Located in Southern California, Los Angeles is a world-class city featuring a diverse economy based on international trade, high-technology production, and the entertainment and tourist industry. As of the 2000 census, Los Angeles had a population of 3,694,820, making it the second largest city in the United States, as well as one of the most culturally, ethnically, and racially diverse places in the world.
Early History
The region was originally the home of Native American peoples such as the Tongvas and the Chumashes. A Spanish expedition led by Gaspar de Portolá passed through the area in late July and early August of 1769. On 2 August they crossed the local river and named it after the Franciscan feast day celebrated on that date: El Rio de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles de la Porciúncula (The River of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of Porciuncula). In 1781 the Spanish founded an agricultural pueblo, naming it after the river. By the 1830s the city had become the principal urban center of Mexican California. Los Angeles's dominance was shattered by the discovery of gold in Northern California in 1848 and the subsequent gold rush, events that made San Francisco the leading city in California.
Well into the 1870s Los Angeles retained strong elements of its Hispanic past and a modest economy rooted in cattle raising and viticulture. However, the arrival of the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1876 and the Santa Fe Railroad in 1886 sparked explosive development. During the 1880s Los Angeles experienced a speculative land boom. While the initial boom collapsed fairly quickly, it left a solid infrastructure of development that supported the extraordinary population growth of the next few decades. Having only 11,183 residents in 1880, in 1920 Los Angeles boasted a population of 576,673. The largest number of settlers were from the midwestern states, relatively affluent and overwhelmingly native born and Protestant. They were drawn to the city by the promise of a pleasant, temperate climate and a more relaxed lifestyle. Many people also flocked to the region as tourists and health seekers, similarly drawn by the city's unique climate and location. While tourism and demographic growth fueled economic expansion, many civic leaders remained concerned about the lack of industrial diversity and the potential limitations upon continued population expansion.
Economic Expansion in the Twentieth Century
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the city witnessed significant infrastructure development; the city greatly improved its public transportation system through massive federal and local investments in the harbor at San Pedro and the creation of a far-flung system of interurban streetcars. At the same time, the city engaged on an ambitious quest to secure an adequate water supply. Faced with limitations imposed by a relatively arid climate, the municipality sought to exploit the water resources of the Owens Valley, located over two hundred miles to the north. With the completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, the city successfully obtained the water needed for future growth. The utilization of the aqueduct as a source of hydroelectric power also gave the city a plentiful supply of cheap electricity.
Continuing population growth and an increasingly diversified economy promoted Los Angeles's emergence as a key urban center for California. The discovery of major petroleum deposits in the 1890s led to the creation of refineries and the spread of drilling operations. At the turn of the century, the burgeoning movie industry took root there and quickly became a major employer. Equally significant were the factories established by national corporations. In 1914 Ford established a branch manufacturing plant in the region and other automobile and tire manufactures soon followed. The Southern California region also became the center of the emerging Aircraft Industry, including firms such as Hughes, Douglas, Lockheed, and Northrop. Even during the Great Depression of the 1930s Los Angeles continued to grow, with continued supplies of cheap water and power being guaranteed by the completion of Hoover Dam in 1936. To take advantage of these resources, the city helped create the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
Government spending associated with World War II and the subsequent Cold War offered even greater opportunities. The growing demand for military airplanes sparked a huge expansion of the aircraft industry. By the 1950s federal monies also flowed into businesses manufacturing rockets and electronics, leading to the evolution of a complex and profitable aerospace and high-technology sector. During this same period the development of an extensive freeway system facilitated the continued suburbanization of population and industry.
Diversity, Conflict, and Modern Problems
Over the course of the twentieth century, Los Angeles increasingly developed a complex social mosaic of cultures and peoples. By the 1930s Los Angeles had 368,000 people of Mexican origin, more than any city except Mexico City. At the same time Los Angeles became home to a large Japanese population, and after World War II, growing numbers of African Americans. While these communities enjoyed the economic opportunities available in the region, they were also often subjected to considerable discrimination. Residential segregation helped create overcrowded minority communities that suffered from minimal access to basic public services, including education and health care, and limited access to political representation.
The 1940s saw rising levels of social and cultural tension. During the war years the city's Japanese American communities were profoundly disrupted by a 1942 federal order to exclude people of Japanese origin from the West Coast. Forced to abandon or sell their homes and businesses, they were relocated to hastily built inland camps. Wartime tensions were manifested as well in two ugly outbursts that targeted the city's growing Hispanic population, the Sleepy Lagoon Trial and the Zoot Suit Riots. In the postwar years the city's African American community became particularly frustrated by de facto segregation and declining economic opportunities. The growing suburbanization of industry and the lack of public transportation made it difficult for African Americans to find jobs, leading to relatively high levels of unemployment. This was compounded by a hostile relationship with the Los Angeles Police Department. These frustrations exploded in 1965 with the Watts Riots, which left large parts of South Central Los Angeles in ruins.
There were other troubling undercurrents to the city's rapid development. Located in a geologically active region, Earthquakes have long been a concern, but increasing population density progressively increased the possibility for a truly massive disaster. Following the 1933 Long Beach earthquake the city reevaluated local building codes; changes were made that helped limit the destruction caused by the Sylmar earthquake in 1971 and the Northridge earthquake of 1994. However, there remain intrinsic limits to what engineering can accomplish.
Explosive population growth, coupled with a reliance on the automobile and a strong preference for single-family detached homes, contributed to growing problems of Air Pollution, traffic congestion, and spiraling housing costs. Efforts to cope with these problems have seen mixed results. The creation of the South Coast Air Quality Management District in 1975 undoubtedly helped ease problems of air pollution, but Los Angeles's environment remains seriously contaminated. Beginning in 1990 the city also began an ambitious project to improve its public transportation infrastructure by building a light-rail system, but this project has been repeatedly plagued by delays and cost overruns. The growing strain on public services, particularly on police protection and education, inspired significant civic discontent, highlighted by the efforts of the San Fernando Valley to gain municipal autonomy; a movement that, if successful, could halve the city's population and area.
The 1992 riots in South Central Los Angeles similarly indicate continued social tension within the city's racial and ethnic communities. Compounding these problems have been setbacks to the economy. Declining military spending in the late 1980s forced the downsizing of many aerospace firms, while growing competition from other high-tech manufacturing centers, such as Silicon Valley, and the rising cost of living have discouraged some businesses from locating in Los Angeles and have even prompted their flight to other locales. At the same time, the branch automobile and tire factories established in the 1920s and 1930s have been closed.
Continued Promise and Growth
Despite these persistent problems, Los Angeles still remains a city of opportunity for many people. Since the 1960s the city has become a key gateway for immigrants entering the United States. Much of this migration derives from Latin America and Asia, but it includes people from virtually every corner of the world. In some instances this extraordinary diversity has fueled social tensions, but the city has also benefited from the labor, knowledge, and capital provided by immigrants. The overt discrimination of the early twentieth century has waned and minority groups have gained a greater public voice. Indicative of this was the election of Mayor Tom Bradley in 1973. One of the first African Americans to serve as a mayor of a major U.S. city, Bradley held this position for twenty years until he retired in 1993. Since the late 1940s Mexican Americans have similarly gained increasing recognition in local government although by the 2000s they, like the population of Asian origin, remained somewhat underrepresented.
Economically, high-technology manufacturing continues to play an important role, although it has been supplemented in part by low-tech industries that take advantage of the city's deep pool of immigrant labor. The entertainment and tourism industries also remain important employers in the region, while the city's strategic location has made it a major financial and commercial nexus for the emerging Pacific Rim economy. The volume of container traffic handled by Los Angeles's harbor facilities has steadily grown, making this one of the largest ports in the world. Los Angeles has truly become a world-class city, reflecting both the hopes and frustrations of the age.
Bibliography
Davis, Mike. City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles. New York: Vintage Books, 1992.
Fogelson, Robert M. The Fragmented Metropolis: Los Angeles, 1850–1930. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967.
George, Lynell. No Crystal Stair: African-Americans in the City of Angels. New York: Verso Press, 1992.
Klein, Norman, and Martin G. Schiesel, eds. 20th Century Los Angeles: Power, Promotion, and Social Conflict. Claremont, Calif.: Regina Books, 1990.
Ovnick, Merry. Los Angeles: The End of the Rainbow. Los Angeles: Balcony Press, 1994.
Pitt, Leonard, and Dale Pitt. Los Angeles A to Z: An Encyclopedia of the City and County. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.
Reiff, David. Los Angeles: Capital of the Third World. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991.
Waldinger, Roger, and Mehdi Bozorgmehr, eds. Ethnic Los Angeles. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1996.
