| | As in much of California, the earliest residents in present day Los Angeles were Native Americans. The Chumash and Tongva tribes, the only two New World peoples who regularly navigated the ocean, occupied the area for thousands of years. Names like Malibu and Simi Valley have their origins in Chumash language.
The Spanish joined these tribes in 1769. As they worked their way up the Pacific coast they chose present day L.A. as the site for the San Gabriel Mission. Throwing economy of expression to the wind, mission settlers named their new town El Puebla de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de la Porciuncula.
The area changed hands in the 1820s when Mexico gained independence from Spain and then again 30 years later when Americans flooded into California, drawn by the precious, shiny ore being extracted from, it seemed, every corner of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. In 1850 California was admitted into the union and Los Angeles was incorporated as a city.
In the next century Los Angeles grew as the Southern Pacific railroad connected it to the rest of the country, oil was discovered, and aqueducts were built to divert water into the thirsty young metropolis.
In the 1920s the fledgling motion picture industry chose L.A. as home, forging a relationship that came to define the city. Since then L.A. has hosted the Olympic games twice (in 1932 and 1984), infamous riots twice (in 1965 and 1992) and grown exponentially. History was recently made when Antonia Villaraigosa became the first Latino mayor of L.A. since 1872.
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| The rumors about L.A. weather are true: the temperature hovers in the 70s and there are 325 days of sunshine a year. There is little variation in the weather; it is warm and dry year round. This can be a little disconcerting if you’re used to the changing seasons. If, on the other hand, you regard fall, winter and spring as altogether unnecessary, L.A. has the climate you’re looking for.
There is some variation from warm to very hot though. The winter daytime highs are in the upper 60s. Rain is also a possibility in the winter and when it does occur it sometimes feels as if the spoiled city grinds to a halt. For the summer the highs can shoot up to the 90s. The summer also brings with it the worst smog accumulation. Whereas winter days are often clear with striking visibility, summer days can be extremely hazy.
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| Los Angeles spans nearly 500 square miles and around 17.5 million people live in the metropolitan area, making it easily the largest city in California. Without any clear geographical boundaries, the city is composed of many neighborhoods and has no obvious center.
It is bounded by the Santa Monica Mountains on the north. To the north of these mountains is the San Fernando Valley, birthplace of the “Valley Girl” and the eponymous airhead slang made, like, omigod, totally famous in the movie Clueless. On the southern side of these mountains are, from west to east, Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and Santa Monica. Santa Monica is the northernmost beach community, followed by El Segundo, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach and Redondo Beach. North of downtown are the hip neighborhoods of Silverlake, Echo Park and Glendale. The east side of the city is composed of newer neighborhoods with a distinctly suburban feel. South of downtown are Inglewood, Vernon and Huntington Park and, further south still, Orange County.
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| While L.A.’s most visible export is pop culture in the form of movies, music and television, the city has a diverse economy. Along with the entertainment industry and the tourism that comes with it, L.A. relies on agriculture, petroleum and the aerospace industry that settled in the area in the early 20th century. Less presentable, but just as profitable, is the adult entertainment industry, headquartered in the unassuming San Fernando Valley.
The city of L.A. is also home to a handful of Fortune 500 companies including Guess, Sunkist, and Herbalife. Many large companies—Disney, RAND, Mattel and Unocal among them--choose to set up a little farther afield in nearby cities, avoiding the Los Angeles’s high revenue taxes.
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| Los Angeles operates with a mayor-council system. Antonio Villaraigosa, the current mayor, shares power with 15 city council districts. Governing a city as large and disparate as L.A. is a monumental challenge and the bureaucracies involved are titanic. The Public Library System and Police Department are some of the largest in the country. And the L.A. Unified School District is so large that it has its own police department.
L.A. is also no stranger to political scandal and intrigue. The former mayor, Jim Hahn was dogged by accusations of corruption in local newspapers and the L.A.P.D. earned a reputation for brutality after videotape of officers beating motorcyclist Rodney King became global news and triggered riots in 1991. In 2002, the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood, frustrated with the use of their tax dollars in high-density neighborhoods like Mid-City and Downtown, each launched unsuccessful secession campaigns.
It is occasionally hard to distinguish between Hollywood fiction and the L.A. legal system. Thanks to cases like O.J. Simpson’s, and the constant intoxicated hijinks of celebrities like Robert Downey, Jr. and Courtney Love, the goings-on of L.A. courts can become a source of surreal voyeuristic entertainment.
Los Angeles leans heavily to the political left. In the 2005 mayoral race every candidate ran as a Democrat. Jim Hahn, the embattled incumbent who comes from a family of L.A. politicians, lost to Antonio Villaraigosa. Villaraigosa, the son of a Mexican immigrant, grew up in L.A.’s largely Latino eastside and is likely to be a more progressive mayor than the city has had in decades.
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| In the profit-driven entertainment industry where every scene in every movie is focus grouped to death, cultural output tends to cater to the lowest common denominator and “art” is for people who can’t make a blockbuster. But while L.A. can seem like cultural Velveeta at first, the city does have some first-rate museums and its own unique galleries—they’re just hidden behind all those Lindsay Lohan Billboards.
For the fine arts check out the expansive Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the J. Paul Getty Center with its fantastic Richard Meier architecture, or the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA). The Museum of Tolerance offers a powerful encounter with the horrors and lessons of the Holocaust. And many small galleries around the city show off the work of artists both local and otherwise. To check out the current trend of graffiti-inspired fine art try Gallery 1988.
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| The religious faiths practiced in Los Angeles are as diverse as its population. The city is home to all branches of Christianity, the largest Jewish population in America outside of New York, and practicing Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, and Baha’i. L.A. is also the original home of Billy Graham’s evangelicalism and has the second largest Mormon temple in the U.S.
Scientology, the slightly creepy pseudo-religion that Tom Cruise has been advocating, has a large base of operations in L.A. as well. Drop by their Celebrity Center for a tour of their gorgeous mansion and a metaphysics lecture.
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| The primary language in Los Angeles is English but only barely. With a
Latino population around 46% Spanish is a close second. L.A. also has
large Korean, Armenian and Russian communities; these languages can be
seen on street signs and heard in shops and restaurants in the
respective neighborhoods. |
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