San Fernando Valley residents are more pessimistic than South Bay and San Gabriel Valley residents about the direction of Los Angeles County and their neighborhood, according to the results of a California Community Foundation/USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll released Wednesday.
Beyond racial and political diversity in Los Angeles County, the poll demonstrates that there is also geographic diversity, said Ben Winston, senior associate at Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, which conducted the poll in conjunction with American Viewpoint.
“There’s a strong healthy identity, a sense of community throughout the county, but there are also notable regional differences between neighborhoods,” he said.
SAN FERNANDO VALLEY MAJORITY SAY COUNTY ON WRONG TRACK
Here is a sample of these differences:
• Fifty-five percent of San Fernando Valley residents polled think L.A. County is on the wrong track compared to about 49 percent countywide, 50 percent in the South Bay and 48 percent in the San Gabriel Valley.
• Fifty-six percent of San Fernando Valley residents think their neighborhood is going in the right direction compared to 65 percent in the South Bay and 68 percent in the San Gabriel Valley.
• Twenty-eight percent of San Fernando Valley residents say it will be a better place to live in five years while 55 percent say it will be a worse place to live in five years.
• Only 24 percent of Valley residents trust their neighbors a lot compared to the county norm (28 percent), the San Gabriel Valley (33 percent) or South Bay (30 percent).
• Only 24 percent of Valley residents consider themselves to be active in the community compared to the county average of 31 percent.
MORE WHITE, MORE PESSIMISTIC
Some of this pessimism may be explained by the fact that the San Fernando Valley has a higher proportion of whites, and whites were more pessimistic in general than other races in their responses to the poll, Winston said.
“White people were less optimistic, less trusting, less engaged; those were our general findings throughout the county,” Winston said. “Part of it might be partisanship. Minority communities are often more Democratic and liberal and therefore more optimistic about the direction of the county, which is run principally by Democrats. The Valley is a whiter region, a little more conservative than the county as a whole. That’s another reason why it might be a little bit less optimistic about the county’s direction.”
The poll’s San Fernando Valley sample had the highest proportion of whites (59 percent), which is about 15 percentage points more than average for the county while the South Bay had 46 percent. The South Bay’s sample also had the most black residents (13 percent).
The San Gabriel Valley’s sample had a Hispanic plurality and 27 percent Asian Pacific Islander population.
SOUTH BAY MOST OPTIMISTIC
Meanwhile, South Bay residents rate the county most positively on a number of measures, including opportunities to get involved, high quality of life and that people are engaged in their communities, Winston said.
• Sixty-six percent of South Bay residents say L.A. County has a high quality of life compared to 60 percent countywide
• Sixty-one percent of South Bay residents consider themselves first and foremost a part of their local neighborhood, while it’s about evenly split for the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys.
• Yet South Bay residents are most likely to say there is more division than common ground in L.A. County (59 percent) compared to San Fernando Valley residents (55 percent) and San Gabriel Valley residents (49 percent) or the county average (52 percent).
“Part of its optimism might be demographics; they had more African-American residents and they were generally more optimistic,” Winston said. “We also saw higher levels of engagement in the South Bay” in which residents were more likely to see actions such as voting and going to school board meetings as being effective, he said.
• In the San Gabriel Valley, public schools tied with creating good jobs as the region’s top priority. Jobs and crime prevention were top priorities for the county as a whole.
• In the San Fernando Valley, residents ranked mass transit as well as sidewalks, roads and potholes as higher priorities than residents from other regions of the county, Winston said.
