COSTA MESA A woman in her 20s was killed late Saturday, Aug. 12,  while riding in one of three vehicles that crashed on the southbound 405 freeway near Bristol Street, officials said.

At 11:58 p.m., the California Highway Patrol responded to a report that two cars had collided and were then hit by a third car, said California Highway Patrol Sgt. Todd Kovaletz

Costa Mesa Fire & Rescue responded and worked with Orange County Sheriff-Coroner authorities to free the trapped passenger. The woman, who was a passenger in one of the cars, was later declared dead by paramedics.

Three people were taken to local hospitals with non-life threatening injuries, said Costa Mesa Fire Capt. Chris Coates. One other person refused medical assistance, he said.

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Images of California, particularly the southern coast, are embedded with those associated with youthfulness — surfers, actors, models, glamorous entrepreneurs. Yet, in reality, the state — and the region — are falling well behind in the growth of their youthful population, which carries significant implications for our future economic trajectory and the nature of our society.

The numbers, provided by demographer Wendell Cox, based on U.S. Census Bureau estimates, should concern every business and community, particularly across the high-priced coastal areas. On the other hand, the stronger youthful growth in the interior, notably the Inland Empire, may become the basis for a regional resurgence, given a less draconian state regulatory regime.

What the numbers say

Let’s start with the millennials, the population that was aged between 20 and 34 in 2015. Since 2000, the growth of this segment of the population has been, for the most part, very slow along the coastal regions, well below the 6 percent national average. In Los Angeles and Orange County, the youth population grew by roughly 3 percent, about half the national average. San Francisco-Oakland, did a bit better, at 7 percent, but Silicon Valley-San Jose experienced a barely 1 percent increase.

In comparison, the millennial population of Orlando, Fla., grew by 47 percent, while in Las Vegas it increased by 42 percent. The four big Texas cities — led by San Antonio, with a 43 percent increase — all registered well over 20 percent growth. Rising tech regions, like Raleigh, N.C., saw 30 percent growth — 30 times the rate in Silicon Valley.

Yet, not all of California is losing out in the coming generation. The fastest-growing region for young people among the 53 largest metropolitan regions is right here in Southern California, the Riverside-San Bernardino area, which saw its 20-34 population expand by a remarkable 47 percent. Another inland standout in California, Sacramento, grew by over 30 percent, far ahead of any of the coastal areas.

Drilling down in Southern California

One of the most oft-repeated memes of the national media is that millennials are swarming into dense, coastal urban areas. It’s a nice story for urban land speculators and owners of expensive inner-city properties, but the thesis does not hold up well. In fact, of the 20 fastest-growing millennial regions, only two urban icons, Seattle and, to a lesser extent, Portland, Ore., show much vitality — and neither is very dense.

We can see that this pattern also exists within Southern California, based on data from the 2000 census and from American Community Survey data for the 2011-2015 period. If we look across the region, most of the places with the fastest growth in millennials can be found in the outlying areas. The fastest growth took place in the Perris-Temecula area, with a remarkable rise of 114 percent, followed by 48 percent growth in the Riverside area and 36 percent growth around San Bernardino. Along the coast, the fastest growth has been in suburban Irvine and the South Orange County area, where the youth population expanded by 24 percent. In contrast, the rest of coastal Orange County — including places like Newport Beach and Laguna — as well as Long Beach-South Bay, saw a decline in millennial population.

Surprisingly, the two places most celebrated as youth magnets — downtown Los Angeles and the Westside — saw surprisingly modest increases in millennials. Since 2000, downtown has experienced a healthy 22 percent growth in millennials — about 5,600 people — although the surrounding area saw a 2.4 percent drop, so the central core actually lost over 10,000 young people. The Westside area that includes Santa Monica and much of the “tech coast” also enjoyed a bit of a jump, albeit below the national average, with a growth rate of 4.6 percent. But even if we combine the Westside hot spots and downtown, the total gain rounds out to 13,000 — a nice number, but barely half that of Irvine, and less than one-sixth the gain in Perris-Temecula.

What this means

Urban boosters may claim, with justification, that the best educated (and often the most wellborn) do tend to concentrate in areas such as the Westside or downtown L.A. But all of these remain relatively small groups, compared to the middle- and working-class population with more modest skills, who often come from historically disadvantaged groups. And, as even more millennials get into their 30s, they may also tend to move away from the coastal counties, as we can see in the decline of the Gen Xer population as a harbinger of future trends.

The youth deficit also seems to be spreading to the post-millennial generation. Due, in part, to a dearth of new families, California’s new generation is actually shrinking the potential workforce. Between 2013 and 2025, the number of high school graduates in California is expected to fall by 5 percent, while Texas, Florida and North Carolina experience gains of near 10 percent or more. With a shrinking birthrate, as well as diminished immigration, the L.A. region could experience a continual decline in its workforce.

These trends should alarm employers and businesses who depend on growth in workers and consumers. A rapidly aging population, by its very nature, adds less to economic growth and innovation, while spending less on housing and consumer goods. Southern California politicians, seemingly more obsessed with sporting events and climate change than economic reality, need to address the fundamental housing and employment issues undermining our demographic future.

Joel Kotkin is the R.C. Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University in Orange and executive director of the Houston-based Center for Opportunity Urbanism (www.opportunityurbanism.org). Wendell Cox is principal of Demographia, a St. Louis-based public policy firm, and was appointed to three terms on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission.

The week’s news was dominated by President Trump’s verbal saber-rattling with North Korea. Except that these weren’t swords being waved by Trump and Kim Jong Un: They were nuclear warhead-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles. But the problem isn’t Trump’s rhetoric. It’s Kim’s actions — and China’s.

Since July 16, 1945, when the first atomic bomb was tested in the desert of New Mexico, the civilized world has worried what would happen if a certifiable madman got his hands on the bomb. The jokes making the rounds on social media and among late night comedians is that Trump’s 2016 election brought this crisis to the fore. That’s not humorous to me for the simple reason that the murderous impulses of Kim Jong Un, however buffoonish a figure he cuts, are neither funny nor hypothetical.

A 2014 United Nations dossier of his regime’s crimes against humanity runs 372 pages. “I have been a judge for a very long time and I’m pretty hardened to testimony,” said Australian magistrate Michael Kirby. “But the testimony … brought tears to my eyes on several occasions.”

One North Korean refugee told U.N. investigators that Kim personally involved himself in the desecration and disposal of murdered political prisoners. Their bodies were tossed on a cart and driven away to be incinerated and the ashes used for fertilizer.

In February 2016, a South Korean think tank reported that Kim Jong Un had ordered the execution of some 340 North Koreans, many of them members of his own family — for infractions ranging from disagreeing with Kim’s forestation policies to “slouching” at public events. The capricious nature of these death sentences beggars belief: Those killed include a manager of a turtle farm who explained to Kim that turtles had died because of power outages and food shortages; four musicians in a band favored by his former wife; a widow who protested the execution of her husband.

Last summer, the Obama administration placed Kim and 10 of his top henchmen on a “blacklist” that prohibits U.S. companies or individuals from doing any business with them.

“Under Kim Jong-Un, North Korea continues to inflict intolerable cruelty and hardship on millions of its own people,” said Adam Szubin, acting Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.

This is not new: Kim is the son and grandson of dictators who ran the world’s most horrific police state. What is new is that the third version of North Korea’s monster has nuclear weapons and intercontinental missiles. Events came to head this week because of two events: a new round of U.N. sanctions and an Aug. 8 Washington Post article revealing that North Korea has produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can fit inside its missiles.

After a decade of research, North Korea conducted its first successful nuclear bomb test in October 2006. By September 2016, it detonated a bomb the size of the device dropped on Nagasaki. Concurrently, the regime has poured money into missile technology. A July 28 ballistic missile traveled more than 2,000 miles into space. If it had been fired at a flatter trajectory — an easy adjustment to make — Chicago would have been in reach.

All North Korea’s military scientists have to do now is perfect their weapon’s triggering mechanisms and they will have 10 to 12 working ICBMs. How do we know they’re thinking of targeting the United States? Because they keep saying so. At a regional Asian forum Monday, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho warned that Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and recent ballistic tests are a “stern warning to the U.S. [against] believing that its land is safe across the ocean.”

Referring to the U.N. sanctions, he added that North Korea “will make the U.S. pay dearly for all the heinous crimes it commits against the state and people of this country.”

These were the threats that prompted Trump’s Wednesday “fire and fury” tweet. Thursday, as the White House was besieged by those who wanted him to tone it down — and North Korea announced it was considering a missile strike on Guam — Trump said that his rhetoric “maybe … wasn’t tough enough,” a theme he followed Friday in both a morning tweet (“Military solutions are now fully in place, locked and loaded …”) and an afternoon event in Bridgewater, N.J., where he warned Kim “he would truly regret” any attack on Guam.

Some of the questions raised by this back-and-forth are metaphysical. Does threatening a madman work? The more practical question is whether Trump’s gambit can work. He noted, quite accurately, that the diplomatic approach taken by previous administrations has failed. But Trump’s real audience is not Kim Jong Un, it’s Beijing. North Korea is a client state that would not exist without Chinese support. And it’s time to call China to account.

They don’t want an unstable country, or a democratic one, on their borders? Well, this is worse. For decades, the Kim dynasty has starved its own people, kidnapped thousands of foreigners, and practiced ethnic cleansing — aimed at the Chinese. The regime loathes ethnically mixed children, mainly those conceived by men from China, where some North Korean women have sought refuge. When China sends them back, the babies are killed. One witness told U.N. officials that a repatriated woman’s newborn was put in a bucket and hauled away like garbage by a North Korean guard who said that the child “does not deserve to live because it is impure.”

China is not blind to these atrocities. China is complicit in them. And it’s time for China to grow into the role it craves in the world.

When Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris climate accord, China announced airily that it would take the lead on global warming. Western elites detest Trump so much they parroted that line, knowing it was a crock: China is the world’s leading emitter of greenhouse gases, and isn’t required under that pact to do anything.

But North Korea is all their fault, and Trump is telling the Chinese that they’d better step up and do something about it.

Carl M. Cannon is executive editor and Washington Bureau chief of RealClearPolitics.

In 2017’s first six months, the San Juan Capistrano housing market looked strong.

CoreLogic statistics for the first half of 2017, compared with the same period a year earlier, show these trends for San Juan Capistrano …

1. 50 homes sold this year vs. 34 a year ago.

2. That’s a sales gain of 47.1 percent vs. a homebuying gain of 2.2 percent countywide.

3. Median selling price this year of $1,150,000 vs. $714,500 in 2016.

4. That’s a price gain of 61 percent. Countywide median was $675,000, up 3.1 percent vs. first-half 2016.

Here are six countywide trends to ponder, first half 2017 vs. first half 2016 …

1. Prices rose in 70 of 83 Orange County ZIPs. Sales rose in 50 of the 83.

2. In the 27 least expensive ZIPs — median price at $597,500 and below -– 5,258 homes sold. That’s up 0.8 percent.

3. In the 27 priciest ZIPs — median price of $755,000-plus -– 6,431 homes sold. That’s up 5.7 percent.

4. In nine ZIPs with medians above $1 million, sales totaled 1,256 homes, up 7.8 percent.

5. In 16 beach-close ZIPs, 3,158 homes sold, up 3.27 percent.

6. There were 10 ZIPs with median prices under $500,000 with total sales of 1,799 homes. A year ago, 18 ZIPs had medians under $500,000 with 2,793 sales.

DID YOU SEE? It’s been 10 years since Orange County’s housing bubble … or … Half of us rent: L.A.-Orange County homeownership rate 2nd lowest in U.S.

Anaheim’s City Council has a shared focus to better the lives of its residents and quality of its neighborhoods. On this, there is no disagreement. Where reasonable people do disagree, however, is on how best to address the goals.

Since the Great Recession, Anaheim has not imposed any new taxes or fees on residents to maintain services. In fact, we’re expanding police services, parks and community centers, thanks in large part to revenue from the Anaheim Resort.

By contrast, cities across Orange County have increased local sales taxes, while others have implemented fees on utility, cable and trash bills — just to maintain existing city services.

Anaheim’s economic model has worked for decades. Sadly, recent discussion from the City Council dais presents a false narrative that Anaheim’s leaders must choose between investing in neighborhoods or the Anaheim Resort.

The fact remains that the two are inseparably and undeniably linked. The city can expand dedicated services to our neighborhoods because we have a thriving tourism industry. The added benefit is that Anaheim taxpayers pay less out of pocket for these vital services.

Whether an Anaheim resident ever visits Disneyland, they are touched by the role the resort district plays for our city.

Mayor Tom Tait understands this. As a councilman in 1996, he correctly voted to subsidize more than $500 million for the Anaheim Resort, which included a policy to prohibit a gate tax for 20 years, alongside more than $1 billion that was spent by Disneyland.

What was and remains the largest bond issuance in Anaheim’s history has paid our residents back with a 700 percent rate of return in funding for key services. Several of my colleagues and I voted in recent years to extend these economic policies because they have a track record of success.

For two decades now, Anaheim’s City Council has been investing those dividends in our neighborhoods in the form of new parks, libraries and public safety. Our newly adopted, $1.7 billion city budget continues to put residents and neighborhoods first by:

• Hiring 40 police officers in four years, a goal established in 2013 and set to be met this year with $2 million in spending to hire 10 remaining officers.

• Building Anaheim Fire & Rescue’s first new fire station in a decade approved to reduce response times for nearby residents.

• Spending more than $35 million on our libraries, parks and community services that touch the daily lives of residents.

• Spending $13 million to build new parks or expand existing ones.

• Spending $5 million annually in city programs for schools.

Meanwhile, Anaheim continues to do more than most cities in Orange County and regionally to address homelessness — an issue that deeply affects neighborhoods.

This year, the county’s first year-round homeless shelter opened in Anaheim. Each week, the city and nonprofit partner City Net conduct outreach to the homeless resulting in nearly 800 people being placed in safe, clean housing or reunited with family since 2014.

Where needed, the city also takes steps to address quality of life concerns with enforcement of anti-camping policies in neighborhoods, parks and public spaces. And more must be done to ensure the health and safety of all residents.

As an Anaheim City Council member since 2010, I’ve been proud to stand on the shoulders of those before me who led with vision and foresight.

A healthy city economy doesn’t happen by accident. It requires thoughtful planning and a collaborative approach between city leaders and the community.

Past city leaders created an economic model in which businesses — the Anaheim Resort, the convention center, Angel Stadium, Honda Center and now the emerging Platinum Triangle — serve our residents by providing funding for the services they expect and deserve without adding to the local expense of Anaheim taxpayers.

We can never lose focus of that.

Kris Murray is a member of Anaheim’s City Council.

The nation’s legal immigration system is in dire need of reform, but a new bill will only make us poorer and less free.

Republican Sens. Tom Cotton of Alabama and David Perdue of Georgia recently introduced the Reforming American Immigration for a Strong Economy, or RAISE, Act. The legislation, which has the endorsement of the Trump administration, would reduce legal immigration by half over 10 years and implement a new merit-based points system for determining immigration eligibility. Preferences would be given to those who are younger, have advanced degrees (especially in science and engineering fields), have a job offer with a high salary, score well on English-language assessment exams, or invest at least $1.35 million in the country. The bill would also cap the number of refugees offered permanent residency to 50,000 per year.

The merit-based system is intended to be modeled after immigration systems in Canada and Australia, though critics point out that the United States permits fewer immigrants per capita than either of those nations — and this rate would only deteriorate further under the RAISE Act.

In a USA Today column, Cotton and Perdue claimed that their alterations to the immigration system would “give working-class families the raise they deserve.” This is based on the argument that immigrants flood the country with cheap labor, lowering wages for native-born workers. The problem is, economic research does not bear out this widespread wage drop, except perhaps for the small percentage of high school dropouts.

Last year, for example, a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine study reviewed economic literature on immigration and concluded: “When measured over a period of 10 years or more, the impact of immigration on the wages of native-born workers overall is very small. To the extent that negative impacts occur, they are most likely to be found for prior immigrants or native-born workers who have not completed high school — who are often the closest substitutes for immigrant workers with low skills.”

As Cato Institute immigration policy analyst Alex Nowrasteh noted in a recent blog post, “Congress restricted immigration to raise American wages at least three times in American history — 1882, 1924 and 1964. It failed each time.”

Immigration does not affect overall wages much because new immigrants primarily compete with previous immigrants, not native-born workers. The jobs they take tend to be complements of, not substitutes for, natives’ jobs. Moreover, immigrants are also additional consumers, which creates greater demand for goods and services — and thus more jobs. In these ways, immigration allows for greater specialization and economic growth.

It is curious that most of those who oppose additional immigration — whether “illegal” or “legal” — tend to be conservative. These same critics tend to advocate (rightly) for free-markets generally, yet they abandon these principles when thinking about the market for labor.

Too many conservatives who despise the central planning of an almighty government to dictate which goods and services should be offered, or provide favorable treatment to some, embrace the same government controls over who gets to live and work here.

Other immigration fears center on offering additional taxpayer-funded welfare benefits. This is a legitimate concern, though it is much more of an indictment of the expansive welfare state, not just the most recent crop of people to take advantage of it who qualify under existing rules.

Economic arguments aside, the proposed criteria for admission would only enhance the state’s power to judge who deserves to be considered an American, which itself feels un-American. The RAISE Act promises prosperity, but fails to deliver, both in terms of economics and the individual liberty that has allowed our nation to flourish.

In 2017’s first six months, the Placentia housing market looked strong.

CoreLogic statistics for the first half of 2017, compared with the same period a year earlier, show these trends for Placentia …

1. 64 homes sold this year vs. 36 a year ago.

2. That’s a sales gain of 78 percent vs. a homebuying gain of 2.2 percent countywide.

3. Median selling price this year of $661,000 vs. $608,500 in 2016.

4. That’s a price gain of 8.6 percent. Countywide median was $675,000, up 3.1 percent vs. first-half 2016.

Here are six countywide trends to ponder, first half 2017 vs. first half 2016 …

1. Prices rose in 70 of 83 Orange County ZIPs. Sales rose in 50 of the 83.

2. In the 27 least expensive ZIPs — median price at $597,500 and below -– 5,258 homes sold. That’s up 0.8 percent.

3. In the 27 priciest ZIPs — median price of $755,000-plus -– 6,431 homes sold. That’s up 5.7 percent.

4. In nine ZIPs with medians above $1 million, sales totaled 1,256 homes, up 7.8 percent.

5. In 16 beach-close ZIPs, 3,158 homes sold, up 3.27 percent.

6. There were 10 ZIPs with median prices under $500,000 with total sales of 1,799 homes. A year ago, 18 ZIPs had medians under $500,000 with 2,793 sales.

DID YOU SEE? It’s been 10 years since Orange County’s housing bubble … or … Half of us rent: L.A.-Orange County homeownership rate 2nd lowest in U.S.