By the 1980s the expanding metropolis of Los Angeles had developed an array of serious social problems, many affecting youth: poor schooling, gangs, drugs, and violence. These problems reached notorious proportions in the early 1990s, when gang membership was estimated at 30,000.
Youth gangs are concentrated among poor, working-class, and minority neighborhoods, primarily in the core of the metropolis. This area includes the South Central portion of the City of Los Angeles, and also the cities of Compton and Inglewood.
Although youth gangs have been common characteristics of such neighborhoods in U.S. cities for more than a century, two recent developments have made them particularly dangerous: the ready availability of firearms and the involvement of these gangs in the international narcotics trade.
Gangs fight for turf, small territories in which they retail drugs imported by large organized crime cartels operating from Colombia and Mexico.
Local and federal authorities have had little success in suppressing this aspect of the gang problem.
A major contributing problem has been the failure of the public high school system.
Intolerable levels of overcrowding in the central city schools, crumbling school buildings without working bathrooms, and poor teacher performance produce high dropout rates and contribute to the gang and drug problems.
The Los Angeles Unified School District has been targeted for major reforms.
In 2000 the district was divided into 11 subdistricts in the hopes of reducing bureaucracy and responding more quickly to students’ needs.
Control of pollution is one area in which Los Angeles has achieved moderate improvement.
The city’s notorious smog—produced mainly by exhaust emissions from millions of trucks, diesel buses, and automobiles, and trapped by the Santa Monica and San Gabriel mountains—is still among the worst in the United States.
It is linked to a wide range of health problems, most noticeably to an alarming increase in asthma among children.
It reached its worst levels in the 1970s, but strict vehicle emission standards imposed by the federal Environmental Protection Agency have had a marked effect.
Federal and state officials are working to impose new measures, such as conversion of buses from diesel to natural gas and lower emission levels from automobile manufacturers.
Another major environmental problem has been the pollution of the Santa Monica Bay.
Millions of gallons of untreated runoff from streets and lawns flow into the bay through storm sewers, especially during the winter rainy seasons.
Dangerous levels of bacteria are regularly found at many of the beaches. City planners have attempted to have storm drain runoff diverted into treatment plants.
Los Angeles continues to struggle to meet its mass transportation needs.
In the late 1990s the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) began construction on an ambitious subway and surface light rail system. However, construction costs skyrocketed and, after discovering rampant mismanagement, federal authorities temporarily shut down the project and imposed greater oversight.
Citizen interest groups forced the MTA to redirect its funds to the much more widely used bus system.
The unwieldy size of the City of Los Angeles and the seeming failure of its educational and transportation efforts have fueled movements in some communities to break away and form smaller municipalities. Such movements are particularly strong in the San Fernando Valley and San Pedro areas.
In response, in 2000 the city charter was revised in an effort to give greater voice to local neighborhoods.
Youth gangs are concentrated among poor, working-class, and minority neighborhoods, primarily in the core of the metropolis. This area includes the South Central portion of the City of Los Angeles, and also the cities of Compton and Inglewood.
Although youth gangs have been common characteristics of such neighborhoods in U.S. cities for more than a century, two recent developments have made them particularly dangerous: the ready availability of firearms and the involvement of these gangs in the international narcotics trade.
Gangs fight for turf, small territories in which they retail drugs imported by large organized crime cartels operating from Colombia and Mexico.
Local and federal authorities have had little success in suppressing this aspect of the gang problem.
A major contributing problem has been the failure of the public high school system.
Intolerable levels of overcrowding in the central city schools, crumbling school buildings without working bathrooms, and poor teacher performance produce high dropout rates and contribute to the gang and drug problems.
The Los Angeles Unified School District has been targeted for major reforms.
In 2000 the district was divided into 11 subdistricts in the hopes of reducing bureaucracy and responding more quickly to students’ needs.
Control of pollution is one area in which Los Angeles has achieved moderate improvement.
The city’s notorious smog—produced mainly by exhaust emissions from millions of trucks, diesel buses, and automobiles, and trapped by the Santa Monica and San Gabriel mountains—is still among the worst in the United States.
It is linked to a wide range of health problems, most noticeably to an alarming increase in asthma among children.
It reached its worst levels in the 1970s, but strict vehicle emission standards imposed by the federal Environmental Protection Agency have had a marked effect.
Federal and state officials are working to impose new measures, such as conversion of buses from diesel to natural gas and lower emission levels from automobile manufacturers.
Another major environmental problem has been the pollution of the Santa Monica Bay.
Millions of gallons of untreated runoff from streets and lawns flow into the bay through storm sewers, especially during the winter rainy seasons.
Dangerous levels of bacteria are regularly found at many of the beaches. City planners have attempted to have storm drain runoff diverted into treatment plants.
Los Angeles continues to struggle to meet its mass transportation needs.
In the late 1990s the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) began construction on an ambitious subway and surface light rail system. However, construction costs skyrocketed and, after discovering rampant mismanagement, federal authorities temporarily shut down the project and imposed greater oversight.
Citizen interest groups forced the MTA to redirect its funds to the much more widely used bus system.
The unwieldy size of the City of Los Angeles and the seeming failure of its educational and transportation efforts have fueled movements in some communities to break away and form smaller municipalities. Such movements are particularly strong in the San Fernando Valley and San Pedro areas.
In response, in 2000 the city charter was revised in an effort to give greater voice to local neighborhoods.
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