Los Angeles

• Los angles background info

  • Ranked 6th on Global Cities Index – it is an alpha city.
  • LA grew due to the Gold Rush in California in the late 1800s/early 1900s.
  • Mostly white middle classes moved to LA to escape problems in industrial cities such as Chicago and Detroit.
  • The vision for LA was of a city with clean, orderly and organised residential communities in local neighbourhoods.
• Los Angles population

  • 1900: 100,000 people
  • 2017: 13 million
  • City of Los Angeles population = 4 million
  • Los Angeles metropolitan area population = 13.1 million
  • Second most populous city in the USA (New York is 1st)
• Los Angeles is in Southern California and is the largest city in the state.
• Urban growth

  • After World War II, LA grew rapidly, sprawling into the San Fernando Valley.
  • Expansion of the Interstate Highway System (during the 1950s and 60s) helped propel suburban growth.
  • 1994 Northridge earthquake (6.7 on Richter Scale) caused $12 billion damage and 72 deaths. Led to widespread improvements in infrastructure/building quality.
  • LA hosted 1984 (and 2028) Summer Olympics. Investment and redevelopment of deprived areas.
• • The city is divided into over 80 districts (neighbourhoods).
• Non-Hispanic whites were 28.7% of the population in 2010 (compared to 86.3% in 1940). The majority of the non-Hispanic white population live along the Pacific coast
• • The largest Asian ethnic groups are Filipinos (3.2%) and Koreans (2.9%), which have their own established ethnic enclaves, e.g. Koreatown.
• Race riots

  • The Watts Riots of 1965 resulted in 34 deaths.
  • Race riots in 1992 (triggered by videotape of police officers beating Rodney King) resulted n largest riots in US history causing $1.3 billion in damage and 53 deaths.
  • ‘White flight’ from areas such as Watts and Compton happened partly as a result of the riots.
• Environmental issues

  • Due to LA’s geography and heavy reliance on cars, LA suffers from air pollution in the form of smog.

  The San Fernando Valley is susceptible to atmospheric inversion, which holds in the exhausts from vehicles and other sources
• Economic inequality

  • The CBD suffered economically as businesses followed the workers to the suburbs.
  • As a result, LA is described as a ‘donut city’.
  • LA’s downtown area is dominated by HQs of TNCs that offer few employment opportunities for lower-skilled workers.
  • Other employers – including retail work – have moved to the exurbs (a prosperous area beyond a city's suburbs) and edge cities such as Anaheim.