Outlying, Urban Areas Lead Growth : Population: Analysis of 1990 census shows dramatic shift as Asian and Latino immigrants poured into state.

California’s population explosion of the 1980s occurred mainly in the inner cities and in outlying “exurbs,” while many suburban cities lost population or barely held their own, according to a state analysis released Thursday.

Gov. Pete Wilson’s Council on Growth Management, in analyzing the 1990 census, also noted a dramatic shift in the state’s racial and ethnic makeup, as immigrants from Asia and Latin America poured into the state.

As California’s population grew by 6 million to a total of almost 30 million, more of the increase came from either domestic migration or foreign immigration than from births exceeding deaths. (Since the 1990 census, the state’s population is believed to have surpassed 30 million.)

Between 1985 and 1990, the report said, 45% of the population increase, or 290,000, was the result of having more births than deaths, while 17% (108,000) came from migration from other states, and 38% (252,000) from foreign immigration. An estimated 160,000 of the new immigrants were legal, while 92,000 were undocumented, the report added.

A majority of the state’s school-age children are from racial and ethnic minorities, as are a majority of newborn infants, the Growth Management Council said, and Latinos will equal or outnumber Anglos in California by the year 2040 if present trends continue.

As these new immigrants arrived throughout the 1980s, they tended to settle in the state’s inner-city communities, reversing the post-World War II pattern of decline in the inner cities and growth in the suburbs, the report said.

For instance, in the Los Angeles-area “urban core,” the population grew by almost 1 million in the last decade--from 5.8 million to 6.7 million. The urban core was defined in the report as the 11 congressional districts in the center of the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

Meanwhile, only 3,000 housing units were built in the same area, leading to extreme crowding, Richard Sybert, chairman of the governor’s growth management council, said in an interview.

In addition to a shortage of affordable housing, other problems created by the massive immigration into California’s inner cities include crowded schools, greater social service needs, poorer job conditions and more communication problems among those who do not speak English, according to the report.

Compton and South Gate were cited as examples of changing communities.

Formerly blue-collar towns that provided largely white workers for automobile, rubber and steel-producing plants, they have become heavily minority communities where residents have fewer skills and work for lower wages.

“Los Angeles is emerging as a garment manufacturing center not because New York has moved westward, but because Hong Kong and Singapore have moved eastward,” the report said. “The ‘Third World’ is coming here and it is finding employment at corresponding skill levels.”

While immigrant workers with limited skills massed in the state’s central cities, younger families in search of affordable housing and safer conditions have moved to “exurban” communities such as the Inland Empire and the northern end of the San Joaquin Valley, the analysis said.

Moreno Valley, east of Riverside, is identified as the “classic example of inland growth,” having increased in population from an unincorporated collection of towns with 28,000 people in 1980 to a city of 118,000 10 years later.

Many Moreno Valley residents commute long distances to jobs in Los Angeles and Orange counties, adding to traffic congestion and air pollution, as well as interfering with normal family life, the report said.

As new immigrants were settling in the inner cities and younger, upwardly mobile people were moving to exurban communities to find housing they could afford, the traditional suburbs were left behind.

Eleven cities in Los Angeles County and four in Orange County actually lost population during the 1980s, during the state’s unprecedented growth spurt.

Santa Monica’s population dropped by 1,409 during the decade, Lakewood fell by 1,097, and Beverly Hills declined by 675. In Orange County, Fountain Valley lost 1,389 during the 1980s, Seal Beach dropped 887, and Villa Park fell 838.

This has happened because most home buyers cannot afford such places as Beverly Hills.

The report said: “Here we have the outline of the infrastructure problem facing California: overcrowding of highways as today’s suburbanite commutes long miles to work, with attendant adverse air quality impacts; and development leapfrogs to affordable but distant suburbs, in the process converting farmland and stretching infrastructure.”

At an interim hearing of the Assembly and Senate local government committees Thursday, Sybert provided few answers to the questions posed by the report because he said the growth management council was still studying the issues and will not make its final recommendations to Wilson until the end of the year.

More Californians

Here is a look at some sources of population growth in California between 1985 and 1990, according to a study by the Council on Growth Management:

Natural increase (births over deaths): 290,000, (45%)

Domestic migration: 108,000, (17%)

Immigration from abroad: 252,000, (38%)

Legal: 160,000

Other: 92,000

Total: 650,000, (100%)

SOURCE: Department of Finance