Week 8: City of Industry

For my blog this week, I decided to look at City of Industry. Industry is a pretty interesting place; located out in the East San Gabriel Valley, it's zoned mostly for industrial and commercial purposes. Its Wikipedia page notes 777 residents in the city, most of whom likely lived there before zoning laws were implemented. I thought to explore this location this week because in class we've been talking about environmental justice and how industrial sites are most likely to border poorer neighborhoods. I used SimplyMaps to look at percentages of households with incomes less than $15,000 in the parts of Los Angeles, Orange, and San Bernardino counties that comprise most of Southern California. I then zoomed into Industry to look at the incomes of tracts that are adjacent to the city. Keep in mind that the kind of industry in the city isn't heavy industry; rather, it is mostly company headquarters, warehouses, and distribution centers. It's also interesting to note that there are many strip clubs peppering the area. Looking at the map, we can see that cities bordering Industry do seem to have a higher percentage of households with incomes less than $15,000 compared to cities that are further out. This made me realise that it's not always going to be smokestacks or toxic chemical sites that can affect the quality of an area and make people not want to live there. These kinds of lighter industry also produces chemical and can contaminate water supplies for surrounding areas. My visit was concentrated around the part of Industry that's closest to where I live, and around there I didn't find any residential housings. There are commercial businesses there, for example, plazas with Michael's Arts and Craft Store, In-N-Out, Fresh n Easy, and Kohl's. Of course, because the City of Industry spans such a large and irregular area, I cannot draw a definite conclusion for the entire area. From what I saw though, I can say that no matter the type of industry, it seems that people don't want to live next to areas with ugly warehouse buildings and constant truck traffic. If people have the means, they'll move further away. Some don't, however, and remain powerless and without a say.