Seeing Wealth Differently

What is wealth?

Over the past few weeks, on hikes through Garland Ranch and Toro Park, surrounded by wildflowers and good friends, I've been sitting with that question.

Too often we measure wealth in purely financial terms: revenue, property values, GDP. Those metrics matter, but they miss most of what makes a place truly thrive.

In Monterey County, wealth shows up in many forms. It's in the fertile soils of the Salinas Valley that feed communities across the country. It's in the Monterey Bay, where a healthy ocean supports fisheries, research, and coastal livelihoods. And it's in the people who make this region work — farmworkers, fishers, teachers, entrepreneurs, and families who care deeply about this region’s future.

Wealth is also relational. It lives in the strength of our connections — who is in our ecosystem, how we support one another, how rooted we feel in the communities we call home. The more I dig into our work at Regenerative California, the more I see relational wealth as the key to a healthy and thriving community (and this is why it is fundamental to regenerative economics).

Our modern world can feel increasingly isolating, and that isolation points directly to where our measures of progress have fallen short. We feel it. Workers can't afford housing near their jobs. Natural systems are stretched thin. Opportunity is uneven. People feel cut off.

The next generation already understands this differently. They will measure wealth by their connectedness, not just their bank account. Wealth is measured by the quality and abundance of their food, and by the stability and resilience of their homes and communities.

At Regenerative California, we're working to build systems that reflect that fuller picture. Housing that keeps communities rooted. Food and ocean systems that restore ecosystems while supporting livelihoods. Local economies where prosperity circulates rather than gets extracted.

When economic, ecological, and relational wealth grow together, a region doesn't just succeed — it becomes stronger over time. Monterey County has everything it needs to show how that future can work.

In partnership, 
Kristin Coates