BOOM: No wonder there are no more...
BOOM: No wonder there are no more orange groves in the San Fernando Valley. Since 1960, the population of the Valley has more than doubled, going from 700,000 to 1.6 million in 1990, the year of the last federal census. Will the tough Southern California recession mean the trend will reverse? We’ll have to wait for the year 2000 and the next official census to find out for sure.
FOREVER FOR SALE: Has a for-sale sign been in front of your house so long that you’ve begun to consider it a lawn ornament? You are not alone. (B1) . . . The recession might be on the wane in the rest of the country, but it is still hard to sell a house in the San Fernando Valley. Just ask Darrel and Carol Swendener of Northridge . They’ve been trying for two years.
NORTH COUNTY MINIBOOM: The Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys were hit hard by the local recession, especially in their once-booming housing markets. But these areas seem poised to bounce back quicker than the San Fernando Valley. (B1) . . . Aerospace jobs have been gained, not lost, up here and tax revenues are being generated by bustling shopping areas.
CALTRANS ANONYMOUS: Everyone knows about the occasional delays due to construction on parts of the freeways that were badly damaged by the January earthquake. But what about all those other freeway areas where Caltrans seems to have had an almost ongoing presence in the last few months? (B1) . . . Odds are, these unheralded workers are smoothing out the many portions of the freeways not critically damaged but badly roughed up by the quake.
BUNGEE MADNESS: You might be grief-stricken to hear that if you didn’t bungee jump over the weekend at the San Fernando Valley Fair, it was your last chance to do so at this year’s fair. (B16) . . . The four-day fair, attended by about 51,000 people, came to an end Sunday.
Population Boom
Valley residents, 1940-1990 1940: 213,000 1950: 400,000 1960: 700,000 1970: 1 million 1980: 1.3 million 1990: 1.6 million Source: U.S. Census
