Welcome to San Fernando Valley
Just north of the West Hollywood and
Hollywood Hills, via either Laurel Canyon, the 405 San Diego Freeway
or 101 Hollywood/Ventura Freeway, is a large, flat land called the
San Fernando Valley, wonderful group of middle and
upper-middle-class neighborhoods.
San Fernando Valley (although connected to Los
Angeles) does have a distinctive personality: lots of flat land,
warmer temperatures than the
Los Angeles basin and endless boulevards and
streets crossing its length and width, emphasizing its dominant car
culture.
For guests from the East Coast or Europe, the spread
out of the Valley could be intimidating: When on 22 May 1915 the
City of
Los Angeles annexed the
San Fernando Valley, it added 177
square miles to its existing 108 square miles.
Until the early 1900s, land use in
San Fernando
Valley was limited to ranching and non-irrigated agriculture. Then
speculators, anticipating the arrival of the Owens River Aqueduct in
1913, began to buy up thousands of acres of Valley property. To
share the water brought by the aqueduct, ranchers voted to joint the
municipality of
Los Angeles. Property values soared, and people
savvy enough to invest in real estate profited handsomely. Boom
succeeded boob, and hundreds of thousands moved into the Valley,
encouraged by jobs in the nearby aviation, electronics, and
entertainment industries.
Several decades of accelerated development made the
area famous for rapid-start tract-house neighborhoods and instant
shopping centers. The vast spaces quick filled up due to low-density
development pattern: only 7.2 people per acre here compared to the
Wilshire district’s 38.9 persons per acre.
San Fernando Valley today, is predominantly
residential, with an increasingly diverse population.
The west and south sides are more affluent than the
east, and heavy industry is almost exclusively concentrated in the
northern are around
San Fernando, Sylmar and Pacoima. With these few
exceptions, the Valley is basically all of one fabric, very middle
class, and extremely mobile. Single-family ranch-style houses
outnumber multiple dwellings nearly two to one, leaving this a place
where it’s still possible to maintain a semblance of the American
dream : to own a home with a spacious yard and a two-car garage.
I, Gary Rapoport, look forward to serving you in San
Fernando Valley and these amazing areas of
Studio City,
Sherman
Oaks,
Encino,
Tarzana,
Valley Village, as well as
Woodland Hills and
West Hills.
Feel free to call me with your Real Estate questions at
818-399-9981.
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