Urban Atlas Gives Southland Mixed Grades

USC research faculty give mixed grades to Southern California’s economic, social and physical conditions in a second annual report card to be released Tuesday.

The survey by USC’s Southern California Studies Center finds hopeful trends about the job market but raises serious concerns about housing costs and decaying infrastructure.

“All things considered, we are doing pretty well economically. However, some of the clouds on the horizon are troublesome. And I think the longer-term prosperity of the region depends on directly addressing those issues,” said USC geography professor Michael Dear, director of the regional center.

That think tank’s second Atlas of Southern California surveys various topics in Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, San Bernardino and Riverside counties. But the emphasis this year is on Los Angeles County as it emerges from a recession that never halted waves of primarily low-income Latino immigrants.

“A Metropolitan Roller-Coaster Ride” is the colorful chapter title used to describe economic and demographic changes since 1985. For example, median income of all Los Angeles County households climbed from $35,700 in 1985 to $36,600 in 1989, then dropped to $29,000 by 1995.

The 19% decline from 1985 was “most extraordinary,” probably double that experienced in previous recessions, said Dowell Myers, who wrote that chapter with William Baer, both professors in the USC School of Urban Planning and Development. Besides the loss of good-paying jobs, the influx of poorly educated immigrants helped push those incomes lower, Myers said.

The economic recovery is improving matters, he added, although solid figures on very recent household income are not yet available. Still, he does not foresee the end to some worrisome housing trends documented between 1985 and 1989, such as the decline in the percentage of households that owned homes from 48% to 45% and a sharp increase in overcrowding in rental units.

By design, the atlas each year tackles a different bunch of issues, Dear said. Education, health and crime were studied last year and do not figure highly this year. The new 78-page report looked at, among other things, the impact of undocumented Latino immigrants and the status of black women in the work force.

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The illegal immigrants did not cause any significant decrease in wages or employment opportunities for others across Los Angeles County, the study contended. By filling manual jobs and buying local goods and services, “undocumented Latino immigrants appear to boost the Los Angeles County economy based on their labor market activity,” wrote USC economics professor Enrico Marcelli.

The number of African American women in Southern California managerial and professional jobs rose dramatically from 1970 to 1990 as their ranks in such jobs as chambermaids and ironers declined. In Southern California, the percentage of black women earning college degrees doubled, to about 20%. In some central Los Angeles neighborhoods, black women still have extremely high rates of unemployment, which USC sociologist Angela James suggests might decline with the completion of such redevelopment projects as the Alameda Transportation Corridor linking the harbor to downtown.

Written by 24 faculty members, the atlas does not make many specific recommendations for action, although it urges more public investment in libraries, parks, police and fire services, port and airport facilities. “The slow starvation of that sector is going to threaten our ability to bounce back,” Dear said in an interview.

For example, by professional standards, more than half of Los Angeles County does not have enough fire stations and almost a third of the county’s residents have to share their local library branch with more than 60,000 people, according to research by USC economics professor Richard Day.

The report does not directly enter into the financial and managerial woes of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority and its rail projects. Still, engineering professor Randolph Hall noted that throughout Southern California “there is little evidence that additional investment is attracting significant ridership to transit from outside its traditional base of urban residents.”

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In other matters, the region gets good marks for the diversity and strength of its religious communities, which are providing more and more social services; for new Wall Street investments in local commercial real estate; for its dance, theater and public art.

USC gives mild warnings about low citizen participation in elections and much sharper scoldings about the upcoming difficulties of welfare reform; the rise in ethnic and anti-gay hate crimes; and inadequate preparations for more natural disasters like earthquakes and floods.

The Atlas of Southern California will be formally unveiled at an invitation-only meeting Tuesday at the Los Angeles Central Library in downtown. Copies are $25 apiece and can be ordered by calling (213) 740-5303.