Published on November 23, 2007

Los Angeles, City of Angels - Gang Capital of America

Los Angeles is the most populous city in the state of California, the second most populous city in the United States (after New York City) and the largest city on the West Coast.

In 1969, Los Angeles became one of the birthplaces of the Internet, as the first ARPANET transmission was sent from UCLA to SRI in Menlo Park.

Donwtown LA. Photo by Mihai Adam.Often abbreviated as L.A., and nicknamed the "City of Angels", it has an estimated population of 3,849,368. The city extends for 71 km longitudinally and for 47 km latitudinally.

The Los Angeles–Long Beach–Santa Ana metropolitan area, or Greater Los Angeles, is home to nearly 13 million people who hail from all over the globe and speak over a hundred different languages.

Los Angeles is the seat of Los Angeles County, the most populous county in the United States, and its inhabitants are referred to as "Angelenos".

Los Angeles was founded in 1781 by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve as El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula (The Village of Our Lady, the Queen of the Angels of Porciúncula). It became a part of Mexico in 1821 following independence from Spain and then a part of the United States in 1848 at the conclusion of the Mexican-American War.

Los Angeles is one of the world's most prominent centers of culture, technology, and international trade, and is home to world-renowned institutions covering a broad range of professional and cultural fields. The city and its immediate vicinity lead the world in producing popular entertainment -] such as motion picture, television, and recorded music — which forms the base of Los Angeles' international fame and global status.

Due to its location in the Pacific Ring of Fire, Los Angeles is subject to earthquakes. The geologic instability produces numerous fault lines both above and below ground, which altogether cause approximately 10,000 earthquakes every year. Parts of the city are also vulnerable to Pacific Ocean tsunamis; harbor areas were damaged by waves from the Great Chilean Earthquake in 1960.

Due to geography, heavy reliance on automobiles, and the Los Angeles/Long Beach port complex, Los Angeles suffers from air pollution in the form of smog. Unlike other large cities that rely on rain to clear smog, Los Angeles only gets 15 inches (381 mm) of rain each year, allowing pollution to accumulate over multiple consecutive days. The 2006 annual report of the American Lung Association ranks the city as the most polluted in the country.

Hollywood, LA. Photo by Mihai Adam.The city is divided into many neighborhoods, many of which were towns that were annexed by the growing city. There are also several independent cities in and around Los Angeles, but they are popularly grouped with the city of Los Angeles, either due to being completely engulfed as enclaves by Los Angeles, or lying within its immediate vicinity. Generally, the city is divided into the following areas: Downtown Los Angeles, East Los Angeles, South Los Angeles, the Harbor Area, Hollywood, Wilshire, West Los Angeles, and the San Fernando and Crescenta Valleys.

Hollywood. Photo by Mihai Adam.Some well-known communities of Los Angeles include Watts, Venice Beach, the Downtown Financial District, Los Feliz, Silver Lake, Hollywood, Hancock Park, Koreatown, Westwood and the more affluent areas of Bel-Air, Benedict Canyon, Hollywood Hills, Pacific Palisades, and Brentwood.

Important landmarks in Los Angeles include Chinatown, Koreatown, Little Tokyo, Disney Concert Hall, Kodak Theater, Griffith Observatory, Getty Center, Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Grauman's Chinese Theater, Hollywood sign, Hollywood Boulevard, Capitol Records Tower, Los Angeles City Hall, Hollywood Bowl, Watts Towers, Staples Center, Dodger Stadium and La Placita Olvera/Olvera Street.

The economy of Los Angeles is driven by international trade, entertainment (television, motion pictures, recorded music), aerospace, technology, petroleum, fashion, apparel, and tourism. Los Angeles is also the largest manufacturing center in the United States. The contiguous ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach together comprise the most significant port in North America and one of the most important ports in the world, and they are vital to trade within the Pacific Rim.

The city is home to five major Fortune 500 companies, and the metropolitan area contains the headquarters of even more companies, many of whom wish to escape the city's high taxes. For example, Los Angeles charges a gross receipts tax based on a percentage of business revenue, while many neighboring cities charge only small flat fees.

By the next national census, Los Angeles is expected to have a Latino majority for the first time since 1850. The Los Angeles International Airport is the number one point of entry for immigrants in the country. The Latino, Asian American, and Caribbean populations are growing particularly quickly — the Asian-American population is the largest of any U.S. city.

Los Angeles hosts large populations of Cambodians, Iranians, Armenians, Belizeans, Bulgarians, Ethiopians, Filipinos, Guatemalans, Hungarians, Koreans, Israelis, Mexicans, Salvadorans, Thais, and Pacific Islanders such as Samoans. Los Angeles is also home to the largest populations of Japanese living in the United States, and has one of the largest Native American populations in the country. The metropolitan area also is home to the second largest concentration of people of Jewish descent in the Americas, after New York City. Los Angeles also has the second largest Nicaraguan community in the US after Miami. It also host a sizable South Asian community. Los Angeles experienced minor waves of European immigration in the late 1800s and early 1900s and the city has sizeable populations of German, Greek, Irish, Italian, Romanian, Romani, Polish, Portuguese, Serb, Spanish, Lebanese, Croatian and Ukrainian descent.

Los Angeles is home to people from more than 140 countries speaking 224 different languages. Ethnic enclaves like Chinatown, Historic Filipinotown, Koreatown, Little Armenia, Little Ethiopia, Little Persia, Little India, Little Tokyo, and Thai Town provide examples of the polyglot character of Los Angeles.

The city is home to a large number of gangsters and professional criminals. According to a May 2001 Drug Threat Assessment by the National Drug Intelligence Center, Los Angeles County is home to 152,000 gang members organized into 1,350 gangs. This has led to the city being referred to as the "Gang Capital of America."

Car chases happen more often than in most other major cities, with the city's complex freeway system allowing for lengthier pursuits. Other automobile-oriented crimes include car-to-car shootings, drive-by shootings, freeway shootings, hit-and-run accidents, and carjackings.

Los Angeles has been experiencing significant decline in violent and property crimes since the mid-1990s, and hit a record low in 2006, with 102,297 property crimes and 29,737 acts of violence, of which 481 were homicides.

Criminality peaked in 1992 with 245,129 recorded property crimes and 72,667 recorded acts of violence — of which 1,096 were homicides.

The distribution of homicides in the city is uneven with nearly half of them occurring in the four stations of the South Bureau of the LAPD encompassing South Los Angeles and the Harbor area. A further quarter occur in the areas covered by the Central Bureau which covers Downtown and its environs.