Garden Grove, Anaheim, Fullerton...

[Coldjensens]

In the mid 1990s (I think I do nto remember the dates really well) President Clinton had a "100,000 cops on the street" campaign. Santa Ana got a lot of that money and began a very proactive anti-gang campaign that quickly became a model for other cities. The effort was highyl successfuly and most of the gang bangers moved to Garden Grove and Westminister because Santa Ana had such an unplesant climate for them. For a time, Santa Ana regularly topped the safest cities list for Cities of its size. However Westminister and Garden Grove suffered a substantial increase in gang activity.


The Clinton money is long gone and the Santa Ana police are back to being short handed. Gang actifvity in Santa Ana has increased and the city has dropped to the middle of the "safest cities" list. I do nto know whether West minister and Garden Grove have seen any decrease in gang activity as the bangers moved back to Santa Ana. Garden Grove also has problems with some extremely violent and vile Vietnamese gangs. Thus it gets the negative name calling.

ALso anyplace that is home to a concentration of minorities gets a lot of negativity arising form prejudice. Even when Santa Ana was listed as the safest city of its size in the entire country and it was totally on the upswing in every way, it still got bashing from the all white OC Cities. It is just the way it is. Ugly and unfortunate, but a fact of life. Anaheim and Fullerton are mostly very nice places to live or work (if you avoid the Disney area with all of tis traffic and tourists). I do not know a lot about Garden Grove excapt that Santa Anas gangs moved there for a while. I heard that it has a nice downtown area, but I could not find it (Went looking for it a couple of times with no luck). Anaheim tore down their downtown so it is pretty much just a suburb now. Fullerton has a pretty nice downtown and some of the homes up in the hills are really terrific. Fullerton also features on of the top HIgh schools in Orange COunty (Fullerton Troy). Actually most of the top high schools in OC are in this North/Central area (Troy, Oxford and OCHSA).

If you are prejudice and/or you like bland matching cookie cutter homes, stores, schools etc all the same color, withthe same lawns, and curtains and people and cars and everythign excatly the same - the south county is the best place int eh world for you. A lot of people really like that atmosphere. If you are a variety is the spice of life type person and you like an occaisional challenge, or do not mind some risk, then look at North/Central O.C. It really has a lot to offer.

[jksouthbay88]

Originally Posted by whitechocolate86

What's up with Garden Grove getting hate..."Garden Grave, Garbage Grove...", it appears to have some nice schools (on paper) and a good middle class vibe...surely Anaheim has some good neighborhoods in it, right? Fullerton...come on Fullerton has to have some good stuff going for it, right?? I really want to see the Fullerton Fox Theater when I get out there.
Everyone knows Santa Ana has its illegals...aren't there talks about the city getting gentrified...people even talk about it having a good business climate...as long as you don't intend to send kids to schools there

Because if it isn't like Mission V,or Irvine quality,it doesn't seem to be great.Like I put in a previous post anything west of the 55 is my type of place in Orange County.It's not even that bad.When I visit Garden Grove,ANA,Westminster,Buena Park,I laugh.How can people say these places are below par?Better than the place I'm living at now in SD County.I wish some of you would travel(or even live in for 2 days) to Watts,East San Diego,East LA,parts of Oakland and Miami and then compare that to a Garden Grove or ANA.

[antibes]

Originally Posted by Coldjensens

In the mid 1990s (I think I do nto remember the dates really well) President Clinton had a "100,000 cops on the street" campaign. Santa Ana got a lot of that money and began a very proactive anti-gang campaign that quickly became a model for other cities.

ALso anyplace that is home to a concentration of minorities gets a lot of negativity arising form prejudice.

If you are prejudice and/or you like bland matching cookie cutter homes, stores, schools etc all the same color, withthe same lawns, and curtains and people and cars and everythign excatly the same - the south county is the best place int eh world for you.

Interesting information. Santa Ana certainly went through a major change (=improvement) a few years back.

However, I think its complete nonsense to always attribute criticism to problems in minority communities as prejudice. First you state that Santa Ana had/has a huge gang problem. Santa Ana is mainly occupied by Mexicans and hispanics, so by this you are basically stating that Mexicans create unsafe neighbourhoods that needs extra funding and a big police force to be kept under controll. Then you claim - as if in complete contradiction to your own statement - that areas with a concentration of minorities gets negativity because of "prejudice". Hello...!? Would it even occur to you that these minorities who come to live in the United States cause their own problems by their behaviour, and perhaps they get a reputation based on their own faults and not for any other reason?

Again, you completely contradict yourself by claiming "Gang activity in Santa Ana has increased and the city has dropped to the middle of the "safest cities" list... Garden Grove also has problems with some extremely violent and vile Vietnamese gangs. Thus it gets the negative name calling."

If Vietnamese immigrants generate a lot of gang violence, and "vile" gangs they deserve the negative name calling and has created it themselves. Of course I would not by any means want to live anywhere near these areas where they live. Not because of prejudice, but because of FACTS.

So lets get real here: prejudice is not the same as fact. A fact is not based on racism or prejudice.

The same ridiculous excuses are given on the hug objection to uncontrolled immigration into Europe which floods the countries with new levels of crimes, destroys the cultural traditions in rapid speed, and burdens the social system not to mention make housing close to impossible, and reduce the availability of the free health care everyone has been paying taxes into their entire life. But those who scream racism and prejudice (often the immigrants themselves, of course) don't take in consideration that the largest influx of immigrants are from eastern Europe where people are as white as they can get. In spite of pulling the racsim card at every opportunity recent government data has proven that immigration into UK, Canada, U.S. and Holland all prove the same thing: there are no financial benefits from mass immigration. On the contrary, it ads a negative on government finances of at least 1-3% in total that tax payers have to pay. Nor has the claim that immigrants fill job needs been accurate either. All data shows that the job needs are eventually filled by nationals anyways.
So, facts are not prejudices, racism or hatred. Facts are simply facts. Nothing else.

[antibes]

Originally Posted by GGsince67

The gang problem is showing it's ugly face just about everywhere (Mexican tagging according to police.) And "clown houses" are popping up everywhere as well (three or more families in one home.)
Our mayor, William Dalton, is pretty useless.

Dalton is probably not getting any funding to be able to do anything about the situation. California is broke. The entire country is actually broke, guys! Its been broke for a few years already and its only hit rock bottom.

[Coldjensens]

Antibes, you seem to have trouble reading. I did not say that Santa Ana had a massive gang problem. They had and have gangs just like every place does. They certianly had a more severe gang problem in the 1980s than they do now, but it was not ever a massive gang problem. However they lessened their problem by driving out gang members who then moved to nearby cities. I do not attribute the problems in minority communities to prejudice. I attribute the attitudes towards minority communities to prejudice. As I said, even when Santa Ana was the safest city in its size category in the entire United States, people from the all white communities in OC still called it a horrible dangerous place and would not go there. That is prejudice.

Minorities cause the negativity by their bad behavior? There you go attributing the actions of a few to an entire group - that is a generalization and that is the heart of prejudice. What bad behavior do you mean? For example my neighbors often could be found sweeping the sidewalks and even the street in front of their homes with a broom. Is that bad behavior? How about helping my wife carry groceries to the door even though they were unable to speak to her. That is certainly awful. Then there are those awful people who watered my roses for me without my permission while I was away on business. Is that the bad behavior that you mean? Do these people fall into your description of those awful minorities ruining the country.

Certainly there are examples of bad behavior out there, but to attribute such behavior to an entire people is prejudice, pure and simple.

Gangs have always been everywhere. Even Irvine has gangs (including a Nazi gang). Santa Ana just has more of them. Gang concentration tends to follow poverty, not any particular racial group. Gangs may be more prevalent among st racial groups that have higher poverty rates, but poverty and gang involvement are definitely related. Just because one or two particularly vile gangs have choosing a place to live does not justify branding the area or its people as bad. If those unusually nasty gangs move to Irvine, would you then brand the people of Irvine as bad? Would Irvine then be a bad area, or would it be a good area with a problem?

Incidentally, a "contradiction" is when someone makes the opposite factual statement from a prior statement. You must have intended some other term because the contradiction that you recite does not make any sense. It is not a contradiction to say that things were worse than they are now, then they got better, and then slide back somewhat to the bad side. It is not a contradiction to say that people kept assuming that Santa Ana was a bad place even when it got better. Nor is it a contradiction to say that people have branded the entire city of Garden Grove based on news reports of activities so some persons in some parts of that City. That is the equivalent of calling Irvine the Third Reich because they have a Skinhead Nazi gang.

Generalizations are virtually always wrong and always harmful. (Generally they are anyway).

[BRinSM]

Originally Posted by Coldjensens

Generalizations are virtually always wrong and always harmful. (Generally they are anyway).