OLD TOWN
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More than 40 years ago, when Caltrans was planning the route of the Ventura Freeway, the state's traffic engineers wanted to bypass Camarillo -- then a community of only a few thousand -- by building the freeway south of the existing town.
Fearful that local businesses would be bypassed as well, the local Chamber of Commerce came up with the idea of plowing the freeway through the center of town instead. Contrary to the freeway experience elsewhere in the state, Caltrans lost, the locals won, and the town was sliced in two. |
But things didn't turn out the way the Chamber of Commerce expected. Even as the rest of Camarillo has prospered, Old Town has struggled ever since. In the '60s and '70s, the modern city grew up north of the freeway. And more recently, it has faced competition from other nearby retailing centers -- such as the fabulously successful Camarillo Premium Outlets -- which the city has lured to adjacent properties on the south side of the freeway.
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