Los Angeles is a major trade, manufacturing, and distribution center for the United States, the Pacific Rim, and the world.
Its leading economic sectors include shipping, manufacturing, communications, finance, and fashion.
Its port is among the busiest in the United States, handling $113.9 billion in cargo value during 2001.
Los Angeles is also a center for advanced industries, notably high-technology and information-related concerns.
It is a leading producer of aircraft, aerospace, and military equipment, with several large firms engaged as U.S. government defense contractors.
It is also the world capital of the motion picture, television, radio, and recording industries.
Los Angeles manufacturing, once remarkable for the production of automobiles and rubber in large assembly-line factories, has shifted to smaller enterprises with a greater emphasis on light manufacturing, refinishing, and recycling.
Leading products include garments, food products, furniture, electronics, and pharmaceuticals. Sitting atop a series of oil fields, the metropolis is also a major producer and refiner of petroleum products.
In 1997, 80 percent of the metropolitan region’s labor force worked in service-related industries (wholesale and retail trade, transportation, finance, insurance, real estate, and personal or professional services) and 20 percent were engaged in the production of goods (construction and manufacturing).
Within the service sector, 39.3 percent were employed in personal and professional services; 29.2 percent in trade; 18.1 percent in federal, state, or local government; and 7.1 percent in finance, insurance, and real estate.
A. Entertainment Industries
The motion-picture, television, radio, and recording industries have been greatly transformed in recent decades through corporate mergers and the decline of the studio system, in which studios controlled every stage of the moviemaking process, from screenwriting to production to distribution to exhibition.
From the 1930s through the 1950s motion pictures were dominated by seven studios, all headquartered in Los Angeles: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO), 20th Century-Fox, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Columbia, and Universal.
Over the years, antitrust actions forced studios to split off their theater chains, and the industry became more and more decentralized. Production is now conducted by thousands of small independent enterprises, which work on a film-by-film contract basis, with the major studio corporations acting as producers. Meanwhile, the studios themselves have been absorbed into giant entertainment conglomerates such as Sony Corporation, Time Warner Inc., The Walt Disney Company, and Viacom, Inc. All the entertainment conglomerates are now competing for customer share of the Internet market as well.
B. Transportation
A distinctive feature of the Los Angeles region is its organization around the principal freeway corridors.
The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) runs the region’s mass transit system, consisting of buses and light rail, heavy rail, and commuter rail lines. The Metro Rail system is a mostly above-ground light rail network serving the core areas with trains and subways. However, the majority of the mass transit riders use the MTA’s vast bus network.
Its leading economic sectors include shipping, manufacturing, communications, finance, and fashion.
Its port is among the busiest in the United States, handling $113.9 billion in cargo value during 2001.
Los Angeles is also a center for advanced industries, notably high-technology and information-related concerns.
It is a leading producer of aircraft, aerospace, and military equipment, with several large firms engaged as U.S. government defense contractors.
It is also the world capital of the motion picture, television, radio, and recording industries.
Los Angeles manufacturing, once remarkable for the production of automobiles and rubber in large assembly-line factories, has shifted to smaller enterprises with a greater emphasis on light manufacturing, refinishing, and recycling.
Leading products include garments, food products, furniture, electronics, and pharmaceuticals. Sitting atop a series of oil fields, the metropolis is also a major producer and refiner of petroleum products.
In 1997, 80 percent of the metropolitan region’s labor force worked in service-related industries (wholesale and retail trade, transportation, finance, insurance, real estate, and personal or professional services) and 20 percent were engaged in the production of goods (construction and manufacturing).
Within the service sector, 39.3 percent were employed in personal and professional services; 29.2 percent in trade; 18.1 percent in federal, state, or local government; and 7.1 percent in finance, insurance, and real estate.
A. Entertainment Industries
The motion-picture, television, radio, and recording industries have been greatly transformed in recent decades through corporate mergers and the decline of the studio system, in which studios controlled every stage of the moviemaking process, from screenwriting to production to distribution to exhibition.
From the 1930s through the 1950s motion pictures were dominated by seven studios, all headquartered in Los Angeles: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO), 20th Century-Fox, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Columbia, and Universal.
Over the years, antitrust actions forced studios to split off their theater chains, and the industry became more and more decentralized. Production is now conducted by thousands of small independent enterprises, which work on a film-by-film contract basis, with the major studio corporations acting as producers. Meanwhile, the studios themselves have been absorbed into giant entertainment conglomerates such as Sony Corporation, Time Warner Inc., The Walt Disney Company, and Viacom, Inc. All the entertainment conglomerates are now competing for customer share of the Internet market as well.
B. Transportation
A distinctive feature of the Los Angeles region is its organization around the principal freeway corridors.
The central east-west corridor is the Santa Monica Freeway (I-10), which carries hundreds of thousands of vehicles every day through a string of urban commercial centers from Santa Monica on the Pacific Ocean to Palm Springs in the Mohave Desert.
Three freeways link the region's central districts in the northwest-southeast direction, paralleling the Pacific Ocean: the San Diego Freeway (I-405), the Harbor-Pasadena Freeway (I-110), and the Golden State Freeway (I-5). The major freeway interchanges each handle hundreds of thousands of vehicles every day, and the entire regional system carries millions of vehicles each day.The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) runs the region’s mass transit system, consisting of buses and light rail, heavy rail, and commuter rail lines. The Metro Rail system is a mostly above-ground light rail network serving the core areas with trains and subways. However, the majority of the mass transit riders use the MTA’s vast bus network.
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