Background on the case
The proposed 600-acre Jacumba Valley Solar Energy Park next to the small town of Jacumba Hot Springs has faced ongoing opposition since 2015 from residents who argue it will overwhelm the rural desert community. However, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors approved the project in 2021. The developer, BayWa r.e., has tried to address concerns but a lawsuit is still pending from the Jacumba Community Sponsor Group seeking to block the utility-scale solar farm. If built, it would generate 90 megawatts of power for San Diego Community Power. There are disagreements about impacts to views, tourism, and cultural resources. It remains uncertain if preliminary work underway will lead to full construction or if community opponents will succeed in halting the solar farm.
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Our process
Jacumba residents and participants in our conversations met in a workshop to engage in a collaborative sensemaking process, identifying key themes to help organize analysis of conversation highlights. We hosted the workshop at the Highlands Community Center, a trusted local place of gathering for many Jacumba Hot Springs residents.
Through this process, we identified five key themes and 15 subthemes that were used to code the conversations recorded with residents in Jacumba.
Home
Fairness
Stewardship
Uncertainty
Trust/Distrust
Results
From coding the two conversations in Jacumba according to the collaboratively identified themes, several notable patterns are revealed.
2
conversations
145
highlights
10
speakers
58
minutes
Based on the patterns observed above, a few key insights emerge.
Trust and fairness
are overrepresented in the data, with 188 tags despite only relating to 3 questions in the script
Uncertainty isn’t hopeful
in its mentions, with 91.8% of tags associated with negativity—and this pattern is similar across subthemes
Home and stewardship
are overwhelmingly positive themes, but with a local focus:
→ 94.3% positive mentions of local stewardship, compared to only 60.0% positive mentions of global stewardship
→ 85.9% overall positive mentions of home, but only 57.1% positive mentions of urban vs. rural