Gateway Cities

HISTORY

Historically, the Gateway region is the industrial heartland of Greater Los Angeles . The huge expanse of flat land in the floodplains of the lower Los Angeles and San Gabriel rivers proved ideal for industrial development, and large-scale urbanization began in the 1900s. The cheap, fertile land was generally subdivided into long, narrow "railroad lots" aimed at Midwestern and Southern farmers starting new lives as workers in the region's factories. Explosive industrial growth and concurrent Suburb anization occurred in World War II and continued throughout the Cold War ; by the 1980s, Los Angeles County had become the leading center of industrial production in the United States, with the Gateway Cities leading the way. However, the end of the Cold War and the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico had a devastating effect on the region, and by the end of the 1990s industrial output was far below its historical peak. High-tech industries spurned the area as too polluted and crime-ridden, moving instead to locales such as the western San Fernando Valley , southern Orange County , and Santa Clarita . The logistics firms that grew exponentially with increased traffic at the Port Of Los Angeles largely ignored the region as well, instead choosing inland cities such Corona and Colton . Most of the region's whites and middle-class blacks moved to other parts of Southern California (particularly the Inland Empire ) or left the state altogether; the vacuum was filled primarily by persons of Mexican ancestry, with the result that most of the cities of the Gateway region have substantial Latino majorities.

EDUCATION

Universities