastern valley commuting west for jobs in restaurants, hotels and golf courses.

 

The people living along Highway 111 in Imperial County are mostly Latino. Many were born outside the United States and never finished high school. By comparison, Indian Wells is older, wealthier and nearly all white.

 

Denny Booth, 84, moved to Indian Wells in 1998 after retiring from the retail industry.

 

Many people from outside Indian Wells, including the eastern Coachella Valley, have found jobs in the city’s high-end hotels and country clubs, Booth said. “I don’t think many of them would come from Rancho Mirage or Palm Desert.”

 

 

Employment numbers collected by the city of Indian Wells rank the Renaissance Esmeralda and Hyatt Regency as the city’s two top employers. The resorts together employ more than 900 people, according to a recent city report.

 

Indian Wells has generously donated city money to charitable efforts that benefit the wider valley, Booth said, including Roy’s Desert Resource Center homeless shelter in Palm Springs, the California State University San Bernardino Campus in Palm Desert and Eisenhower Medical Center.

 

Martin Lax is an attorney who’s lived in the city for about 20 years.

 

“I think your average Indian Wells resident is certainly aware of the differences between communities throughout the valley,” Lax said. “I don’t think it’s a question of fairness; I think it’s a question of society. People live in areas they feel comfortable and they can afford. It doesn’t make one community better than another.”

 

Lax, a past candidate for the Indian Wells City Council, said if people aren’t comfortable where they’re living, they should move or seek change through government.

 

“I think it’s a responsibility of city government and county leaders to ensure that the needs of their constituents are being met,” he said. “And if they’re not, I think the people in those communities should stand up and address those issues.”

 

Advocates for the low-income residents in the eastern Coachella Valley cited political representation as a major obstacle that keeps much of the attention and funding in the more populated west. They point out that groups such as the Coachella Valley Association of Governments don’t include members from the communities southeast of the city of Coachella, although Riverside County supervisors represent unincorporated communities on CVAG.

 

“You can just imagine how different the decisions at CVAG would be if you had a community council member from Thermal, Mecca and North Shore sitting on CVAG with the same voice (as the cities),” said Michele Hasson, regional director in the Coachella Valley for the Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, a group working to help low-income people through better access to services and infrastructure.

 

Hasson said the planned CV Link recreation path from Palm Springs to Coachella highlights the different attitudes toward the east and west valley. The $80 million project would connect communities from Palm Springs to Coachella, but Hasson questioned the economic and health benefits for the eastern valley. The proposed route isn’t easy for residents in the east to access, she said, and it fails to connect commercial and recreation centers.

 

“If people can’t use it to access what they need, then how can you really consider those benefits?” Hasson asked.

 

Still, there’s been some progress, from her organization’s perspective. She noted the addition of a SunLine Transit Agency bus route connecting people in North Shore to the Coachella Valley’s public transportation network and the recent decision by the Coachella Valley Water District to move from an all at-large board to selecting members in five geographic zones.

 

 

While economic disparities exist in close proximity around the country, living in a rural area poses special challenges for the poor.

 

“The jobs climate is poor to a much greater distance, so people are either stuck in place with limited economic opportunities or they’re traveling huge distances,” said Jonathan London, director of the Center for Regional Change at the University of California at Davis and the lead author on a report released in June, “Revealing the Invisible Coachella Valley,” which focused on poor living conditions in the eastern valley.

 

“There’s a certain kind of special segregation in rural areas that is distinct,” he said.

 

The shortage of jobs closer to home mean many people in the eastern valley spend a disproportionate amount of their time, energy and money traveling to jobs in the western valley, often in the tourism industry, London said.

 

While one in 10 Indian Wells residents carpooled or used public transportation to get to their jobs, the same was true for almost four out of every 10 people in Mecca, according to surveys by the U.S. Census Bureau. Average commute times in both cities were similar, about 25 minutes one way.

 

London said the availability of jobs in affluent communities shouldn’t be seen as a way for workers in the eastern valley to improve their economic standing. “Those jobs, often called pink-collar jobs, are relatively low-wage and have no upward mobility,” he said.

 

Rather than focusing on the job, London said the solution is education. “You’re never going to get ahead without the opportunities you can get with a college education,” he said, adding that the challenge for low-income communities then becomes how to draw residents back once they’ve completed their schooling.

 

Karen Borja, an organizer with the faith-based nonprofit One Congregation United for Change, ranked jobs, education, health care and harsh immigration policies among the biggest challenges for the eastern valley.

 

“The people I work with on a daily basis are traveling 20 miles to see very different communities,” she said.

 

From home in the North Shore, where buses, water and doctors are rare, she said people go to work in cities like Rancho Mirage and see buses with few riders and “an abundance of water.”

 

“It leaves people in shock,” she said.