Los Angeles suburbs.... (San Jose, Long Beach, Fresno: upper-class, bus, beach)

[EscapeCalifornia]

Originally Posted by Winston Smith

Not an expert, but it's difficult for me to understand how Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo are "burbs" of any kind of LA. Even the Oxnard/Ventura area is too far from LA to be solidly connected in the same way as, say, Santa Clarita or Simi. Those cities truly are bedroom communities for jobs in LA in a way that Oxnard/Ventura -- or Santa Barbara and SLO are not. Just my opinion, but am trying to better understand.

I agree. You have to look at where people in a given city work. If most of them commute to LA, the its a bedroom community for LA. If its a farther off community where most people still commute to LA, then I'd call it an exurb of LA. Just because a place is far away doesn't automatically make it an exurb of LA. Heck, if that were true, Fresno could be called an LA exurb. I think the thread starter loves to put things in nice, simple, well-defined categories when the reality is there's lots of nuance and shades of grey. Even the definition of "LA" is murky since its so huge.

[bhcompy]

I agree with Winston and Escape. If Santa Barbara is a "burb" of LA, then so would San Diego, Long Beach, Riverside, Bakersfield, Barstow, etc be.

Some cities/areas may be easier to classify(say, Denver maybe?), but the LA area is not one of them.

Example: Lakewood is a suburban city established in the 50s, houses around 100,000 people, and could be called a suburb of a half dozen other cities and not one of them would be Los Angeles proper, because you're looking at a lot of people that moved in there to work for aerospace, military, public jobs(public works, police, fire, teaching, etc), oil, shipping, etc and none of those are based in LA and instead in Long Beach, Anaheim, Huntington Beach, Torrance, El Segundo, Carson, Wilmington, etc. Most cities are like Lakewood in that regard and the only way to classify them is to say whether they are suburban, urban, etc.

[EscapeCalifornia]

Originally Posted by bhcompy

I agree with Winston and Escape. If Santa Barbara is a "burb" of LA, then so would San Diego, Long Beach, Riverside, Bakersfield, Barstow, etc be.

Some cities/areas may be easier to classify(say, Denver maybe?), but the LA area is not one of them.

Example: Lakewood is a suburban city established in the 50s, houses around 100,000 people, and could be called a suburb of a half dozen other cities and not one of them would be Los Angeles proper, because you're looking at a lot of people that moved in there to work for aerospace, military, public jobs(public works, police, fire, teaching, etc), oil, shipping, etc and none of those are based in LA and instead in Long Beach, Anaheim, Huntington Beach, Torrance, El Segundo, Carson, Wilmington, etc. Most cities are like Lakewood in that regard and the only way to classify them is to say whether they are suburban, urban, etc.

Yeah, many US cities like Denver, Des Moines, or Austin fit the classic model of urban downtown core, ringed by older urban homes, ringed by newer suburban tract homes, ringed by farm/ranch land with small towns scattered in. The LA region just doesn't look like that. I think its because SoCal developed as many independent towns that all grew together. Once upon a time, Los Angeles, Pasadena, Long Beach, and Huntington Beach were more or less separate cities separated by farms or other open space. Now they're all pretty much one urban blob called "LA" by the rest of the country.

[SOON2BNSURPRISE]

Originally Posted by Winston Smith

I'd be interested in knowing what criteria or definitions were used to establish LA's ex-urban communities. Santa Clarita, Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks -- 30 - 40 miles from downtown LA -- might qualify, but Oxnard and Ventura, 65 - 75 miles, and Victorville, 85 miles seem a bit of a stretch to call ex-urbs of LA. By the time you get to Oxnard/Ventura, at least, you're reached an urbanized area of its own (according to census definitions) with commute patterns to and from in all directions. Just wondering....

Maybe it depends on how you drive. Lets take Thousand oaks and Santa Monica for example. Many have said that Santa Monica is an extension of the City. If that is true I can get to Santa Monica from Thousand Oaks on the 101 to the 405 and the drive will take me about 42 miles out of my way. Port Hueneme a city south of Oxnard on the coast is about 20 miles west of Thousand Oaks. I can leave Port Hueneme and get to Santa Monica driving the Coast Highway and I will drive 45 miles to do it. Many people that I know do just that. They live in the Oxnard /Port Hueneme area and they drive into the LA area every day. Just depends on how you go I guess.

[FresnoFacts]

I usually use the EDD commute maps to examine the economic ties between counties.
County to County Commute Maps

For Los Angeles County it is here. It doesn't break it down by city but at least gives a feel for the behavior.
http://www.calmis.ca.gov/file/commut.../lacommute.pdf

[the city]

Guys, please don't jump to conclusions. I never said Santa Barbara or San Luis Obispo were ex-urbs of LA did I? Oxnard and Ventura and Camarillo back in the 50s were commuter towns to LA, and that is why I say they are today. You have to look at what things were back when urban, suburban, rural, and ex-urban were first defined.

Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo aren't ex-urban of Los Angeles, but they could be ex-urbs of Fresno. Since SLO and SB are in central california, and the nearest major urban city in central Cal is Fresno.

But, even if a lot of people aren't commuting from SLO and SB to LA or Fresno there is still the fact that they started off as prosperous suburbs where folks would live on the central coast and commute to the central valley for work. Now, they are college towns with a college in each city making them no longer wealthy suburbs. Now, they are "extra urban" areas (ex-urb).

So I would say they are two types of ex-urbs.
1)the commuter towns-Camarillo, Victorville, Santa Clarita, Oxnard, Ventura, Thousand Oaks, Simi, Valley, Palmdale, Lancaster, etc...
2)and other urban areas, that are not main urban areas-San Luis Obispo, Santa Maria, Santa Barbara, Visalia, Bakersfield, etc...

[BRinSM]

it sounds to me like you're trying to shove a square peg into a round hole. good luck!

[edwardius]

This guy likes falling into this trap. He has done it several past threads. The discussions never really seem to go anywhere yet he keeps trying to rehash the issue.

//www.city-data.com/forum/los-a...asas-ca-7.html
//www.city-data.com/forum/gener...an-cities.html
//www.city-data.com/forum/los-a...alifornia.html

[the one]

i think a lot of this has to do with history. thats why the idea of urban core and suburbs might not trully reflect the reality of LA proper, Greater LA, LA count AND LA metropolitan area.

its nice to try and label LA's neighboring cities as suburbs, but the reality is that most cities like SaMo(1886), Huntington Park(1906), Compton(1888), Glendale(1906), Long Beach(1897) grew up at the same time LA did. i would consider them neighboring cities. each with their own dynamic and atmoshpere.

HUntington Park(named so in order to attract Henry Huntingtons rails) started as a small city 5 mi south of downtown. downtown was the center at the turn of the century and all the surrounding areas were smaller cities. as los angeles was built out, so were these other cities. they all grew into eachother. HP was a premiere shopping district in the 50's, but turned into a heavily latino city in the 70/80's.
as LA grew up so did its neighboring cities.

i think there is just a collection of cities(within LA county) that all have distinct characteristics. some are urban. some rural. some newer, some older. some dense, others not.

lookin at HP again you can argue that it is a very urban city, and not a suburb of LA. it is densely packed with people. served by rail and bus lines. has a "downtown". and now it is almost indecipherable (in aesthetic and housing stock) from the neighboring sections of los angeles(florence, south central, etc). i would consider cities like HP, glendale, Samo, the slightly younger siblings of LA.

and if you want to talk about suburbs, real ones, then i would think that the more recent communities that are farther than 10 miles out of LA like downey(1956), cerritos (1956). carson (1968), la canada (1976) would fit that definition.

as for ex urbs, those farther cities... Lancaster (1977), santa clarita (1987), diamond bar (1989) etc seem to fall under that category.

but even then, its all left to interpretation.

LA is just a big city, currounded by other big, medium, small cities.

[FresnoFacts]

The Brookings Institute just did a study of exurbs in October.

They define exurbs as "communities located on the urban fringe that have at least 20 percent of their workers commuting to jobs in an urbanized area, exhibit low housing density, and have relatively high population growth."

The study is at the link below. Using the criteria of commuting, density and growth they defined them. Check out page 16 for a map of the areas meeting their definition around Los Angeles.

http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Fil...17_exurbia.pdf