Lakewood (California)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lakewood
Lakewood (California)
Lakewood
Lakewood
Location in California
Basic data
Foundation : April 16, 1954
State : United States
State : California
County : Los Angeles County
Coordinates : 33 ° 51 ′  N , 118 ° 7 ′  W Coordinates: 33 ° 51 ′  N , 118 ° 7 ′  W
Time zone : Pacific ( UTC − 8 / −7 )
Residents : 88,253 (as of 2005)
Population density : 3,614 inhabitants per km 2
Area : 24.6 km 2  (approx. 9 mi 2 ) of
which 24.42 km 2  (approx. 9 mi 2 ) is land
Height : 14 m
Postcodes : 90711-90716, 90805
Area code : +1 562
FIPS : 06-39892
GNIS ID : 1660883
Website : www.lakewoodcity.org
Mayor : Todd Rogers
At the Douglas facility in Long Beach, Calif. Workers control the cockpits of A-20 bombers (October 1942) - from 1950 the Douglas plant in Long Beach was one of the main employers for the residents of Lakewood

Lakewood is a city in Los Angeles County in the US state of California , United States , with 81,800 inhabitants (as of 2004). The geographic coordinates are: 33.85 ° north, 118.12 ° west. The urban area has a size of 24.6 km².

Lakewood was named "Sportstown USA" by Sports Illustrated in 2005 .

history

Lakewood is a planned and purposefully developed post-war community. The area on which Lakewood was built from April 1950 onwards was first bought by the Montana Land Company for USD 8.8 million by the three Californian land developers Louis Boyar, Mark Taper and Ben Weingart, divided into individual parcels and then given a fixed site plan sold to individual interested parties. From the beginning, 17,500 houses were planned, which were actually built by 1953. Each of the houses was between 950 and 1,100 square feet on land that was fifty by 100 feet . Seven different floor plans were offered for which 21 different external facades could be chosen, which in turn were painted in 39 different colors. The clients were assured that no identical house would be in the neighborhood. The homes were sold for prices between $ 8,000 and $ 10,000. The house buyers were also assured that in its final phase the city would have over 37 playgrounds, 17 churches and 20 schools. 133 miles of streets would link the houses together. The center of the newly planned city was the Lakewood Center, a shopping complex that at the time of construction was the largest in the United States with parking spaces for 10,000 cars. On the first day of the sale, 30,000 prospective buyers appeared, 36 sellers took care of them.

The sales strategy was aimed primarily at households that had already received or expected to receive payments from the GI Bill of Rights . Buyers did not have to pay down payments, just mortgage payments between $ 43 and $ 54 a month. In the first week 611 houses were sold. In her critical analysis of this urban development program, the American author and journalist Joan Didion quotes Donald J. Waldie, who spent a large part of his life in this city, worked in its administration and wrote a series of essays about the city that were published in 1996 under the Title Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir published. Waldie describes Lakewood as the American dream come true that gave a generation of industrial workers a form of ownership that would not have been possible a generation before. People who settled in Lakewood were largely homogeneous in ethnicity. They were on average 30 years old and had 1.7 children; the men had fought in World War II or the Korean War. They were either so-called blue collar workers or low-level employees and they mostly worked for the aviation industry. Important employers were Rockwell International and Douglas Aircraft Company , which were located in neighboring Long Beach, as well as Hughes Aircraft and their suppliers. Other residents of the city worked at the naval base and shipyards in Long Beach. Few of them were born in California, but mostly came from the US Midwest or the southern states.

In 1993, when Los Angeles County was increasingly populating with Latin American or Asian residents, around 60,000 people in the city of 71,000 at the time were white. Joan Didion mentions the social isolation from the rest of the action in Los Angeles County as striking. A 1990 census showed no homelessness whatsoever, and in 1991, when Los Angeles was marked by the unrest following the violent and racially motivated police attack on Rodney King , residents of the city interviewed by Joan Didion felt it was an irrelevant event to them.

The city's economic decline began in the late 1980s when, following cuts in the defense budget, the aviation industry increasingly began to relocate its production to other locations. The relocation of Douglas Aircraft Company's production alone had lost 21,000 jobs in Southern California by 1992. The location, which was the main employer for Lakewood, accounted for 18,000 job losses. Research by UCLA in the first half of the 1990s found that those affected by these job losses did not find equivalent jobs, were forced to move, and 84 percent of those who stayed for a year have not found another job after being fired.

Lakewood came into national consciousness in the first half of 1993, when the sexual assaults of young men, who described themselves as Spur Posse , found wide coverage in the US American media. Joan Didion describes these attacks as symptomatic of a city whose primary purpose was to create a place to live for workers. She writes:

“ Lakewood exists because at one time, under different economic conditions, it seemed wise to concentrate mall consumers and Douglas workers in one place. [...] When the times were good and there was enough money to be distributed, it was these cities that disproved Marx because they simultaneously succeeded in increasing the proletariat and engaging them by calling them the middle class. Such cities were organized around the drowsy idealization of team sports that supposedly produced "good citizens" and therefore tended to idealize adolescent young men. During the good years the young man, who was either still in his adolescence or had just outgrown it, was the desired inhabitant. Ideally already married and mortgaged, chained to a far factory, a good worker and reliable consumer, a team player, a ball player , a good citizen. When cities like these were hit by tough economic times, it was the same adolescent man, barely the most valued resident in the community, who had few alternatives. "

sons and daughters of the town

supporting documents

Web links

Commons : Lakewood, California  - Collection of images, videos, and audio files

credentials

  1. ^ Lakewood Website - Lakewood City Council . Retrieved January 8, 2011.
  2. ↑ Didion, Where I was from , p. 100 and p. 110
  3. ↑ a b Didion, Where I was from , p. 101
  4. ^ Didion, Where I was from , p. 102
  5. ↑ a b c Didion, Where I was from , p. 103
  6. ^ Didion, Where I was from , p. 104
  7. ↑ Didion, Where I was from , p. 112 The original quote is: Lakewood exists because at a given time in a different economy it had seemed an efficient idea to provide population density for the mall and a labor pool for the Douglas plant [ ...] When times were good and there was money to spread around, these were the towns that proved Marx wrong, that managed to increase the proletariat and simultaneously, by calling it middle class, to co-opt. Such towns were organized around the sedative idealization of team sports, which were believed to develop "good citizens", and therefore tended to the idealization of adolescent males. During the good years [...] the preferred resident was in fact an adolscent or post-adolscent male, ideally one already married and mortgaged, in harness to the plant, a good worker, a steady consumer, a team player, some without who played ball, a good citizen.