Westside Growth Slow

Despite all the new apartment buildings going up in Mar Vista, Palms and Brentwood the Westside has grown by only about 79,000 since the 1980 census, according to a new study by the Los Angeles County Department of Regional Planning.

Every Westside community except Marina del Rey--which dropped from 6,693 in 1980 to 6,285 in 1988--gained population during the 8-year period. The Westside’s population rose from 966,150 in 1980 to 1,045,425 last year.

County analyst Terry Bills, a Mar Vista resident, was initially surprised by the figures, noting that three-story apartment buildings had replaced many of the single-family houses: “The data is right. It’s simply that when we live close to construction, we tend to see it as more pervasive than it is.”