Just a quick video about my hometown.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Chapter 9 - The Changing South
In general, the City's population is not as diverse as the County's population. More than three-fourths or 76% of Santa Clarita's population describes itself as White. (taken from the city of Santa Clarita Website)
Growing up in a community with lots of diverse people always causes trouble. I always tried to stay away from the racism that went on, but wherever you go it is always there. I remember there was a big incident back in high-school with one of the principals that was accused of being racist that started this whole unnecessary argument. I think that in the past five years of not living in Santa Clarita the racism problem has gotten better.
Chapter 8 - Appalachia and the Ozarks
According to the book, the Appalachia and the Ozark is separated by over 300 miles with similar topography and settlement history. Within Santa Clarita now towards the north there are tons of Caucasian people and in the south there is a huge percentage of Hispanics.
In the small town of Valencia there is a lot more room for expansion to keep growing new families with tons of new housing tracts being built every couple of years. The east side towards Canyon Country doesn't have too much extra space to keep building so they pretty much have to live off what businesses are already there to keep their community up and running.
For the most part the Santa Clarita tends to itself when it comes to bringing in revenue for the community. Occasionally there will be town fairs, marathons, golf tournaments and contests and of course Magic Mountain that will attract visitors from other cities to bring more of a lively atmosphere to the valley.
Sources and Pictures:
- http://www.infocusmagazine.org/6.2/bsoc_hispanics_in_america.html
In the small town of Valencia there is a lot more room for expansion to keep growing new families with tons of new housing tracts being built every couple of years. The east side towards Canyon Country doesn't have too much extra space to keep building so they pretty much have to live off what businesses are already there to keep their community up and running.
For the most part the Santa Clarita tends to itself when it comes to bringing in revenue for the community. Occasionally there will be town fairs, marathons, golf tournaments and contests and of course Magic Mountain that will attract visitors from other cities to bring more of a lively atmosphere to the valley.
Sources and Pictures:
- http://www.infocusmagazine.org/6.2/bsoc_hispanics_in_america.html
Chapter 7 - The Bypassed East
Weather - When it comes to weather relating it to the Bypassed East, Santa Clarita is nothing like that where the seasonal months are too extreme. The Santa Clarita Valley can get hot, but minus the humidity and it can also get cold, but minus the snow.
Farming - The only major farming that takes place near the SCV is in Fillmore off the 126 Freeway or a little north towards Lombardi Ranch when their family owned pumpkin patch opens up to the public. Also, plenty of residents have small gardens nestled away on their land so animals don't destroy them.
Lakes and Transportation Routes - Castaic Lake is the main lake in the valley to go fishing at which I have done multiple times. Santa Clarita is quite similar to the Bypassed East where it is "near major transportation routes, but not on them. (pg. 130)" The 126 and 5 Interstates are two great ways to travel north up the state with a great view of the beaches or up through the grapevine of farmlands.
Sources for Information and Pictures:
Chapter 5 - The North American Manufacturing Core
Even though Santa Clarita is a small town and nothing comparable to the North American Manufacturing Core, it still tries to compete by having an enormous industrial park conveniently located on the east side of the valley next to Interstate 5. Back in the early 1900's around Placerita Canyon near the city of Newhall, gold was being mined in the local rivers and then traded between the people who once settled there. The industrial park has over 706 companies ranging from machine shops for airplanes to little hole-in-the-wall sandwich shops. When I was in high-school one of my first jobs was working at a telephone company on Avenue Stanford on the lower south side of the park at a family friend's business.
Industrial Park
Sources:
- http://www.santa-clarita.com
Industrial Park
Sources:
- http://www.santa-clarita.com
Chapter 4 - Megalopolis
Santa Clarita is the fourth largest city in Los Angeles County with a population of 176,971 in January 2011. It is the 24th largest city in the State of California. In Los Angeles County, Los Angeles with
a population of 3.8 million, Long Beach with less than 464,000, and Glendale with slightly over 192,000 were larger than Santa Clarita. Overall, Santa Clarita plays an important role in the County based on its size. Santa Clarita's population grew by 17.5% from 2000 to 2010 and was almost twice the growth experience in all of Los Angeles County. Only the communities of Lancaster and Palmdale in the Antelope Valley grew faster than Santa Clarita.
Public Options Provided to the Community
1. Transit Buses
- Santa Clarita Transit buses people all around the valley and also has ones that go down to the
valley and north towards Santa Barbara
2. Henry Mayo Hospital
- Located in the northwest part of Newhall (which I unfortunately have visited multiple times)
3. Valencia Town Center Mall/Car Dealerships
- Over 100 stores and restaurants along with an IMAX Movie Theatre
4. Six Flags Magic Mountain Amusement Park
- My sister's first job
- Created tons of new jobs and visitors
5. Two Bowling Alleys
- Valencia Lanes in Newhall
- Santa Clarita Lanes in Canyon Country (where I bowled in a league for about eight years)
6. Police and Fire Stations
- Police station located in the center near the car dealerships
- Ten fire stations scattered throughout the valley
- Public Library inside
7. Three Local Freeways (I use these freeways to commute up there at least once a week)
- The 5 which extends from Southern California up through Northern California
- The 126 travels west through Fillmore towards Ventura and quickly connects to the 101 north
- The 14 is on the east side of the valley which starts at the 5 near Balboa and extends up through
Palmdale and Lancaster
8. Parks and Recreation Areas
- The major Rec Center is in Canyon Country where most of the city sports teams play except
for softball teams which play at Central Park in Saugus (also has a skatepark)
- Countless parks and rec centers scattered throughout almost every housing tract in the valley
- Most equipped with pool and basketball courts
- The majority of them have jungle gyms
- 4 golf courses within the valley
9. Paseos
- Pathways leading over 30 miles around town (all I used when riding my bike around town)
Sources:
- My Knowledge and Experiences
- http://www.santa-clarita.com
a population of 3.8 million, Long Beach with less than 464,000, and Glendale with slightly over 192,000 were larger than Santa Clarita. Overall, Santa Clarita plays an important role in the County based on its size. Santa Clarita's population grew by 17.5% from 2000 to 2010 and was almost twice the growth experience in all of Los Angeles County. Only the communities of Lancaster and Palmdale in the Antelope Valley grew faster than Santa Clarita.
Public Options Provided to the Community
1. Transit Buses
- Santa Clarita Transit buses people all around the valley and also has ones that go down to the
valley and north towards Santa Barbara
2. Henry Mayo Hospital
- Located in the northwest part of Newhall (which I unfortunately have visited multiple times)
3. Valencia Town Center Mall/Car Dealerships
- Over 100 stores and restaurants along with an IMAX Movie Theatre
4. Six Flags Magic Mountain Amusement Park
- My sister's first job
- Created tons of new jobs and visitors
5. Two Bowling Alleys
- Valencia Lanes in Newhall
- Santa Clarita Lanes in Canyon Country (where I bowled in a league for about eight years)
6. Police and Fire Stations
- Police station located in the center near the car dealerships
- Ten fire stations scattered throughout the valley
- Public Library inside
7. Three Local Freeways (I use these freeways to commute up there at least once a week)
- The 5 which extends from Southern California up through Northern California
- The 126 travels west through Fillmore towards Ventura and quickly connects to the 101 north
- The 14 is on the east side of the valley which starts at the 5 near Balboa and extends up through
Palmdale and Lancaster
8. Parks and Recreation Areas
- The major Rec Center is in Canyon Country where most of the city sports teams play except
for softball teams which play at Central Park in Saugus (also has a skatepark)
- Countless parks and rec centers scattered throughout almost every housing tract in the valley
- Most equipped with pool and basketball courts
- The majority of them have jungle gyms
- 4 golf courses within the valley
9. Paseos
- Pathways leading over 30 miles around town (all I used when riding my bike around town)
Sources:
- My Knowledge and Experiences
- http://www.santa-clarita.com
Chapter 3 - Foundations of Human Activity
The four major towns of the Santa Clarita Valley Valencia, Saugus, Newhall and Canyon Country were quite distinct and blended together with much time and planning. First evidence of human activity around the Santa Clarita area was from the Tataviam (people facing the sun) who created a homeland in the east part of the valley known as Canyon Country. The Tongva Kitanemuk, and Serrano people also called this area a homeland more than five hundred years ago. More than two decades later after the Mexican Independence, the people focused on the joining of Castaic Creek and the Santa Clara River. When the collapse of the St. Francis Dam happened in 1928 settlements and people were washed away along the Santa Clara River. About 30 years later in the 1960's the Newhall Land company's suburban developments transformed Canyon Country and surrounding towns into a strict residential and cultural city.
Newhall is the southernmost and oldest part of Santa Clarita. Before the combining of Valencia, Saugus, Newhall and Canyon Country in 1987, it was an independent, but unincorporated town. It was known as the first permanent Anglo settlement in the valley. The city of Newhall was named after a great businessman Henry Newhall, who made great fortune during the Gold Rush in California and later opened up the H.M. Newhall & Company.
Saugus started development after Newhall, before Valencia, and got its name from Saugus, Massachusetts which was the hometown of Henry Newhall. The most famous landmark in Saugus is the Saugus Cafe just east of the Sherriff's Station on Bouquet Canyon Road.
Valencia is the part of Santa Clarita where I was raised for about 14 years of my life and the place I call home. It was first planned in the 1960's by the Newhall Land and Farming Company. Development began in the late 1960's and still continues present till this day. It is held together by a small knit community of apartment buildings, schools, industrial parks, single-family homes and shopping centers along about a dozen of boulevards running through the city.
A Few Fun Facts About the First Inhabitants:
They came sweeping across the Great Plains to the Santa
Clarita Valley sometime around 450 A.D., a band of Shoshone
Indians called the Tataviam. Evidence of the first inhabitants
of the Santa Clarita Valley dates back about 13,000 years, but
little is known about them. Just over 1500 years ago, these
previous inhabitants of the Valley were displaced by a people
who migrated westward from the Great Plains. For many
years modern historians called them the “Alliklik,” but this
turned out to be a derogatory name given to them by their
neighbors to the west, the Chumash. More recently they have
been known as the Tataviam or “people of the sunny slopes”,
so named by the Kitanemuk Indians of the Antelope Valley, due
to their habit of building villages on southern facing slopes of
mountains to maximize sun exposure.Sources:
- http://www.scvhistory.com/
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canyon_Country,_Santa_Clarita,_California
- http://www.newhallfoundation.org/aboutHMN.html
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tataviam
- http://scvhs.org/news/dispatch34-4.pdf
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