San Fernando Valley

The San Fernando Valley or, simply, The Valley, is an urbanized valley in southern California.

Geography

The San Fernando Valley is bounded by the Santa Susana Mountains to the northwest, The Simi Hills to the west, the Santa Monica Mountains to the south, the Verdugo Mountains to the east, and the San Gabriel Mountains to the northeast. Most of the San Fernando Valley is within the City of Los Angeles, California, although several smaller cities are within the Valley as well; Burbank and Glendale are in the southeast corner of the Valley, Hidden Hills and Calabasas are in the southwest corner, and San Fernando, which is completely surrounded by the City of Los Angeles, is in the north Valley. Mulholland Drive, which runs along the ridgeline of the Santa Monica Mountains, marks the boundary between the Valley and the communities of Hollywood and Los Angeles' westside.

Valley communities within the City of Los Angeles include Arleta, Canoga Park, Chatsworth, Encino, Granada Hills, North Hills, North Hollywood, Northridge, Pacoima, Panorama City, Porter Ranch, Reseda, Studio City, Sherman Oaks, Sun Valley, Sylmar, Tujunga, Tarzana, Valley Glen, Van Nuys, West Hills, Winnetka and Woodland Hills. Los Angeles' administrative center for the Valley is in Van Nuys. The Valley community of Northridge was the epicenter of a large 1994 earthquake and is home to California State University Northridge.

Economy

The Valley is home to numerous companies, the most well-known of which are involved in motion pictures, recording, and television production (including CBS Studio Center, NBC, Universal Studios, Walt Disney Pictures, and Warner Brothers Studios). The Valley was previously known for stellar advances in aerospace technology by companies such as Lockheed, Rocketdyne, and Marquardt which helped put man on the moon and win the cold war. Most of these enterprises have since disapeared or moved on to regions with friendlier political climates.

The Valley is also home to a multi-million dollar pornography industry. Local news coverage strongly indicates that the Valley's porn industry is a fallback career option for both hapless runaways and aspiring amateur actors who come to Hollywood with hopes of becoming a movie star, and are unsuccessful.

Weather

The Valley shares the Los Angeles Basin's dry, sunny weather. Although its borders are less then 10 miles from the coast, it can be considerably hotter during the summer months. Also,rainfall rates tend to be higher in this area during the rainy season compared to the Basin and the coast.

Transportation

Although the Valley is part of Los Angeles, its development pattern is almost exclusively suburban, and the automobile is the dominant mode of transport. Several freeways criss-cross the Valley. Despite the dominance of the automobile, the Valley has two subway stations, in Universal City and North Hollywood, which opened in 2000 as an extension of the Metro Red Line Subway connecting the Valley to Hollywood and downtown Los Angeles. An east-west Bus Rapid Transit line is under construction in mid-2004, which will connect the North Hollywood Metro station to Warner Center in the west Valley. Two commuter rail lines connect the Valley to downtown Los Angeles, and an express bus line operates on Ventura Boulevard, with more express bus lines being planned for other routes across the Valley.

Parks and Recreation

In the past decade, many large tracts of undeveloped or ranch lands in the mountains surrounding the Valley have been acquired for parkland. The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and its affiliated agencies have purchased or otherwise acquired many of these lands, which are maintained as parkland by the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, California state parks, or local parks districts. In 2003 the Ahmanson Ranch, a 2,983 acre (12 km²) property in Ventura County at the west end of the Valley, was purchased by the State of California, and dedicated as the Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve on April 10, 2004.

Secession

In 2002, Los Angeles residents defeated a proposal under which the Valley would have seceded from the City of Los Angeles. Opponents claimed that secession was motivated by racist and class-based factors, despite the fact that the ethnic composition of the Valley does not much differ from the rest of the city (other than having a somewhat smaller African-American population), and the Valley suffers from the same problems of poverty, crime, drug and gang activity as the rest of the city. Proponents cited studies showing that over $400M per year of tax revenue is siphoned out of the Valley by the city. The proposal passed with a slight majority in the Valley despite a heavily-funded campaign against it led by Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn. A city-wide majority was not obtained, however.

Movies In The Valley

Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), Valley Girl (1983), Safe (1995) Boogie Nights (1997), Magnolia (1999), Punch-Drunk Love (2002), Two Days In The Valley (1996), The Karate Kid (1984), and its sequels were all filmed and set in the Valley. (See also: List of movies set in Los Angeles). The alleged lifestyles of Valley teens in the 1980s, and their alleged slang (Valspeak), were satirized in the Moon Unit Zappa (daughter of Frank Zappa) song "Valley Girl" (Example: "Like, grody to the max!") Bing Crosby had a #1 hit in 1944 called "The San Fernando Valley" written by Gordon Jenkins.

Glossary of Valspeak

External Links

• The San Fernando Valley: America's Suburb (http://www.americassuburb.com/home.html)
• "Valspeak" translator (http://www.80s.com/Entertainment/ValleyURL/)

Geography of California

Antelope Valley | Central Valley | Central Coast | Channel Islands | Coast Ranges | Death Valley | Gold Country | Greater Los Angeles | Imperial Valley | Inland Empire | Mojave | Napa Valley | Northern California | Owens Valley | Pomona Valley | Redwood Empire | San Fernando Valley | San Francisco Bay Area | The Peninsula | San Gabriel Valley | Santa Clara Valley | Santa Clarita Valley | Shasta Cascade | Sierra Nevada | Silicon Valley | Southern California | Wine Country