Discontent Runs High in Valley, Times Poll Shows : Communities: More than half feel their quality of life is declining. The least satisfied are those living in minority areas or gated neighborhoods.

A new Los Angeles Times poll has found a substantial reservoir of discontent among San Fernando Valley residents, with 42% of those polled saying things were going badly in their community.

The same percentage of residents thought crime was the number one local problem and more than half felt the quality of life in their community was declining. Thirty-five percent said they were thinking of moving within the next year, with a large share of those, 28% of the total, saying they wanted to move beyond the Valley.

Still, nearly 60% conceded that, overall, they were at least somewhat satisfied with their community. That’s noticeably less than community satisfaction levels measured regionally, statewide or even nationally but higher than measured in Central or South Los Angeles in recent months.

Those likely to be satisfied are young, have moved here recently or reside in a community where Anglos are in the majority, the poll shows.

Those particularly unlikely to be satisfied with their communities were those who said they live in mostly minority communities and those who, perhaps surprisingly, said they lived in gated or security buildings. Only half of those in secured circumstances said they were satisfied with their communities compared to 61% of those who were not shielded in some way from the outside world.

The wide-ranging telephone poll of 966 adults was conducted April 24 and 25. It delved into the attitudes of adult residents of Burbank, San Fernando and the Los Angeles portion of the Valley toward their communities. It has a sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Poll Director John Brennan said the responses counter the stereotype of gated communities and security buildings as bastions of “contented, affluent white homeowners hiding themselves from the rest of the world in plush secluded areas.”

The affluent and largely white Knollwood area of Granada Hills might be expected to fit that stereotype. Knollwood is patrolled by a security service, but the homeowner association is considering installing gates. Residents such as Gene and Helen Simmons said they no longer feel safe.

“We’re in a ‘hit’ area,” poll respondent Gene Simmons said. “These kids are so sophisticated now and they say, ‘Hey, what do they have in their houses?’ ”

Simmons, 65, is a real estate investor and the owner of a string of private schools, but he and his wife are planning to move to Texas or Georgia as soon as possible. “They (the criminals) have us on the run, they really do, and I’m one of the runners,” he said. “You used to see for sale signs here only very rarely, but now they’re popping up all over.”

Those whose residences are secured by devices of some sort tend to be younger, less affluent and likelier to live in racially mixed environs than others. Not only are they more likely to be unhappy with their communities, they are less prone to feel safe on their streets.

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Beverly Fraiser, 51, lives in a security building in a largely Latino area near the Panorama City mall. She said she rarely goes out alone and tries to stay away from her windows, for fear that she will attract attention from drug dealers who congregate on the street below. Disabled by arthritis and back problems, she said she tries to walk without a cane to and from her car so that potential attackers won’t see that she is vulnerable.

“I’m petrified,” she said in a post-poll interview. “I feel like a prisoner in my own home.”

Her building’s walk-in security gate, she said, is often broken or left open by other tenants. The gate on the parking garage allows outsiders to walk in when the cars come through. Even the security guards who patrol the building don’t make her feel safe.

Fraiser said the neighborhood has become dangerous just in the past three years and she would like to move, but her disability income is not enough to allow her to do so.

Like Fraiser and Simmons, just over half of those in gated communities and complexes say they are contemplating a move, compared to less than a third of those in non-secured living situations. Those who want to leave are particularly likely to cite crime and quality of life issues as a reason for wanting to do so.

More than half of those who live in mostly minority communities, 56%, also say they want to move, compared to just 26% of those who live in Anglo neighborhoods.

Valleywide, 43% of the respondents said they live in a mostly Anglo area, 37% said they live in a racially mixed area and 19% characterized their neighborhood as mostly minority.

Even though the stereotype of the Valley as a mostly white, mostly affluent suburb no longer fits as easily as it once did, residents of areas that do match that mold are among those most likely to hold favorable views of their communities.

“I always said I would never live in the Valley, then we decided to buy a house,” said poll respondent Randy Lofficier, 40, a writer who moved to Reseda eight years ago. “I always thought I would hate living here, but I really enjoy it. A lot of our friends have moved here and they like it for the same reasons.”

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In a follow-up interview she described her neighborhood as quiet and safe, a place where children play in the street and people are friendly. “Nobody seems to be fearing for their lives,” Lofficier said. “There’s a sense of being in a very comfortable, suburban environment but, at the same time, you know you are part of a larger city.”

Seven in 10 respondents who said they lived in majority Anglo neighborhoods expressed satisfaction. So did 67% of those polled under the age of 25 and 74% of those who have lived in the Valley less than five years.

Burbank residents were the most satisfied of all, with about nine out of 10 saying they were at least somewhat content. That compares to only 55% of residents of the Valley portion of Los Angeles who expressed that opinion.

Jonathan Rude, 35, a chiropractor who has lived in Burbank all of his life, remains upbeat about his hometown. “It’s a well-rounded city, there’s lots of things to do,” he said. “There’s programs for seniors, programs for children, programs for everybody.”

He said in an interview after participating in the poll that he liked the city’s parks, tennis courts, basketball courts and the new Media City mall that is flourishing downtown. Although he worries about crime, his neighborhood remains calm and safe, he said.

Those living in minority neighborhoods, which in the Valley are more likely to be largely Latino areas of the east and northeast Valley, express far more negative attitudes about their circumstances than do those who say they live in Anglo areas.

But this finding does not mean that minorities themselves are more likely to think negatively of their communities. In fact, Latinos, the only non-Anglo group that the poll sample is sufficient to break out answers for, are more likely than Anglos to be satisfied with their communities, to think their neighborhoods are safe for nighttime walks and to think that things are going well.

The character of a neighborhood rather than the ethnicity of its residents is more of a factor in people’s attitudes about where they live, the poll results show.

Those who live in minority areas also are more likely to say they live where they do by dint of circumstances rather than by choice. Although 60% of those polled Valleywide say they live where they do by choice, 58% of those living in minority neighborhoods say they feel trapped there by circumstances, as do 51% of those with lower incomes.

The residents of minority neighborhoods cite crime as their communities’ top problem just as frequently as residents of other areas. But the residents of mostly minority areas are far more likely--by a margin of 63% to 46%--to feel that walking alone on the streets of their neighborhood is unsafe.

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Lifelong Pacoima resident Andrea Clark said she is nervous about the dark areas of her apartment building at night, because “people hang out . . . and you don’t really know what they’re up to.”

The 23-year-old post office clerk says she is dissatisfied with her community because it lacks “organized things for the teens and so you see them hanging around and not getting involved in anything positive.”

Another Pacoima resident who participated in the poll, Geraldine Furlow, offers a contrasting view. The 35-year-old former Culver City resident said her neighborhood is quieter and safer than it was when she moved there four years ago.

Still, she is planning to move soon to Georgia or South Carolina. “I have family there and it’s probably a lot better in the South, as far as raising kids goes,” she said.

According to the poll, the desire to move is only partially related to dissatisfaction with one’s community: Half of those dissatisfied with their communities want to move while just a quarter of those who say they are satisfied want to.

But rootedness or lack of it also seems to be related to factors such as age, homeownership and the length of time people have lived in the Valley.

For example, more young adults plan to move than older people even though younger ones like their communities better. Renters are about twice as likely to be thinking about a change even though renters are as satisfied as the owners.

And although longtime Valley residents are less pleased with community life than newcomers, more of the latter group, 43%, are planning moves.

Fifty-two percent of the new arrivals, who have lived in the Valley five years or less, have college degrees and slightly fewer have household incomes of $40,000 or over. These numbers are quite similar to those for the Valley adult population as a whole, indicating that fears that the Valley is undergoing a dramatic shift because of immigration are probably unwarranted.

Three-quarters of newcomers are in the work force, mostly in administrative or professional positions. Just 19% have blue-collar jobs, compared with 21% of Valley residents overall.

Though newcomers are disproportionately likely to want to move, they do not make up the lion’s share of potential movers: in fact 77% of those thinking of moving have lived in the Valley more than five years.

Those thinking of moving are as likely as other Valley residents to be parents, and their income and educational levels are similar to Valley residents generally. Though the movers themselves are no more likely to be Anglo, they are more likely to live in mixed ethnic neighborhoods and less prone to live in white sections.

Quality of Life in the Valley

Although more people who live in the Valley consider themselves residents of the Valley rather than of their city or neighborhoods--and most feel things are going well in their comunities--the majority feel their quality of life has diminished. *How is it Going? How do you feel things are going in your community these days? Very Well: 7% Pretty well: 47% Don’t Know: 3% Very badly: 13% Pretty badly: 30% *Are Things Getting Better? Is the quality of life in your community getting better, worse, or staying about the same? Worse: 54% Same: 39% Better: 6% Don’t know: 1% *Where Do You Live? When you think of where you live, what do you consider yourself a resident of: City live in: 25% San Fernando Valley: 46% Neighborhood: 27% All equally: 1% Don’t know: 1% Source: Los Angeles Times Poll

HOW THE POLL WAS CONDUCTED

The Times Poll interviewed 966 San Fernando Valley adults from the cities of Los Angeles, Burbank and San Fernando, by telephone, April 24 and 25. Telephone numbers were chosen from a list of all exchanges in the area. Random-digit dialing techniques were used to ensure that listed and unlisted numbers had an opportunity to be contacted. The sample was weighted slightly to conform with census figures for sex, race, age, education and household size. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. The margin of sampling error for the total sample is plus or minus 4 percentage points. For certain subgroups the error margin is somewhat higher. Poll results can also be affected by other factors such as question wording and the order in which questions are presented.

Times Assistant Poll Director Susan Pinkus contributed to this story.