THE TIMES ORANGE COUNTY POLL : Gritty Realities Tarnish the Glow on Anaheim : The way tourists and insiders see the city differs, results show. Though residents still view life here favorably, widespread pessimism over big-city ills exists.

All over the world, the image of this city is as neat and perky as a pair of Mickey Mouse ears, as happy-go-lucky as a day at the ballpark. But lately, here in the neighborhoods where everyday life is lived, people see their town a little differently.

For decades, playing host to Disneyland and Anaheim Stadium has cast a perennial glow on Orange County’s second-largest city. Increasingly, however, the gritty realities of modern urban life are crowding into Anaheim, opening a chasm between the way tourists see the city and the way insiders experience it.

As the teacups whirl inside “The Happiest Place on Earth,” gangs lay claim to nearby neighborhoods. Local parents who brave traffic jams so they can munch hot dogs with their kids at the Big A worry increasingly about big-city ills: crime, affordable housing, jobs, the quality of city services and public schools, the crowding of their communities.

A recent Times Orange County Poll focusing on life in Anaheim found that eight out of 10 residents still view their city favorably, giving particularly high marks to its stores, restaurants and entertainment. They show an intense hometown pride as well as a fierce affection for the glittery amusement park that for nearly 40 years has boosted the local economy and made Anaheim a name known around the world. But behind that general feeling, a significant number also share a widespread sense of loss and pessimism.

The poll of 600 Anaheim residents was conducted by Mark Baldassare & Associates Feb. 1 through 4. The poll has a margin of error of 4%.

Asked to identify the city’s worst problem, the greatest number of residents--nearly one-third--named gangs and crime. Over and over, people interviewed blamed crime for snatching away their evening strolls through the neighborhood, their children’s unaccompanied playtimes in the park.

Nearly half say the quality of life in Anaheim is worse now than it was five years ago, while only 14% think it’s better. Looking to the future, four in 10 think Anaheim will go downhill, while only one in four thinks it will improve. Some elderly Anaheim residents have found that there is only one place left that still offers the simple pleasures of the old days: Disneyland. There, in the surreal sweetness of Main Street, time is frozen in yesteryear. There are seniors who have come hundreds of times, some even a thousand times, just to stroll or sit in the town square and sip Cokes as musicians play their favorite songs.

One couple in their late 60s came so often that they knew almost everyone who worked on Main Street, said Disneyland President Jack Lindquist. Their deaths left an empty spot there.

“I know the people here really miss them,” Lindquist said. Disneyland “was like their town.”

Some other findings in the wide-ranging poll:

* Most residents give their city government passing grades but fewer than one in 10 say they are “very satisfied” with city leaders.

* Living in a growing city that is financially intertwined with the tourism, convention and sports industries, residents see themselves as among the least powerful groups at City Hall. They want to make changes in the way their representatives are elected and how those officials finance their campaigns.

* Still, residents endorse the city’s construction of a sports arena and its push to build parking garages and a “people mover” for the Disneyland and convention area. But they want the City Council to pass a controversial admissions tax to finance the expansion push so that the people are not saddled with the debt responsibility.

Becoming a big city has undeniably diminished Anaheim’s quality of life, said Keith A. Murdoch, who witnessed one of Anaheim’s biggest growth booms as city manager from 1950 to 1976. He said the city’s “unnatural” growth to the east and its many new developments have left residents with a fragmented sense of community.

Murdoch, 73, also lamented the rise in crime, saying that he used to walk safely anywhere he wanted, but “there are parts now where I wouldn’t think of walking.”

Despite the drawbacks, however, Anaheim still has legions of boosters, with Murdoch among them. He praises the city’s host of leisure-time distractions, especially its parks and its professional sports teams, which give the city a sense of pride and identity.

Angels hitting coach Rod Carew, 46, knows about that. He says he “still gets a thrill” when he sees Anaheim Stadium. And the Anaheim Hills resident likes living here, saying that the city brims with “nice people” and offers an unbeatable combination of good weather and proximity to beaches and mountain resorts.

But many residents still express concern about Anaheim’s future and its changing quality of life. In this town, where the Latino population has more than doubled in the past decade, there are voices of resentment and suspicion, voices from the white majority that occasionally blame “those people” for ruining their neighborhoods with crime and unfamiliar ways.

Mayor Fred Hunter is all too familiar with those attitudes. Each month, he says, he gets about half a dozen letters that are “absolutely bigoted” against Latinos, as well as calls from Anglos unhappy that Latinos have moved into neighborhoods that used to be exclusively white.

“What am I supposed to say to someone like that?” he said. “I tell them that (Latinos and other minorities) are our brothers and sisters. . . . You sense it. Prejudice is really the word for it.”

Like many cities in Southern California, Anaheim is experiencing significant demographic shifts. Once a little town of 800--its roads were lined with sunflowers when German vintners founded it in 1870--Anaheim has boomed into a city of more than 270,000, crisscrossed by major freeways. Its predominantly Anglo makeup has decreased to just over half, as more Latinos, Asians and blacks arrive.

The changing makeup of this city can best be seen in the central area, where there are schools “that do not have a single white kid” anymore, Hunter said. But Anaheim residents must “live with this change and learn to understand each other,” he said.

Frequently, however, many of the Anglo residents interviewed for this story blamed Latino immigrants for drug dealing, drive-by shootings and burglaries in their neighborhoods, even though the crimes remain unsolved. They bemoaned the vendors who sell chips and ice cream from bell-ringing carts, neighbors who sun-dry their laundry on the bushes. Their complaints often began with phrases like: “I don’t want to sound like a racist, but. . . .”

Amin David, 56, president of Los Amigos of Orange County, a community group focusing on issues concerning Latinos, said Anaheim residents are hardly the first to use Latinos as scapegoats for larger-scale societal ills. But he believes that such attitudes represent a tiny minority in Anaheim and that the general population is becoming more accepting of the Latino presence.

Nonetheless, Latinos are still frustrated that in a town with a 31% Latino population, few city officials are Latino and few police officers speak Spanish, David said.

The city’s Spanish-speakers are concentrated most heavily in the city’s most crowded and urbanized zone--the central district that includes the Civic Center. And it is there that unhappiness about the quality of life is highest.

People in the central area are far more likely to consider gangs and crime a problem, for example, and are unhappier with the city’s police, schools and shopping than are those in the east (predominantly the affluent Anaheim Hills), where satisfaction with shops and police is highest, according to poll results. In central Anaheim, nearly one of three residents has an unfavorable view of the city as a place to live, compared to one in six elsewhere.

Throughout the city, the highest marks are given to its shops, restaurants and entertainment venues, with nine out of 10 residents describing those amenities as satisfactory. The city’s sole shopping mall--the faltering Anaheim Plaza--got a show of support in The Times poll with half the residents saying they oppose a proposal to tear down the mall to make way for new housing. The police get wide approval, too, with 87% reporting satisfaction.

Approval drops sharply for other aspects of city life, however, with only about half the residents reporting they were “somewhat” or “very” satisfied with Anaheim’s public schools, housing and job opportunities. More than a third said they were dissatisfied with their job options and the cost and availability of housing, and a quarter are dissatisfied with the schools.

Even though the median sales price of a single-family home in Anaheim--$183,000--is lower than the countywide median by more than $52,000, scores said they still find homes unaffordable.

Greg Papin, 42, a salesman of electrical components, said that after his divorce in 1985, he couldn’t afford a house. The poll participant lives in a mobile home in west Anaheim.

Curtis Coombs, 23, an engineering student and lifelong Anaheim resident, responded to the poll and said he always dreamed of marrying and raising his children here, near his family. But now he doesn’t see how he can. He doubts that he will ever be able to afford a house, and he wants a more crime-free environment for his children.

“It makes me sad,” he said. “It’s unfortunate.”

Longtime Anaheim residents complain, too, that their neighborhoods are becoming crowded. And the statistics seem to back them up: Between 1980 and 1990, Anaheim’s population grew at the third-fastest rate in the county--21.5%--while its housing stock rose only 12.6%.

Loretta Barrios, 39, a poll participant who lives near Euclid Street and Broadway in west Anaheim, sees this dynamic firsthand. Over and over, she has watched single-family homes torn down and replaced with apartments. And like many, she feels that it decreases the pride of ownership and contributes to the decline of a neighborhood.

“I’d like to see neighborhoods refurbished, not torn down,” she said.

Even with its troubles, however, Anaheim still offers mental escape routes in its big-ticket items: Anaheim Stadium and Disneyland. The poll found that a majority of residents visited those attractions at least once in the past year.

And even in the neighborhoods most plagued by crime, there are many residents who harbor hopes that Anaheim will tackle its problems.

Bob Hoyt, 57, a retired grocery store clerk who shares an apartment with his mother near Anaheim Stadium, said that his neighborhood is rife with drug deals and violence, but he doesn’t plan to leave.

“It’s not as nice a place as it used to be,” the poll participant said. “But I hope it will get better. I don’t know if it will or it won’t. But I can hope, right?”

Times staff writer Helene Elliot contributed to this report.

VOICES

A sampling of responses from poll participants and other Anaheim residents:

“When I moved here (from South-Central Los Angeles) I didn’t see (Anaheim) in a negative light, but now I do. I walked around and every wall was clean. I was impressed. At night there weren’t that many weirdos walking around. But now I go different places (in Anaheim), and I see it’s the same as Los Angeles, except smaller. It’s got all the same problems.”

--Toney Rivas, 18, a poll participant.

“I can still remember tying up my horse outside of Dickel’s grocery store at Center and Lemon streets and going shopping. Now the orange groves have all but been subdivided out. But I’ve been able to bend with the changes. I don’t mind it. Hell, there’s no use in fighting it. It’s just different.”

--Jack Dutton, 81, an Anaheim native and former city councilman and mayor.

“Anaheim has gone downhill and gotten more congested. The cost of housing has gone up. If I were starting all over again, I’d have a hard time getting started trying to raise a family and have my own home.”

--Greg Papin, 42, a poll participant.

“In the old days, we had a real downtown. People were living in their own homes. It was like a Midwestern town. Now we are getting a different socioeconomic picture.”

--William Koon, 53, a poll participant.

“I always thought I’d move back to the Twin Cities (where he began his career). But after a while you get up in the morning and it’s sunny and you know you can plan things without worrying about rain. You have to love it.”

--Rod Carew, 46, Hall of Famer, now an Angels hitting instructor.

“Churches near here sponsored a meeting of people concerned about gangs and drugs. None of the City Council members showed up, but they decided to give a lot of money to expand Disneyland. I think Disneyland can take care of itself. They should give a little attention to this problem.”

--Marie Muir, 61, a poll participant.

“Always in society there are scapegoats. On a national scale, the scapegoats are the undocumented. On a local level, the scapegoats are always (mentioned) any time you talk about gangs and drugs; it’s always the knee-jerk reaction to say ‘Latinos.’ ”

--Amin David, 56, president of Los Amigos of Orange County.

“If you have to spend much time on the 91 Freeway, it’s hard to describe (the quality of life) as getting better. But the defeat of the Gypsum Canyon jail on one side, and on the other, the upgrading of the area around Disneyland--both of those will make it better. Yet it’s still getting more crowded, more developed.”

--Charles Dievendorf, 45, a poll participant.

“We don’t go out after dark. We’ve been here in this apartment building 14 years. When we first moved in, no problem. It’s just not as nice a place to live as it used to be. It sure has changed.”

--Bob Hoyt, 57, a poll participant.

“I’d like to see neighborhoods refurbished, not torn down.”

--Loretta Barrios, 39, a poll participant.

SERIES AT A GLANCE Taking a look at Anaheim--inside the city Mickey Mouse made famous. * Today: Eight of 10 residents say Anaheim is a good place to live, but they add that the quality of life is not what it used to be as crime, traffic and congestion move into the onetime small town founded by German vintners. * Monday: Residents say gangs, violence and fear of crime have invaded their once-tranquil neighborhoods. Just one indicator: Gangs in the city now have seven times the membership they did in 1984. * Tuesday: There is a sense of political powerlessness among Anaheim residents, who overwhelmingly support reform measures to limit City Council terms and campaign spending. Also, a look at the up-and-comers shaping the city’s future. * Wednesday: Who can beat Mickey Mouse for a neighbor? No doubt about it--the city loves its Magic Kingdom. Disneyland has literally put Anaheim on the map, and residents see the park as a ready source of amusement, a dependable employer and a benevolent powerhouse in city politics. But while residents support the city’s push to build up the Disneyland and convention center area, they also want the council to pass a controversial sports and entertainment admissions tax to offset the cost.

How the Poll Was Conducted The Times Orange County Poll was conducted by Mark Baldassare & Associates. The telephone survey of 600 adult residents of Anaheim was conducted Feb. 1 through 4 on weekend days and weekday nights, using a computer-generated random sample of listed and unlisted telephone numbers. The interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. The margin of error is plus or minus 4%. For subgroups, such as residents of a specific geographic area, the margin would be larger.

ANAHEIM: CITY OF CONTRASTS Problems Beyond the Playground Beyond the gates of Disneyland and Anaheim Stadium, an overwhelming number of residents have a good image of Anaheim. But almost half feel that the city is a worse place to live today than it was five years ago. Crime is the No. 1 concern facing Anaheim residents. A look at the results from the Orange County Poll: A LIVABILITY CITY How residents view Anaheim as a place to live: Very favorable: 32% Somewhat favorable: 51% Unfavorable: 17% What they are “very satisfied” with: Stores, restaurants, entertainment: 54% Local police: 36% Public schools: 18% Housing costs/availability: 13% Job opportunities: 11% RESIDENT’S OUTLOOK Compared to five years ago, is Anaheim a better or worse place to live? Better: 14% Worse: 46% Same: 35% Don’t know: 5% Anaheim is worse today: 55 years and older: 60% 35 to 54 years old: 41% 18 to 24 years old: 41% CRIME THE BIGGEST PROBLEM What topped residents’ list of the biggest problems facing Anaheim today: Crime, gangs: 29% Traffic: 13% Growth: 12% City services: 11% Jobs, the economy: 9% Housing: 6% From 1986 to 1990, violent crime has risen 33% in the city but only 24% countywide. The number of murders, rapes, assaults and robberies in Anaheim, by year: 1986: 1,357 1987: 1,274 1988: 1,442 1989: 1,651 1990: 1,802 NOTE: Totals may not add up to 100% because minor categories and “don’t knows” have been omitted or respondents could select more than one category. Source: Times Orange County Poll, state Bureau of Criminal Statistics

ANAHEIM: IMAGINATION VS. REALITY More Than Just Disneyland Although Disneyland casts a large shadow, there are more attractions in Anaheim’s future: a shopping center, sports arena and new neighborhoods--as well as a giant Disney expansion. TOURISM Disneyland has attracted more than 300 million visitors since it opened in 1955. A $3-billion expansion is planned. Nearby Anaheim Convention Center is the West Coast’s largest. DOWNTOWN Redevelopment focuses on the $200-million Koll Anaheim Center, a 1.2 million-square-foot project changing the look of downtown. Another development, Heritage Place, will have 400 downtown housing units to create an “urban village.” SHOPPING Anaheim Plaza--Orange County’s oldest mall--continues to falter. Officials hope that the Festival shopping center opening Fall of 1992 in east Anaheim will attract shoppers. SPORTS Anaheim Stadium is home to the California Angels and Los Angeles Rams. Anaheim Arena is scheduled to open fall 1993, hopes to attract professional basketball and hockey teams. EAST ANAHEIM HILLS Plans have been approved for the 8,000-home Mountain Park project. Plans also are proceeding for a 1,550-home Coal Canyon development. Work Force Service and tourism: 26.6% Retail trade: 24.7% Manufacturing: 20.6% City government: 10.3% Finance, insurance, real estate: 8.4% Construction: 5.6% Transportation, communication, utilities: 3.1% Other: 0.7% Top Employers

Employer Type of company Employees 1. Disneyland Amusement Park 9,000* 2. Rockwell International Defense Contractor 6,800 3. City of Anaheim Municipal Government 3,000 4. Kaiser Permanente Medical Center 2,000 Kwikset Corp. Lock Manufacturer 2,000 6. Anaheim Union High School District Education 1,748

* drops to more than 6,000 during the winter. Source: Anaheim City Hall, Chamber of Commerce Researched by DANNY SULLIVAN and KEVIN JOHNSON, Los Angeles Times