Community Profile: Inglewood

Inglewood, the self-proclaimed “City of Champions,” is home to Lakers basketball and Kings hockey at the Forum, Hollywood Park’s horse racetrack, two state-of-the-art medical centers and an earthquake fault whose destructive potential is distinctly big league.

But before Hollywood Park’s gate opened in 1938 and the “goose girl” was chosen to paddle about its lakes in a swan-shaped boat overseeing the track’s resident colony of ducks, Inglewood was a two-block stretch of livery stables, banks and small stores surrounded by bean and barley fields.

And long before sports franchises arrived, the city could boast a title: In 1923, its vast chinchilla ranches made it the “Chinchilla Capital of the World.”

As Inglewood developed, it became known as an affordable, middle-class suburb close to the beaches, the airport, downtown Los Angeles and various tourist spots.

By the early 1960s residents began leaving for bigger homes in neighboring suburbs. Then, in 1971, court-ordered busing for school integration spurred a rapid transformation from a virtually all-white bedroom community to a city with a predominantly minority population.

In 1987, a U.S. census report found that Inglewood’s African American residents were better educated and better paid than the residents of any other majority black community in the nation.

Two years later, when Inglewood was given the National Civic League’s All-America City Award, street signs went up trumpeting the honor.

But while city officials were still warming themselves in the award’s glow, civic pride was dealt a blow by the film “Grand Canyon,” which portrayed Inglewood as a crime-torn ghetto where a Lakers fan might lose his life, Lexus and cellular phone.

The city’s image was further damaged in the 1992 riots, when 18 commercial buildings were destroyed. Soon after, someone tried to mug the city’s police chief while he was pedaling his bike home from work. Finally, Inglewood made headlines when 11 people were shot in two nights of gang carnage.

But the town has spawned its share of heroes. In November, the City Council honored native son Darryl Taylor, 29, who was a crew member aboard the Amtrak Sunset Limited train that derailed in Arizona. Ignoring his own injuries, Taylor joined other crew members in rescuing injured passengers.