bkshopr - 12 October 2009 08:58 PM

I did not know South Gate was once a white elitist community

It was a white bastion till the mid-50s, as was Huntington Park.
Some LA gang history

“In Huntington Park, Bell, and South Gate, towns that were predominately white, teenagers formed some of the early street clubs during the 1940s. One of the most infamous clubs of that time was the Spook Hunters, a group of white teenagers that often attacked black youths. If blacks were seen outside of the black settlement area, which was roughly bounded by Slauson to the South, Alameda Avenue to the east, and Main[5] Street to the west, they were often attacked. The name of this club emphasized their racist attitude towards blacks, as “Spook” is a derogatory term used to identify blacks and “Hunters” highlighted their desire to attack blacks as their method of fighting integration and promoting residential segregation. Their animosity towards blacks was publicly known; the back of their club jackets displayed an animated black face with exaggerated facial features and a noose hanging around the neck.”

bkshopr - 13 October 2009 02:04 PM

Geotpf - 13 October 2009 06:30 AM

EvaLSeraphim - 12 October 2009 01:04 PM

acpme - 12 October 2009 12:57 PM

yes because of stringent design guidelines in the city.

here’s a page from the design guidelines and it reads just like a bkshopr post. the pics from the page pretty much sums it up: NO MCMANSIONS.

Now if we could only get the County Board of Supes to pass the same rules for North Tustin… The anti-regulation and “property rights” crowd would never go for it, unfortunately.

Well, I’m personally in that particular boat. If you want to build an ugly monstrosity, it’s your land, you should be able to do what you want, IMHO.

Riverside 1920’s enclaves and Mission Inn were the destination resort for the rich along with the La Quinta in Indio. Property values were high compared to OC. Well known LA architects designed nice homes for the older wealthy citizens gravitated to the dry heat destination ideal for arthritis.

During the late 1930’s both cities wanted to increase population and abolished their architectural guidelines to allow for greater flexibilities in building types as well as styles. Old neighborhoods began to experience tear down for new developments keeping up with the trends. Trends including 50’s white flat roofs, the shallow pitched roofs of the 1960’s ranch, contractor modern condos of the 70’s and the 80’s Mediterranean have all diluted the quaint neighborhoods once homes to the orchard barons.

Riverside has not recovered from a bad decision made long ago during the 1930’s despite of having the top Mission Inn Hotel, UC Riverside and the near by world renowned Loma Linda Hospital and Research Center RE property value has always been the lowest of all SoCal counties.

There are still a lot of very nice older homes in Riverside, especially in the Wood Streets, Victoria, and downtown areas, many of which are protected by design restrictions and the like.  A large segment of the city is tract homes built in the 1950’s and 1960’s (mostly small houses on fairly large lots).  These were mostly built on former farms or vacant land; other than an occassional farm house, I don’t think there were many tear downs to build them.  Sometimes the farm house survives, surrounded by newer houses.  Riverside only became really built out recently; most tract construction is still on vacant land.  Somebody buying a single house, tearing it down, and building a new one is fairly rare, due to the fact that there are plenty on undeveloped lots available.

In the 1880’s, the city of Riverside actually had the highest per capita income of any city in the country.  Oranges were very profitable, plus the area had lots of rich people retiring out here, for the year round warm weather.  Of course, that’s before the area was coated in smog-I blame that more than anything else for the area’s decline.