Spectrum was a long-running weekly radio documentary series which captured the essence of New Zealand from 1972 to 2016. Alwyn Owen and Jack Perkins produced the series for many years, creating a valuable library of New Zealand oral history.
In this episode, Alwyn Owen presents a view of the San Francisco artist's suburb of Sausalito. He speaks with craftsmen, fishermen, a real estate agent and a tourist. He compares the landscape of Sausalito to New Zealand and goes on to observe the large number of galleries and restaurants.
Owen interviews Walter Lewis, a shopkeeper, who observes that it is an expensive town. An unnamed goldsmith observes that few artists actually live in Sausalito. Rents have gone up and tourists destroyed the atmosphere. The area has been commercialised (gentrified). Owen calls it a tourist trap
Owen speaks with an artist, Bill Doorman, who works in downtown Sausalito. Doorman observes that most of the artists represented in the galleries do not actually live in Sausalito.
He talks to an unnamed fisherman as he works. He observes that salmon fishing is a big industry in Sausalito, but that many of the fishermen are not affluent but are the working middle-class with loans to pay for their boats.
In north Sausalito, the industrial area, craftsmen and musicians have taken advantage of cheap rents. Jim Shelnot makes mountain dulcimers (a zither-type instrument developed in the Appalachian mountains). He dislikes the commercial atmosphere of downtown Sausalito.
Owen speaks of the history of Sausalito which was previously a renowned gambling town where you could always get a drink during Prohibition.
Owen finishes the show by reflecting on Sausalito. Despite the “Californian warmth” he finds Sausalito a “cold” town and that it’s a place that has “lost its heart”.