Los Angeles

Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. A port of entry on the Pacific coast, with a fine harbor at San Pedro Bay, it is the second largest U.S. city in population and one of the largest in area. Two mountain ranges, the Santa Monica and Verdugo, cut across the center of the city.

Economy and Transportation

Los Angeles is a shipping, industrial, communication, financial, fashion, and distribution center for the W United States and much of the Pacific Rim. It is also the motion picture, television, radio, and recording capital of the United States, if not the world, housing numerous studios. Once an agricultural distribution center, Los Angeles is a leading producer of clothing and textiles, aircraft, computers and software, paper, toys, glass, furniture, wire, biomedical products, electrical and electronic machinery, pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals, and fabricated metal. Tourism, printing and publishing, food processing, and oil refining are also important.

Los Angeles has one of the busiest ports in the United States, with roughly half of its commerce coming from other nations, and its international airport is one of the world's busiest. The metropolitan area's vast freeway system has made Los Angeles the archetypal auto-dependent urban area. The huge number of motor vehicles, combined with the city's valley location, often creates dangerously high smog levels. A light-rail system (opened in 1990) and buses alleviate freeway congestion only a little; a new subway (completed 2000) also provides insignificant relief.

Maintaining an adequate water supply has long been a problem for Los Angeles. The city obtains most of its water from California's Central Valley to the north. In 1992 the city ended protracted litigation with environmentalists when it agreed to curtail water diversion in certain areas until ecological recovery had been achieved.

Communities of the Metropolitan Area

The vast Los Angeles metropolitan area covers five counties (Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Ventura) and encompasses 34,000 sq mi (88,000 sq km) with over 14.5 million people. As Los Angeles rapidly expanded throughout the 20th cent., it absorbed numerous communities and enclosed independent municipalities. Among the communities now part of Los Angeles are Central City, Hollywood, San Pedro, Sylmar, Watts, Westwood, Bel-Air, and Boyle Heights. Independent municipalities surrounded by Los Angeles include Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, and San Fernando. Incorporated cities in the broader metropolitan region with populations of 80,000 or more include Alhambra, Anaheim, Burbank, Downey, El Monte, Fullerton, Garden Grove, Glendale, Huntington Beach, Irvine, Inglewood, Lakewood, Long Beach, Moreno Valley, Norwalk, Oceanside, Ontario, Orange, Oxnard, Pasadena, Pomona, Rancho Cucamonga, Riverside, San Bernardino, Santa Ana, Santa Clarita, Santa Monica, Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, and Torrance, in addition to Los Angeles itself.

Points of Interest

In Los Angeles are the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Museum of Contemporary Art; and historical, movie, industrial, and science museums. The large Music Center includes the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion (1964), with four theaters housing the Center Theatre Group, Los Angeles Opera, and Los Angeles Master Chorale; the Ahmanson Theater; the Mark Taper Forum; and, across Grand Ave., Frank Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall (2003), home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Also downtown is the monumental Our Lady of the Angels cathedral (2002), designed by Raphael Moneo, and Caltrans District 7 headquarters, designed by Thom Mayne. Los Angeles has botanical gardens and many parks, including Griffith Park, with a zoo and an observatory (including a planetarium). The La Brea Tar Pits are famous for Ice Age fossils. The motion-picture and television industries, the proximity of many resorts, theme parks, and beaches, and a climate that encourages year-round outdoor recreation attract millions of tourists annually. Other area attractions include the Santa Anita and Hollywood Park racetracks, Knott's Berry Farm, and Disneyland (at Anaheim). Among the city's many educational institutions are the Univ. of Southern California; the Univ. of California, Los Angeles; two California State Univ. campuses (Los Angeles and Northridge); Occidental College; Loyola Marymount Univ.; Pepperdine Univ.; and the Colburn School of Performing Arts.

In 1982 the Los Angeles area gained its second National Football League franchise (the other being the Rams) when the Oakland Raiders moved to the city. In 1995, however, the Rams moved to St. Louis, and the Raiders subsequently returned to Oakland, Calif., leaving the city without a professional football team. In baseball, the National League's Los Angeles Dodgers and the American League's Anaheim Angels represent the area. The metropolitan area also has two National Basketball Association teams (the Lakers and the Clippers) and two National Hockey League teams (the Kings and Anaheim's Mighty Ducks).

History

The site of the city was visited by the Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portolá in 1769, and in 1781 El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora de los Angeles de Porciuncula (Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of Porciuncula) was founded. Located on the Los Angeles River, the city served several times as the capital of the Spanish colonial province of Alta California and was a cattle-ranching center. In 1846 Los Angeles was captured from the Mexicans by U.S. forces. The arrival of the railroads (Southern Pacific in 1876; Santa Fe in 1885) and the discovery of oil in the early 1890s stimulated expansion, as did the development of the motion-picture industry in the early 20th cent.

During World War II Los Angeles boomed as a center for the production of war supplies and munitions, and thousands of African Americans migrated to Los Angeles to fill factory jobs. After the war massive suburban growth made the city enormously prosperous, but also created or exacerbated a variety of urban problems. In 1965, the African-American community of Watts was the site of six days of race rioting that left 34 people dead and caused over $200 million in property damage. Tom Bradley, the city's first black mayor, was first elected in 1973.

In the 1970s and 1980s Los Angeles experienced dramatic growth through immigration. In 1990 the Hispanic population of metropolitan Los Angeles was almost 5 million (almost 40% of the population) and the area's Asian population was over 1.3 million. In addition to an already well-established Japanese-American community, recent immigration has come from China, South Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, and other nations.

In the 1980s, violent gang warfare over the illegal drug (especially "crack" cocaine) trade became a serious problem for law enforcement officials. In Apr., 1992, the acquittal of four white Los Angeles police officers on charges of police brutality (they had been videotaped beating a black motorist) touched off race riots in south-central Los Angeles and other areas. Fifty-eight people died, thousands were arrested, and property damage totaled approximately $1 billion. Natural disasters have also taken their toll. Portions of Los Angeles are subject to wildfires and rockslides, and the 1994 earthquake centered in Northridge in N Los Angeles, which killed 72 and cost $25 billion, was only the latest to have caused damage to the city and surrounding areas. Attention was again riveted on Los Angeles during the O. J. Simpson trial, which ended in acquittal in 1995. In 2005, Antonio Villaraigosa was elected mayor, becoming the first Hispanic to hold the post since 1872.

Bibliography

See R. M. Fogelson, The Fragmented Metropolis (1967); R. Banham, Los Angeles (1973); R. Steiner, Los Angeles: The Centrifugal City (1982); H. J. Nelson, The Los Angeles Metropolis (1982); S. L. Bottles, Los Angeles and the Automobile: The Making of the Modern City (1987); M. Davis, Los Angeles (1991) and Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster (1998); B. Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River (1999).

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Los Angeles

City (pop., 2000: 3,694,820), southern California, U.S. The second largest city in the U.S., it is situated between the San Gabriel Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Bisected by the Santa Monica Mountains, which separate the neighbourhoods of Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and Pacific Palisades from the San Fernando Valley, it is near the San Andreas Fault, and earthquakes are frequent. It began in 1771 as a Spanish mission; in 1781 settlers claimed the land as El Pueblo de la Reyna de los Angeles (the Town of the Queen of the Angels). Taken by U.S. forces in the Mexican War, it prospered in the wake of the 1849 gold rush. Incorporated in 1850, the city grew rapidly after the arrival of the railroads in 1876 and 1885. In 1913 an aqueduct was built to supply it with water from the slopes of the Sierra Nevada. It was struck by a major earthquake in 1994. Sites of interest include early Spanish missions, the Getty Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art. Educational institutions include the University of Southern California, Occidental College, and the University of California at Los Angeles.

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Los Angeles

a city in SW California, on the Pacific: the second largest city in the US, having absorbed many adjacent townships; industrial centre and port, with several universities. Pop.: 3 819 951 (2003 est.)

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Los Angeles 

a city on the southern Pacific coast of the USA, in the state of California. Located on a narrow coastal lowland bordered by the San Gabriel, Santa Monica, and Santa Ana mountains, the city extends about 80 km from north to south and approximately 50 km from west to east. It is the main economic center of the American West. Population, 2.8 million (1970); with suburbs, more than 7 million (compared to 50,000 in 1890).

The gainfully employed population is about 3 million (1970), 30 percent of whom work in industry, 40 percent in trade and services, 5.7 percent in finance and insurance, 10 percent in construction, transportation, and the municipal economy, and 14 percent in government service. The number of people in manufacturing increased from 160,000 in 1939 to 879,000 in 1969, almost two-thirds of whom were employed in machine building and metalworking. Los Angeles is a major center for the war industry. It is a primary center for the production of air-planes, rockets, spacecraft (more than 200,000 workers), and radioelectronic equipment (primarily for military purposes). Also developed are other branches of machine building: automobile assembly, shipbuilding, electrical engineering, and the production of instruments and of industrial equipment, particularly equipment for the petroleum industry. Oil is refined there, and the city has chemical, rubber, furniture, garment, and food industries, the last concentrating on canning fish, fruits, and vegetables. There is a large metallurgical combine near the city. Los Angeles is also an important center for the petroleum industry (12,000 employees).

Los Angeles is the second most important port on the Pacific coast of the USA, with a freight turnover of about 20 million tons in 1970; combined with the neighboring port of Long Beach, the turnover was more than 35 million tons; it is also an important transportation junction and has an international airport. It is famous as a center for the film industry (Hollywood) and television. The University of California at Los Angeles, the University of Southern California, and other educational institutions are located there. It is a seaside health resort.

V. M. GOKHMAN

Los Angeles was founded by the Spanish in 1781 in the territory of Mexico, which belonged to the viceroyalty of New Spain. After Mexico achieved independence (1821), it became part of the Mexican state. During the Mexican-American War of 1846-48, it was seized by the USA. Today Los Angeles is an important center of the workers’ movement of the USA.

Distinguished by a very low building density, Los Angeles has a grid-like street plan. Because the pattern of urban planning is dominated by low private homes (mostly in Spanish style) surrounded by large gardens and open areas, the construction of numerous highways and complex bypasses has been necessary.

Examples of modern architecture in Los Angeles include the Banning House (1911) and the Dodge House (1916), both by the architect I. Gill; the Hollyhock House (1913; now the Municipal Art Gallery) and the Sturges House (1940), both by the architect F. L. Wright; the Jardinette Apartments (1927), the Corona Avenue School in the suburb of Bell (1935), and the Northwestern Insurance Offices (1952), all by the architect R. Neutra; the Bethlehem Baptist Church (1944, architect R. Shindler); the Tishman Building (1957, architect V. Gruen); the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (1965, architect W. Pereira); and the Music Center complex (1967, architect W. S. Beckett). The Southwest Museum (the art of the Indians) is located in Los Angeles.

REFERENCES

Banham, L. Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies. London, 1971.