Talk:Long Beach, California

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[edit] Long Beach's political/social leanings

There ought to be a section on Long Beach's political/social leanings —The preceding unsigned comment was added by unknown editor (talk • contribs) unknown date.

I completely disagree. Wikipedia should be as free from POV as possible. Who is qualified to speak for the residents as to what their political/social leanings are? Such information would be nothing but one person's POV. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Westmt01 (talk • contribs) 15:41, 12 September 2006.
If the political or social leanings are important to the city, or are controversial, they should be mentioned (e.g. Santa Monica, California). For the city of Long Beach, the political leanings don't really effect the city that much IMHO. More important to the article on Long Beach would be a mention of Beverly O'Neil's successful write-in campaign for a third term for mayor.
Another issue still missing from the article is the tremendous demographic shift from the Iowa-by-the-Sea of the 1950s to the present day's most ethnically diverse large city in the US. I think that the best way to show that change is to dig up the data from the census website and then do a table from the 1940 to 2000 censuses. BlankVerse 22:19, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Corrections

I've corrected one error of fact, and removed one bit of trivia. Pacific Coast Highway does run through Long Beach, but does NOT run through downtown Long Beach. The reference to Long Beach having an Original Tommy's is just about as significant as Long Beach having a McDonalds. Original Tommy's is a local Los Angeles burger chain, of which there are 27 of them. The only one that might be worth noting in the Wikipedia is their very original hamburger stand at the corner of Beverly and Rampart Boulevards.

gK 8 Oct 2004 11:56 PST

[edit] Mormons

Answering User:Willmcw's question about the San Pedro-Mormon connection: I was a little surprised to find out that this info is apparently true (my Mormon 2nd great grandfather's autobiography talks about visiting California in August 1855, including the nearby Dominguez Ranch, but makes no mention of a Mormon colony in San Pedro). A quick check on the internet, however, found this [1]:

"Brigham Young saw southern California as a source of supply for Utah. He also wanted to establish a mail route as well as a way station betwieen Utah and San Pedro Harbor as a rest stop for missionaries and immigrants....{Jefferson] Hunt also successfuly introduced a bill to construct a road from San Pedro Harbor through the Cajon Pass towards Utah. The harbor had become "the permanent depot for the territory of Utah... with emigrants and merchandise."

There is another Mormon connection to San Pedro: The Mormon Battalion camped there in 1847. [2]

I couldn't find anything specifically about a Mormon colony in San Pedro on the internet (but I didn't look that hard), but the suggestion is that there was one for awhile. I have a number of CD-ROMs with some Mormon history, so I will try to find out more. I might also try to contact the local Long Beach Family History Center to see if they can tell me anything. [[User:GK|gK ¿?]] 08:06, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks! Since the colony didn't survive, I suppose the main details of interest would be the dates, the name of the island, and the number of people involved. It sounds like San Pedro, California might be a better location for this anecdote, since San Pedro Bay is just a stub and there is a closer connection to it than to Long Beach. Willmcw 08:17, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
My guess is that the island that they are referring to is what is now called Terminal Island, which I shared between the Port of Long Beach, and the Port of Los Angeles, so the information might belong to both Long Beach and either San Pedro, California or the Port of Los Angeles. [[User:GK|gK ¿?]] 14:46, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Famous residents of Long Beach

Wheely Willy, the celebrity Chihuaha, TV star and featured in How Willy Got His Wheels and How Willy Got His Wings

[edit] new Environment section

IMHO, much of the newly introduced section describes a fantasy land that hasn't existed in Long Beach since the days of the Spanish land grants. It sounds more like it is describing some sections of the Palos Verdes Peninsula instead.

Here are some of my concerns:

  1. " Many of the most beautiful and noteworthy plants of the region can still be seen throughout the city."
    • Long Beach is a VERY urban city, with very little remaining non-park open space. What remains, usually in the form of vacant lots and brownfields around oil pumps, is very disturbed and is almost all non-native grasses and plants like wild mustard. Even in some of the areas that are less disturbed in the area, such as the steeper slopes of Signal Hill, you will find few native plants. That paragraph specifically mentions California poppy, but I've never seen it in the Long Beach area except for the wild seed mix I planted in my own garden.
  2. "...in little-disturbed areas such as the El Dorado Nature Center"
    • The location of the Nature Center was not a little-disturbed area, but instead was a fairly involved restoration effort
  3. "Many indigenous species of birds, mammals, and other wildlife still roam the city."
    • You will find the normal mammals and birds that you'd find in practically any urban environment, such as raccoons, opossoms, skunks, etc., but little else.
  4. "The RiverLink project has begun to revegetate the Long Beach stretch of the Los Angeles River with indigenous plants."
    • The RiverLink project is more a nacent enterprise and hasn't done that much so far. The Los Angeles River through Long Beach is little changed so far from the way that it's been for the past 50 years.
  5. "The Long Beach Greenbelt, which follows the abandoned Pacific Electric railroad diagonally through the city, has been cleared of nonnatives and planted with indigenous plants."
    • This makes it sound like a huge project, while the Greenbelt, in reality, is only a portion of the old Red Car tracks, with other parts of it filled in with storage units, etc.

I welcome anyone to counter my points. I will keep an open mind if you can provide evidence from the California Native Plant Society, the local Audobon Society chapter, etc. Otherwise, I'm going to take a weed-whacker to the Environment section and turn it into something more reality-based. BlankVerse 10:21, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I'll probably give this another week, but there is no response, I will either drastically alter the Environment section, or just delete it completely. BlankVerse 22:19, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
I've done some updating, but it still needs work. There should be at least a paragraph on pollution, in addition to BlankVerse's comments. --Justin.Johnsen 16:30, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Good work.
A discussion of pollution in Long Beach should include something on the Port of Long Beach (with an expanded discusion in the port article itself). Then there is the problems with the Los Angeles River, as well as beach polution (including the Colorado Lagoon). Air pollution is probably best covered as a regional problem, but I don't think there is an article currently on either air pollution in Los Angeles or the South Coast Air Quality Management District. BlankVerse 09:44, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] See Also:

I object to the link to the Longo Street Gang. The page is cleverly watered down and advertises a murderous group of street terrorists that is responsible for ongoing violence against citizens and Long Beach police officers. The existence of the link to Long Beach is offensive and should be removed. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.5.119.136 (talk • contribs).

Instead of that isolated link to a single gang, the East Side Longos, there should probably be a section on gangs in Long Beach. Keep in mind, the Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and gangs are a fact of life in Long Beach.
As for the article on the Longos, I agree that it doesn't meet the Wikipedia's guidelines, including neutral point of view and Verification, and it needs so serious attention. BlankVerse 01:07, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Gangs are a fact of life in all of America's large cities. Is it being suggested that each city on Wikipedia have an isolated gang link to profile each metropolises extent of infestation? This is not the police department or the Chamber of Commerce. I propose that without further debate, the Longo link be removed. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.5.119.136 (talk • contribs).

The link to the Longos in the See also section was deleted soon after you mentioned it here on the talk page (I assume that you are the same anonymous editor that started the discussion—both of you are from *.oc.oc.cox.net). Also: Loaded terms, such as "infestation" have no place in an encyclopedia article, or even on the discussion pages of an encyclopedia.
As for gangs in Long Beach: They are encyclopedic because they are know nationally and even internationally because:
  1. The mentions of the gangs by many of the LBC-based rappers like Snoop Dogg and Warren G.
  2. We've 'exported' some of our gangs to other areas of the country, especially some of the asian gangs.
Long Beach is also fairly unusually because it is three different ethnic groups that have warred over a fairly small area. For those reasons gangs in LB need a (brief) mention in the Long Beach article. BlankVerse 08:17, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Southern California Assessment

Added the new banner. Assigned it a B quality rating with High importance to start, after reading the rating system. --Justin.Johnsen 20:38, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

If it is B quality, it is probably barely B quality. I know that when I first started working on the Wikipedia, and especially on editing the Long Beach article, I was pretty good about verifying the information that I added, but not that good about properly referencing the material that I added. That's the area where the Long Beach article needs the greatest work. BlankVerse 11:03, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion

I'd like to suggest a link to be included on the Long Beach page, under maps. www.longbeachcamap.com. I'm not going to add it in myself because I am the co-owner of the publication (so my opinion admittedly is subjective!), but if you think it useful and relevant, please feel free to put it in.Lbmap 21:29, 30 October 2006 (UTC) lbmap

By owner, I am guessing that you are probably a franchisee of discoverymap.com. I checked out the website. It's cuter than the average local directory, but being flash-based, it is much, much slower if your using a dial-up connection (keep in mind that the Wikipedia has an international audience, many of which are still have dial-up connections). And if I used your map as my guide, Long Beach ends at Carson Blvd., so you don't include Rancho Los Cerritos. I won't even go into your hit-or-miss restaurant guide which is probably based upon paid inclusion. In my judgement, your website does not have any reason for inclusion as an external link to an encyclopedia article. I'd suggest you look at Wikitravel and World66 as possibly appropriate websites. BlankVerse 10:59, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for taking a look - your points are well taken. Lbmap 18:55, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nickname

Suggest deleting nicknames from the banner. If these are some sort of official slogans, it should say that. Gaohoyt 22:36, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Diversity

The introduction stated Long Beach is the most diverse large city in the US, but forgot to include other facts. Many white ethnic groups like Irish, Scottish, Dutch, Danes, Italians, Portuguese, Greeks and Armenians build Long Beach in the early 20th century. Their families came to the city's oceanic fishing and canning industries settled in Long Beach, but most of them migrated outside the city since the 1960's. Back in the great depression, Long Beach was a destination for "Okies" from states affected by the dust bowl found better paying jobs in factories and docks other than at the farms or fields. Asians from China, Korea, the Philippines and South Asia, as well Pacific Islanders from Hawaii and Samoa moved to Long Beach formed distinct sections of their own, like I recalled the sight of Korean language signs on storefronts on Lakewood Blvd. by the Long Beach airport. The city's large Hispanic population is largely Mexican (some are Mexican American) and Central American, but includes South Americans from Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, makes Long Beach have one of the largest South American communities in the US. Please add the entries to a new paragraph: Diversity, since it's too long for the introduction. + Mike D 26 15:16, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Long Beach used to be a very 'white-bread' community except for specific pockets of African-Americans and Japanese, and used to be known as "Iowa by the Sea". What is interesting about modern-day Long Beach that athough there is the business corridor of Little Phnom Penh, there really aren't large ethnic enclaves like you can find elsewhere in the Los Angeles area. Pacific-Islanders, for example, are spread all over the South Bay/Long Beach area. I've been planning to add more on this, probably as a subtopic under the Demographics section, but some of the information that I want to add I can't find online, so it'll have to wait until I get the chance to go to the downtown LB library.
As far as your beginning about the European ethnic groups, you'll have to provide references for that. There were many areas of Southern California that have had European ethnic concentrations (Dutch in Cerritos, Germans in Anaheim, Portuguese in Artesia), but I don't think that Long Beach has ever had any large concentrations, or any ethnic enclaves, of European ethnic groups. BlankVerse 16:23, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
Diversity is diversity, yeah ethnic and racial are two separate meanings (and both carried a politically charged meaning). We should use the term "cultural and national" diversity, in order to be specific in the many origins of people in Long Beach. The World book encyclopedia in 1975 is where I got the ethnic/racial ancestry source, mind you. Yes, the information has changed in 30 years, but never forget that historical overview of Long Beach was a major port for immigration from around the world. +

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Spanish are 0.5% in the 2000 census? I believe it's a misstatement and demographers should take note of the community had a history of Spanish and other immigration. I'm sure they meant European Spanish other than "Spanish-American", but in California the very meaning of "Spanish" is those colonial settlers in 1840's when the region belonged to Mexico (see Californio). The data came from the 1975 World Book encyclopedia, but didn't detail the percentage of Long Beach's population. It's obvious the L.A. area like Long Beach was the "Iowa of the sea" or "Iowa under palm trees" until the 1970s when Asian and Latin American immigration changed the older sections of Long Beach (you mentioned the Cambodian community, plenty of sources on that).+

Hello, I borrowed your anonymous i.p. to leave my opinion on the matter on Long Beach's history of races, culture, whatever to call it.

The US census, local history books and the World Book have different answers...1975 is old, get new sources please or you look like a pervasive vandal.

I can speak for it: I'm the eldest daughter of portugese parents from the Azores (1965) from south bay, but I seen my home town (Not Long Beach, but repeated in L.A. beach cities) changed and people come or go in time.

The page on racial diversity is about persons of color and other continents, not ethnic groups (sorry you're confused), Long Beach is perfect to raise a family and find work, just like my Mama and Papa did.

Usually like most of my neighbors' children...they assimilated, married to other groups and relocated to new homes, you find most Spanish, portugese, Italian, greek etc. in other towns.

Long Beach like older US cities is where immigrants start new lives before they move on. The article is correct on the festivities by locals embrace diversity of many countries they come from.

I predict Cambodian Americans (refers to the 2nd generation) won't reside in one area, but soon the Cambodians spread out the L.A. area and predominate in another county, I think is a good thing to seek new opportunities.

I wanted to make a note of North Long Beach/Bixby Knolls aren't Black areas, more racial groups live there, and on the Korean signs in the Rancho Los Cerritos area, not only Koreans live there but drive to their jobs here.

The city experienced a renaisance and no longer I can afford to live in south bay (this has to do with Long Beach, but seen it in san Pedro, Palos verdes and seal Beach in Orange county). Long Beach's coastal sections are generally homes of upscale couples and retired people too.

I hope to clear the issue and Mike D, don't be lazy next time you want to edit the page. Bye.- Patricia :-)

Sorry to BV and Pat, I admit my own haste and waste. Before I make new edits on any subject, maybe I will research it FIRST. Is that alright with you two? Of course, BV each ethnic group composes a small percentage of the city population, but I just said if you compare the amount of one group's portion to a local piopulation composite to other major cities. 5 percent of group A in city X is a higher percentage than .5 percent of group A in city Y, or group B in the same city is 1 percent, but being more numerous than others for group B is negligible (too small to actually count). Let's not argue or assume who's right or wrong, the issue is resolved and I admitted my mistakes. + Mike D 26 09:56, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Mike D 26: I don't know why you would think there should be more Spanish in Long Beach than what the US Census reported. By the time that Willmore City/Long Beach was developed, the local ranchos had been in the hands of Anglos for a couple of decades, so there were not many Californios in the area [The city is roughly the opposite of some place like San Juan Capistrano, California—I had a friend in college who was a sixth generation Californian from SJC who traced her family back to the early Spaniards in the area].
Furthermore, as I pointed out on your talk page using US Census data, Long Beach has generally not been a place for direct European emmigration. Until the late 60's, when the Long Beach City Council made some misguided land use decisions, Long Beach had some inexpensive but not cheap, areas, so immigrants were much more likely to go to the Harbor Area where there was cheaper housing, plus churches and other groups that helped new emmigrants.
I also gave you the US Census link to their Hispanic page, so that you could do the math yourself. Keep in mind that all the US Data is self-reported, so you get confusing results like having both a Spaniard and Spanish category. [3]
Just to give you an idea of how assumptions can fool anyone: You might think, because there is a Greek Orthodox Church in Long Beach, that there would be plenty of Greeks in Long Beach, but the census reports only 0.4%. However, when you go to the church's Greek Festival, you can find out when you read their festival guide and look at the advertising for the event's sponsors, that the church draws people from a very large semicircle that includes the South Bay, Gateway Cities, and North Orange County. What that means for Long Beach is that there is a single very small Greek store near the church, and only two Greek restaurants in town (that I know of) that are mainly patronized by non-Greeks. BlankVerse 13:06, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
who thinks he's mister know it all? (Mike, BV, whoever.) is this comment on "spanish people" or "black people" in LB indicate the poster has hate of the city? You think you're smart like Mel Gibson or Mike Richards can get away with their racial rants? Stay out of Long Beach, we don't like racism and we keep the hate out, bring a little love and togetherness. The city is new and improved, less gangs and crime, thousands of rich people live in the ocean front and Naples/Belmont shores areas. Oh you mean the Long Beach Christian Knights? You don't know crap on Long Beach, you're a snart and wikipedia don't want snarts who act like they are LB natives, but never set foot in LB. Get lost man. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.3.14.129 (talk • contribs).
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