Rude Shock: Fastest-Growing Area Of California Finds Slump Hits Fast Too --- A Housing Slowdown Hurts Many in `Inland Empire' To the East of Los Angeles --- Bankruptcy Lawyer Prospers
RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- Patrick Williams knew the downturn had arrived when his business jumped 50% last month from a year earlier.</br></br>He runs the unemployment office.</br></br>"We're filing more claims now than we ever have before," says Mr. Williams, whose lobby has been so crowded lately with laid-off construction and factory workers that his staff is processing them in groups rather than individually.</br></br>Growing unemployment lines may be commonplace in much of the country, but they are shocking to California's fastest-growing region, the self-proclaimed "Inland Empire" of Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Here, population soared an astonishing 60% in the past decade as Los Angelenos migrated eastward in search of reasonably priced housing, and jobs followed. With 2.5 million people now living in the region, the phone company is considering giving it its own area code.</br></br>Rapid growth has driven California out of -- or even around -- past slumps. But this time, the growth engine is stalling.