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I remember Santa Ana in the 80s, 90s, etc. I think the main reason it didn't improve much during that time period, despite the best efforts of the City, was due to the unending waves of immigration, often illegal, that kept much of SA filled with low skilled workers.
I have a dear friend who is Hispanic and who grew up for a time in SA during the 70s. Her family became established and fled SA for other OC towns. However, she mentioned that low skilled, poorly educated migrants continued to flood the city in search of cheap rent.
In 2003, I began to hear that SA is better and that I should check out DTSA. It was always around the corner, but SA never seemed to quite get there. That said, improvement would be great for SA and for OC as a whole. Who wouldn't love to see SA succeed?
The large influx of undocumented persons began in 70's. This consisted of a disproportionately large male population that would frequent bars around town. Similar in many ways to towns where you have a large navy presence. The crime and violence at these establishments accounted for a high percentage of city's overall homicides. At the Chico Club off French St, drunk patrons would shot at a ball on top of a flag post on Yost Theatre property, leaving the building with multiple bullet holes. Things got so bad that police dubbed the most troublesome bars as the "dirty dozen" and set-up a special unit to suppress the criminal activity. Through redevelopment, the ones located downtown were eventually acquired and shutdown.
The large influx of undocumented persons began in 70's. This consisted of a disproportionately large male population that would frequent bars around town. Similar in many ways to towns where you have a large navy presence. The crime and violence at these establishments accounted for a high percentage of city's overall homicides.
It's kind of crazy to know that Santa Ana hasn't been as safe as it is today since the 60's. I know my grandpa told me about how the city used to be right up until '72 when people started to move out to newer housing in south county that some of the neighborhoods began to take a dive for the worst. Then gang crime took over in the late 80's and **** hit the fan. Since the 70's up until the late 1990's, the city wasn't a place most people wanted to be in.
It's really a fantastic story to have the drop of crime it has had over the course of 15 years starting the year 2000. In addition, to have a much larger city yet it be safer than when the city used to be a third of its size today is crazy.
It's kind of crazy to know that Santa Ana hasn't been as safe as it is today since the 60's. I know my grandpa told me about how the city used to be right up until '72 when people started to move out to newer housing in south county that some of the neighborhoods began to take a dive for the worst. Then gang crime took over in the late 80's and **** hit the fan. Since the 70's up until the late 1990's, the city wasn't a place most people wanted to be in.
It's really a fantastic story to have the drop of crime it has had over the course of 15 years starting the year 2000. In addition, to have a much larger city yet it be safer than when the city used to be a third of its size today is crazy.
IMO, it's not the rainbows, puppy dogs, and unicorns Urban Planner argues and not the heckhole mbell describes. Some parts are really great; other parts have significant challenges. Overall, I see a lot more engagement within the neighborhoods and that is a great trend. The City is better than it was in the 70s and 80s, and I think things will continue to improve. I am, however, very disappointed that not much has been done in the way of historic preservation. The loss of Lacy was disheartening. Seeing stucco go up over brick facades downtown is sad. I recall bringing in friends from elsewhere in the OC to downtown and some of the buildings reminded them of Pasadena. Other buildings (generally not part of the National Historic District) now resemble South County. I know the City recently passed an adaptive reuse ordinance and I'm fully supportive of that, but it took them way too long. You can't demolish your way to the future - well, you can, but you may not like the results.
Oh, one other thought (from The Atlantic's CityLab):
Is Your Neighborhood Changing? It Might Be Youthification, Not Gentrification
One urban planning professor has defined this as a process that occurs in discrete stages.
RICHARD FLORIDA @Richard_Florida Feb 5, 2015
Much has been made of the wave of millennials moving to cities. In intriguing new work, geographer and urban planner Markus Moos of the University of Waterloo gives the phenomenon a name: “youthification.” Moos defines youthfication as the “influx of young adults into higher density” cities and neighborhoods. And in some ways these neighborhoods are “forever young,” where new cohorts of young people continue to move in as families and children cycle out in search of more space.
Moos takes care to distinguish youthification from the broader process—and less precise construct—of gentrification. “The youthification process differs from gentrification—an increase in social status of a neighborhood—in that the former is not as explicitly a class-based process, although the two are not mutually exclusive,” he writes. “Gentrification, when viewed as a series of stages involving ever slightly wealthier but more risk averse in-movers, arguably has set the stage for a broader segment of the population. “
Moos explains youthification as a process that occurs in discrete stages (see the table below). It begins as younger people move into relatively inexpensive neighborhoods, such as those with spaces leftover from de-industrialized manufacturing districts. As youthification continues, newer rental housing and smaller one-bedroom condos are built and amenities flood the neighborhood, drawing greater numbers of young people even as living costs rise.
But which cities and metros are most “youthified?”
The map below, from Moos’ related online project “Generationed City”, charts selected metros across the U.S. and Canada according to youthification, which he defines here as the share of 25-34 year-old residents. There are some surprises. Salt Lake City tops the list, ahead of Austin, Denver, D.C. and Seattle. Houston and Las Vegas rank highly as well. In Canada, Calgary and Edmonton (two rapidly growing western metros) outpace Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. Less surprising, the Rustbelt metros of Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Rochester, Cleveland and Detroit rank at the bottom of the list.
But youthification is not just a characteristic of metros, it can be seen even more clearly at the neighborhood level. To get at this, Moos maps youthification by neighborhood in Canada’s three largest metros: Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. On the maps, darker red indicates higher levels of youthification.
In Toronto, youthification is concentrated in the urban core and along transit lines, clustering around the University of Toronto, Ryerson University and the Ontario College of Art and Design, and along College and Queen Streets, which offer abundant bars and restaurants. There are also significant blocks of young people at the ends of metro lines, where they can access more affordable housing served by transit.
In Vancouver, youthification takes more of a bloc-like pattern, concentrated mainly and radiating out from the city’s Burrard Inlet waterfront. Young Vancouverites also cluster around public transit and around main commercial drags, like Main Street and Commercial Drive.
In Montreal, young people are much more dispersed, albeit still mostly along transit lines (in green).
What lies behind youthification? To get at this question, Moos conducted a detailed statistical analysis of factors that might be associated with the movements of young people—such as household income, household size, the share of potential gentrifiers and the share of immigrants—across Canada’s three largest metros between 1981 and 2011.
While Moos finds several factors (including household income, household size and immigration) to be associated with higher density, he finds that the connection between density and age of residents has increased substantially over time. This is true of all three metros. In Montreal, the correlation between young people (aged 25 to 34) and density grew from .22 in 1981 to .66 by 2011; in Toronto, it went from .36 to .62; and in Vancouver it increased from .49 to .68.
The associations between density and older age groups (44-54 and 55-64 years old) have generally moved in the other direction, indicating that these individuals are moving toward the lower-density suburbs. In Toronto and Montreal, there is a negative correlation between people aged 65 and older and density. This points to growing geographic segregation of age groups in the city. In the case of Vancouver, however, Moos suggests this divide has become a “generational bifurcation,” where older and young people live in the inner cities and those in middle age live in the less dense suburbs.
Young people in the U.S. and Canada are experiencing less job security, high housing prices, delayed childbearing and an enthusiasm for urban living.
Why has this happened? And what does it mean? Moos suggests that these changes grow out of a number of socio-economic shifts. Young people in the U.S. and Canada are experiencing less job security, more chinks in the social safety net, high housing prices, delayed childbearing and a growing enthusiasm for urban living. For these reasons, renting closer to the city center—where increasing stocks of divided row housing and condos are readily available—becomes a more attractive option.
Of course, it remains to be seen whether this pattern will last. Will those who move to city centers in their 20s and 30s remain there to raise their children? Or will they pack it up and move to less dense places, leaving cities to become “forever young” zones that serve as resting stops for the transient?
As Moos notes, the generational divide he observes is not nearly as stark as that of ethnic or class segregation. Of course, older and younger people may meet and mingle in different fashions: through work, in restaurants or bars or in public transit. But, as he writes, “there are clear signs of a process of youthification underway that is indeed creating generationed spaces in our cities that if intensified in the future could lead to further inter-generational conflict.”
I was driving in downtown Santa Ana on Saturday, and was thinking to myself "I wonder what Santa Ana is going to use the first funds it receives from the the Medical Marijuana Lottery?". That's about a million or so dollars, and I was hoping they'd redirect most of the proceeds to the Schools. That's what made Irvine famous - good schools. If Santa Ana did the same, it could be very beneficial to the city.
It's really a fantastic story to have the drop of crime it has had over the course of 15 years starting the year 2000.
Huh? Drop in crime starting in 2000? Do you research ANYTHING you ever say? Crime rates in SA were virtually the same in 01 as in 00, dipped a bit for a few years but then spiked way back up in 05 before coming back down again. However, the number of murders went up in 01, 02, 04, 06, 07 and WAY up in 08 with an unbelievable 30 murders and finally back down in 2010. Rapes, robberies and assaults have also varied wildly since 2000. Not to mention Santa Ana still averages a whopping 275 crimes per square mile, easily beating out the national median of 37.9 and even the CA average of 89. Still a dangerous and violent city compared to the rest of OC for the most part . Hardly "dropping over the course of 15 years" as you claim.
I was driving in downtown Santa Ana on Saturday, and was thinking to myself "I wonder what Santa Ana is going to use the first funds it receives from the the Medical Marijuana Lottery?". That's about a million or so dollars, and I was hoping they'd redirect most of the proceeds to the Schools. That's what made Irvine famous - good schools. If Santa Ana did the same, it could be very beneficial to the city.
Yeah, the schools are the biggest problem in the city. There's really good schools around, but the majority are pretty bad. SAUSD really needs to get it together.
You're full of cow manure mbell. Besides, you should have a good idea of how living in Santa Ana is since you live in Anaheim. Crime is practically the same.
Eh, I'd say DOWNTOWN Santa Ana is pretty awesome, along with the South Coast area and maybe the northeast (Fairhaven) area. That's about it, the rest isn't that nice imo.
Ah, there's the Floral and Alona Parks, Park Santiago, and various areas scattered south of downtown.
Just walked some more of northeast today.
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