![how a drought led to the rise of skateboarding in 1970s california how a drought led to the rise of skateboarding in 1970s california](https://utterbuzz.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/how-a-drought-led-to-the-rise-of-skateboarding-in-1970s-california-640x407.jpg)
Why did professional skateboarding arise in southern California in the 1970s? Was it a coincidence, or was it a perfect storm of multiple factors? It’s fairly well-known that a drought in southern California in the mid-1970s led to a ban on filling backyard swimming pools, and these empty pools became playgrounds for freestyle skateboarders in the greater Los Angeles area. But a new cross-disciplinary study shows that beyond the drought, it was the entanglement of environmental, economic and technological factors that led to the explosive rise of professional skateboarding culture in the 1970s.