No Place Like Home : Be It Ever So Smoggy or Crowded, Most Southern Californians Love It and Won’t Leave It

Jackie Wood was homesick. All the native Southern Californian could think was “What the heck am I suppose to do here?”

While visiting her retired parents this summer in Oregon, Wood wished she was back home amid the Orange County rat race. She defended her home turf to her folks: So what if there’s a smog/fog/haze above and road warriors below? So what if she’s taking her chances with The Big One, swatting Medflies and fretting about the drought?

The pluses in her Huntington Beach community--movies, restaurants, theater, concerts, museums, parks and fabulous Southland weather--have her family firmly planted.

“I don’t feel trapped in Southern California at all,” says Wood, 32. “I have roots here. I’d rather live in Southern California than anywhere else.”

She has lots of company.

A recent Times Poll found that a majority of people who live in a six-county region of Southern California like it here. (Times Poll Director John Brennan, who oversaw the telephone survey of 1,586 residents, says it has a margin of error of three percentage points in either direction. Error margins for certain subgroups may be somewhat higher.)

They are generally satisfied with their neighborhoods, and have found it easy to put down roots and become a part of their communities. While most Southern Californians think they probably will move at some time during their lives, more than half have not considered moving in the last 12 months. And even most of those who are thinking about moving want to relocate somewhere within the region.

From Ventura hillsides to the beaches of Orange and San Diego counties, most say they feel safe in their homes and are confident their neighbors would help them in an emergency. From the cities of Los Angeles to the suburbs in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, most say their quality of life is not getting worse.

Item: All things considered, 77% of Southern California residents report they are satisfied with the community in which they live; 21% are dissatisfied. Seventy-one percent feel things are going well in their communities, compared to 27% who feel things are going badly.

C.C. Wang, a 55-year-old Chinese immigrant, has lived most of his life in Southern California. For the last dozen years, he has owned a home in Rancho Palos Verdes that he shares with his wife, Margaret, 53, and their 24-year-old son, Eric, a recent UC Riverside graduate.

He is clearly a satisfied Southlander: “This is a great community. People care, that is the story. That is one of the major reasons why we really enjoy living here. We have peace of mind.”

Wang, a Caltrans engineer who drives almost 75 minutes to his downtown Los Angeles job, says the commute is worth the trade-off. He likes the clean ocean air, the community’s good schools and low crime rate.

About the biggest problem, he says, are signs of growth--new housing tracts and apartment buildings:

“I think that our community is growing very steadily and I have mixed feelings about that. I have to say from a selfish point of view, the more people who move here, the more problems our community will face.”

But he hopes the future growth will not detract from his neighborhood’s quality of life, he says, because for now, “We don’t live in fear.”

Item: More than half of Southern Californians (55%) are homeowners; 42% are renters and the remaining 3% live rent-free. About one-third (36%) of renters hope to buy a house or condominium within the next two years. Meanwhile, two-thirds of all polled have found it easy to put down roots and become a part of their communities; 30% have found it difficult. More than eight in 10 say they feel free to move anywhere they wish; 14% feel trapped, many apparently by the high cost of housing.

Dallas-born Dave McGee, 37, moved to Southern California 12 years ago after “having roamed” Arkansas, Missouri, Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, Texas and Washington. He and his wife, Kathy, 32, have decided to bring up their two kids in San Jacinto (Riverside County).

“It was a personal thing to move here,” says McGee, who previously lived in San Pedro and Torrance. A cable maintenance worker for General Telephone Co., he asked for a transfer to the San Jacinto area because the couple wanted to buy their own home and the city fit their budget.

(About half of those polled said affordable housing was the key reason they chose the community in which they now live.)

“We wanted to have a base somewhere, to be a part of a community, plant roots. That was our main concern,” he says, pointing out that the recent addition of a den to his house is proof that “I am real well-rooted.”

So are his neighbors, homeowners who often get together for barbecues and pizza or back-yard pool parties. “We have a camaraderie,” McGee says.

He’s not too sure how he feels about the growth, mostly because he moved to San Jacinto--with a population of about 20,000--to get away from crowds, traffic, noise and crime.

His uneasiness reflects the feeling of many Southern Californians polled. About half said their communities were growing too fast, a number equal to those who said growth was at about the right pace. A minority (6%) said growth was too slow.

Still, McGee says “the only opportunity for moving away from here would be extreme financial gain somewhere else. I’m too happy in Southern California.”

Item: Some problems persist. The six most important problems facing communities are: gangs (17%); crime (15%); drugs (12%); growth (8%), and unemployment and traffic (both 4%). Another 7% report they have no problems and smaller percentages of people list such things as graffiti, homeless people in their areas, the recession and the environment.

Helen Wright has lived in the Belmont Heights area of Long Beach for the last 11 years. A native of New Mexico, she moved to Southern California 25 years ago.

She found Belmont Heights’ older homes particularly attractive, she says. Most were built in the 1920s when houses “were all different from each other.” Her stucco home with hardwood floors is seven blocks from the beach. She has less than a 40-minute commute to Bell Gardens, where she is an assistant principal at Suva Intermediate School and she is close to the arts and cultural opportunities that she loves.

What she doesn’t like about her area is “at times it doesn’t feel like a very safe place. There have been rapes in my neighborhood, there was a homicide about two months ago. I have been burglarized. Almost all my neighbors have been burglarized, some twice.”

Three months ago, Wright, 53, bought a new car. She immediately had an alarm installed, something she says that she wouldn’t have done when she first moved to Belmont Heights in 1980.

“I also have bars on some of my windows. So you see the neighborhood has changed,” she says. “Moving to another area is not going to be the solution. This is not a perfect place, but no place really is.”

Item: More than half (58%) of those polled have not considered moving in the last year and 14% say they will move elsewhere in the same county. Five percent expect to move but stay in the same community; 11% expect to move out of state; 1% out of the country, and the remaining 10% hope to relocate to other Southern and Northern California communities.

John MacConnell, 72, moved to La Canada Flintridge from the East Coast with his family in 1924. Now, 67 years later, he and his wife, Marian, 71, are planning a move to a house on two acres of hill country in Diamond Springs, about 40 miles north of Sacramento.

“I’m torn between two feelings about my community,” he says of La Canada, an upscale bedroom community northeast of Glendale in Los Angeles County. He likes the convenience of city living, but like others he’s not pleased with the area’s growth.

“I’ve lived here all my life. The nice thing about La Canada is that it is a nice community with a lot of trees. . . . In 15 minutes you are where you want to be,” says MacConnell, a part-time quality control consultant.

So why is he moving?

Because the urbanization during the last decade, he says, has attracted more people to the area, and meant more crowds, more traffic, more taxes, more problems.

“In some areas it is kind of snobbish,” he says of his community. “I heard of a house in my area that is going for $6.9 million. If the trend is anything it’s that this is going to be another Beverly Hills.”

And that’s not MacConnell’s style.

“I come from a different generation,” he says. “For the old-timers who are living here, we don’t like it. The newcomers are changing it and money talks. . . . Up until World War II this was all orange groves and grape vineyards. You could ride a horse for miles with nothing in sight. Those days are gone forever.”

Roy Vaughn, 57, will take a different approach. A San Diego homeowner for 30 years, Vaughn says he wants out of his neighborhood.

“Now it’s being infiltrated with gang activities, graffiti, muggings and murders,” he says, pointing out stories about acquaintances and friends who have been victims, some robbed at gunpoint, others whose cars have been stolen.

But he won’t go too far.

When the time comes to pick up stakes, he won’t leave San Diego.

He’ll just move to a different neighborhood in the same county, a place where he can plant roots for another 15 years.

Item: More than half (58%) of those polled don’t socialize with their neighbors; 39% socialize with their neighbors often or consider them close friends, and 3% don’t know their neighbors at all. But, 86% have confidence that their neighbors would help in an emergency, while 14% have no confidence or are unsure.

Jack Serrano, 24, and his wife Erica, 20, have rented an apartment in South Bay’s Gardena area for two years. He enjoys the gated community, especially the friendships he and his wife have struck up with other young couples.

“We barbecue on the weekends, play cards and hang out by the pool,” Serrano says. “Everyone pitches in. The community is nice. It’s all mixed. There’s some of every ethnic group and everybody gets along.”

Despite reports of crime--mostly car thefts and vandalism, including a nearby liquor store that has been held up three times in two years--Serrano and his wife feel secure enough to take evening strolls with their 2-year-old son, Danny. “It’s not like we feel we can’t go outside,” Serrano says.

Just the same, the couple is looking to move, preferably closer to Serrano’s job in Santa Monica, in the accounting department at Lear Astronics.

“We’ve been looking, not just talking about it--and we’d like to do it in a couple of months,” he says, adding that wherever he lives, he’s bound “to make friends out of neighbors.”

Item: More than half (57% ) of those polled report that, overall, the quality of life in their communities is staying the same. Another 13% say it is improving and 28% report it is worsening.

Twelve years ago, Jose Gutierrez, moved to California for economic reasons, and decidedly, a better quality of life than he could have ever had in his native Mexico.

Now 33 and living in Rialto, he says he has always found work here. He studied English for two years to be better qualified for jobs, and it has resulted in a higher standard of living.

But the times have changed, he says. The recession and lack of jobs worries both him and his fiancee, Angelica Ramos, 20. Both sell cassette tapes and records at flea markets, sometimes seven days a week in San Bernardino County.

“We are living from paycheck to paycheck. Without money you cannot have a good quality of life. There used to be more opportunities for work and now it seems there are less and less jobs,” he says.

And more crime.

“Everything has gotten worse” since when he first moved to Rialto, he says. “Crime has gotten worse. . . . I kind of think that what is happening is drugs.”

Still, he remains optimistic; he isn’t going anywhere. Other aspects of California living keep him rooted here, he says:

“I like California. I feel secure here.”

Susan Pinkus, Assistant Times Poll Director, assisted in the statistical analysis and interpretation for these stories.

How the Poll Was Conducted The Los Angeles Times Poll interviewed 1,586 adult Southern Californians by telephone Aug. 10 through 13.

Telephone numbers were chosen from a list that includes all telephone exchanges in the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura.

Random-digit dialing techniques were used to ensure that both listed and unlisted telephone numbers had an opportunity to be contacted.

Over-sampling of blacks and Asian-Americans provided analyzable subsamples, which were then weighted to their proper shares in the regionwide sample. Results were adjusted slightly to conform with census figures on variables such as sex, race and national origin, age, education and household size.

The margin of sampling error for percentages based on the total sample is plus or minus 3 percentage points. For certain subgroups, the error of margin is somewhat higher.

Our Neighbors’ Roots Where they were born:

Area OVERALL WHITES BLACKS LATINOS ASIANS So. California 36% 36% 25% 42% 27% Other California 4% 5% 2% 3% 2% East 13% 20% 10% 2% 4% South 6% 4% 40% 2% -- Midwest 16% 23% 18% 3% 3% West 5% 4% 1% 3% 22% Mexico 8% -- -- 31% -- Central America 3% 1% 1% 8% -- Asia/Mideast 4% 1% 1% 1% 37% Europe 2% 3% 1% 2% -- Other 3% 3% 1% 3% 5%

How long they’ve lived here:

Years OVERALL WHITES BLACKS LATINOS ASIANS 5 years or less 11% 10% 5% 11% 20% 6-10 8% 5% 5% 9% 19% More than 10 46% 49% 65% 38% 34% Life-long resident 35% 36% 25% 42% 27%

Source: Los Angeles Times Poll

Southern California’s Ethnic Makeup SO. CALIFORNIA Anglo: 52% Black: 8% Latino: 31% Asian: 9% Other: 1% L.A. COUNTY Anglo: 41% Black: 11% Latino: 38% Asian: 10% Other: 1% ORANGE COUNTY Anglo: 61% Black: 8% Latino: 27% Asian: 4 Other: 1% SAN BERNARDINO CO. Anglo: 61% Black: 8% Latino: 26% Asian: 3% Other: 1% RIVERSIDE COUNTY Anglo: 64% Black: 5% Latino: 26% Asian: 3% Other: 1% SAN DIEGO COUNTY Anglo: 65% Black: 6% Latino: 20% Asian: 7% Other: 1% VENTURA COUNTY Anglo: 66% Black: 2% Latino: 26% Asian: 5% Other: 1% NOTE: Numbers may not add to 100% due to rounding. Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census