Valencia as a Suburb (CH 9)



Valencia is a suburb of a major metropolitan area known as Los Angeles. Valencia is the fourth largest city in Los Angeles County. Victor Gruen, who was a major player in developing American suburbia in the 1960's, was the architect of Valencia. For Valencia, he developed a compact center core with different styled neighborhoods connected by walkways known as the paseos. Valencia was very well planned out. A quote from an article on The economist.com says this about the planning of Valencia: "As one of the town's early planners explained, it would be “an island of reason in the path of metropolitan sprawl." But Valencia did not become the self contained community it was planned out to be. More than half of the residents of Valencia travel over the hill to Los Angeles for work and about the same number of people travel out to Valencia from Los Angeles for work. According to the article on The Economist.com this is an increasingly common pattern. It says that more than 45% of the available jobs are more than 10 miles outside of the city. This has changed the commute from suburb to city to city to suburb or even suburb to suburb.

Los Angeles grew quickly in the 20th century by using railroads and highways for their success. Los Angeles also had water transportation on it's side which helped the city grow even more rapidly. By the early 20th century, Los Angeles rivaled San Francisco as a major port of entry from Japan, and a gateway to the western United States. Los Angeles became the center for many suburbs and nearby towns and was labeled the regional business "Capital" for southern California and beyond. Los Angeles is just under New York in the urban hierarchy.

Valencia is a perfect example of a US edge city or booomburb which is a large and fast growing suburb. This is taken from an article on realtytimes.com and explains what is considered a boomburb. So what is a boomburb? "According to the Fannie Mae Foundation, a boomburb is an area that currently has more than 100,000 residents and has maintained double-digit rates of population growth in each recent decade, but is not the largest city in its metropolitan area. Boomburbs almost never have a dense central business area. And their housing, retail, entertainment, and offices are spread out and loosely configured. " An edge city is also a perfect way to describe Valencia. An edge city is also a great example of the multiple nuclei metropolitan model. Edge cities are large cities usually built by a single developer built near an urban area.

Valencia Transportation (CH 8)

The major freeways around Valencia is interstate 5 Golden State Freeway and Cal-14 Antelope Valley Freeway. Even though Valencia is in Los Angeles County, in and around Valencia does not have as bad of traffic as in Los Angeles. It is fairly recent that Santa Clarita became responsible for local transit, this was taken over by the city from Los Angeles in 1991. The Department of Public Works for Santa Clarita is in charge of monitoring traffic conditions to improve them and they also take care of the roads. The City of Santa Clarita Transit is the bus system in Valencia. There are buses that run between the smaller towns surrounding Valencia and then local buses that go from set focal points within Valencia. There is also what is called a commuter service bus that goes to certain popular business areas like dowtown LA, Century City, Van Nuys, Burbank, etc. It cost a $1 to ride the bus and you can buy a monthly pass for $25. For the commuter bus the fare is anywhere from $3.50 to $4.00 depending on what line you are on and you can buy a monthly pass for anywhere between $142.00 to $160.00. The bus routes also connect into the metrolink system. There is a metrolink station off of Soledad Canyon. The metrolink is the train that runs throughout California. This particular metrolink is serviced bu the Antelope Valley train and runs from Los Angeles Union Station to Lancaster. There is also what is called the Santa Clara River Trail, this is an eight mile paved bike/walking trail that runs through Valencia and connects it with the surrounding towns. This trail is in close connection to the letrlink stations and transit stops which makes it easy for riders to bike to their pick up destination. There are even bicycle lockers at all the metrolink stations.


I would say that Valencia is a pretty well planned out community when it comes to getting around. Not only do they have access to local transportation but there is access to the metrolink. On top of that there is an extensive group of paths used for travel. There is over sixty miles of trails and pasoes used for reacreational and commuting purposes. They can be used to get to the many transit stops or just to get around Valencia to many of the fun destinations like Magic Mountain or Valencia Towne Center. These trails are also used for biking, skating, joggin or walking. These trails are maintained by Santa Clarita's Parks, Recreation, and Community Services.
As far as commuting by air, Burbank airport is the closest airport with LAX not being too far away.


Valencia Employment (CH6)





Well, everyone knows Valencia oranges but they are actually named after the orange trees in Valencia, Spain. Although there are many oranges grown outside of Valencia in farms in and around Ventura County. One of the well known farms in Valencia is Lombardi farms and is a great place to go in the fall to pick out your pumkins. They are well known for their fabulous sweet corn and delicious vegetables. There is also a vineyard about 20 minutes away called Agua Dulce vineyard. This is a 90 acre fully operational winery and vineyard with daily tastings and tours. And then there are the farmers markets at College of the Canyons every Sunday morning and one in Newhall Ranch on Thursday nights. This is a great place to get fresh fruit, vegetables and sometimes even seafood or eggs from farms around the area.




As far as other employment in Valencia it is primarily service based. The largest employers being Magic Mountain Park, Saugus and William S. Hart School District, and Princess Cruises. As you can see on the pie 42% of the business is service related, 22% is in retail trade, and 11% is in finance, insurance and real estate. Most of the businesses in Valencia are small businesses with less than 5 employees. This makes up 59% of the businesses out here, with 19% employing 5 to 9 employees, and only 5% employ more than 50 employees. The pie below shows how the workforce is divided in Santa Clarita. With 124, 200 people employed: 48% are in the service sector, 13% is in manufacturing, and 9% are in the wholesale/retail trade sector. Despite the recent decline in jobs, Valencia has seen a 1.9% growth in the job market since 2007.

Valencia Politics (CH 5)


I have found out a lot about Valencia politics during this whole election process. Tucked away in such a liberal county of Los Angeles seems to be a very conservative town. There are many McCain/Palin signs and yes on prop 8 signs being displayed in many of the neighborhoods around town. I have to drive by about 20-100 people rallying with yes on prop 8 sign almost every day. My friends in Los Angeles don't believe me because it is so liberal there, it is more common to see many Obama signs and the No on Prop 8 seems to just be a given. Most of the information I have found wraps us in with Los Angeles County which has shown a history of voting Democratic for the most part. Even thought the Democratic population has increased we are still seeing a fifteen percent majority over the Democrats by the Republicans.

Santa Clarita is part of the 17th state senate district. In this district 47.1% are Republican, 35.9% Democratic, and 12.9% not registered for a particular party. This district is currently being represented by republican George Runner. Santa Cl aria is part of the 38th State Assembly District and is represented by assemblyman Cameron Smythe. Santa Clarita's mayor is Bob Kellar, Mayor pro-tem is Fran Ferry. The council members are: Laurie Ender, Marsha McLean, Laurene Weste, and the city manager is Kenneth R. Pulskamp.

Valencia's Population: Past and Present (Chptr 3-4)


In 1848 gold was found in California and the gold rush, bringing people to the west started. Less than three years after this discovery California had a big enough population to be declared a state. In the 19o0's the expansion of irrigation in the west allowed California to produce the fruits and vegetables for a national market.
A westward movement experienced an all time high when young GI's and their brides flocked west for new opportunities and plenty of sunshine. A lot of them were shipped off from California to Pearl Harbour and then moved out here after the war. Of course the company that owned half of the land in the valley wanted in on the action. Valencia was planned in the 1960's by the Newhall Land and Farming Company. Athol McBean was the owner of this company, thus what is now one of the main roads in Valencia called McBean Parkway. But there were several other things happening that made it possible for this community to thrive. In 1960 a state bond was passed to bring state water south from Feather River. The Castaic Lake Water Agency was formed to become a part of this state water project and this ensured a water source for the valley. And in 1965 governor Pat Brown made it more accessible by replacing the old 99 highway with a new interstate. The picture below is a 1963 rendering of Town Center
which started construction in 1992.


The population of just the city of Valencia is 10, 937. With a growth of 38.4% and a density of 385 people per square mile. The percent of this that is male is 50.7%, and female is 49.3%. The percent of families w/kids is 26.9%, married couples 66.3%, and 33.8% of the population is single. The recent job growth is 3.2% and the future job growth is 202.4%. These statistics are based on the neighborhood profile on the yahoo real estate website.
Another interesting find on this website is the number of students attending the schools in this area. These numbers are based on the individual school websites from April 2007.
California Institute of the Arts has 1242 students attending, The Master's College has 1,000, College of the Canyons is at 16,504 students. And our California State University, Northridge has a total of 33,243 students.

Physical Features and Natural Disasters (Chptr. 2)




Valencia is located in Santa Clarita which is a union of several surrounding communities including Saugus, Newhall, and Canyon Country. The boundaries of this area is the Golden State Freeway and the Antelope Valley Freeway, with a merger in Newhall Pass in the southernmost corner giving it it's triangular shape on the map. The weather is pretty moderate although it is a little more extreme than being right on the coast. All the research I have done shows the average temperatures as low as 36 with a high of 64 in January, getting up to as high as 95 in August with a low of 55. I am sorry, I live here and it seems like it gets hotter than95 but the highest temperature recorded was 113 in 1971. We have had temps in the low 100's during the months of July and August. Valencia is in the Mediterranean climatic region and usually the hottest month is August and the coolest month is January. Most of the rainfall which averages 15-18 inches falls between November and March.

Valencia is in the Western mountains, plateaus, and valleys landforms region of the United States. The coastal mountain are in the contact zone between two earth plates. The Pacific plate is moving North against the North American plate causing earthquakes. This movement of earth along these breaks are called fault lines and California is loaded with them. The one through Valencia, and one of the major one's is called the San Andreas Fault. The first earthquake I felt out here was on Tuesday July 29th-it was a 5.4 on the Richter scale. It was located 2 miles southwest of Chino Hills and 8.5 miles deep. It was scary-the first real earthquake I have felt since I moved out here in 1997. Another natural disaster to worry about out here is wildfires. Last year was one of the worst years for wildfires in California. We have friends that only live a few miles from us and were evacuated from there home. Driving home one evening we just saw fires in all the mountains around us,
orange flames everywhere
-it was wild!

Introduction: Where is Valencia and Why is it there? (Chptr.1)

Valencia is located in the Northwest corner of the Santa Clarita Valley adjacent to interstate 5. Valencia is a planned community with lots of well-landscaped boulevards connecting many different residential villages. Each of these villages are close to shopping and schools. Valencia also has a system of paved pathways called paseos. These pathways make it easy to travel around Valencia while walking or riding a bike. This is one of my favorite things about where I live, I am very close to a great system of paseos that I can go walking on and not have to worry about being around traffic, they are very clean and the landscaping is kept up nicely.

Valencia was first planned by the Newhall Land and Farming Company in the 1960's and is still developing. The total population is 26, 154 with a density of 5,009 persons per square mile. The female population is 13,222 and the male is 12,933. The median age is 33-34 years old the average family size is 3.7. All in all is sounds like a great place to live. Valencia is a nice city to live in as a family and is an easy way to still live near the big city, "Los Angeles", but be able to afford
a home and not worry about sending your kids to public schools. This is why we moved here and this is why it was voted as one of the top 100 places to live by Money magazine in 2006.

Valencia is in Santa Clarita Valley, which is..a valley..so the weather is a little more extreme than the weather along the coast. But it is usually bright and sunny. The highest temp. in July is 94.2 and the lowest in January is 36.1 There is an average of 147 clear days out of the year and about 13.96 inches of precipitation per year. It is surrounded by the Angeles National Forest. Valencia is also home to Magic Mountain Amusement Park and Hurricane Harbor Water Park.