San Fernando Valley State College
URBANIZATION OF THE SIMI VALLEY
1950-1970
.A thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the
requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in
Geography
by
Mark Kimball Hocking
July, 1971
The thesis of Mark Kimball Hocking is approved:
Committee Chairman
San Fernando Valley State College
; ;
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To Carol
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iii
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
DEDICATION
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L IST OF TABLES
L IST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
ABSTRACT .
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
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(;HAPTER
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INTRODUCTION
-Overview
Rel at ed Studi es
Procedures
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THE GEOGRAPH IC SETTING .
Phy s i ca l Settin g
Rel at ive Lo cation
Summary
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7
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REG IONAL POPULAT ION GROWTH , 1 950 - 1 970
Ventura County Growth in Rel at ion
to Urbanizat ion in the Lo s An geles
Five-County Region
Caus es o£ Popu l at ion Growth in
Ventura County
For ces Influencing Deve lopers
For ces Att racting Mi grants
Summary
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THE SUBURBAN IZATION OF S I MI VALLEY . . . .
The 1 95 0 - 1 97 0 Period P opu lat ion Growth
The ].9 6 0 - 1 97 0 P eriod Popu l at ion Growth
Summary
CAUSES OF URBAN DEVELOP MENT IN
S IMI VALLEY . . . . . . . . . .
Owner and Developer Deci s ions
Land Supply
Wat er Supp l y
Acces s ibi l i t y
Forces At trac t in g Migran t s
Hous:.i"ng Supply
Acces s ib i l i ty
Employmen t
Summary
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VI.
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135
IMMEDIATE PROSPECTS AND CONCLUSIONS • • •
152
LAND USE •
Summary
VII.
BIBLIOGRAPHY • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
v
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LIST OF TABLES
Table
1.
Ventura County Popu l at ion Growth
1 8 8 0 - 1 970
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Comp ar at ive Lo s An ge l es Five -County
Region Popu l ation , 1950-197 0 .
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In -Mi gration , Lo s Angel es Five -County
Re gion , 1 95 0 - 1 9 6 8
18
4.
In -Mi grat ion , Ventura Count y , 1950- 1969
20
5.
Comp arat ive Popu l at ion Growth , Lo s
Angeles Five -County Region , 195 0 - 1 959 .
22
6.
Ventur a County Dwe l l ing Uni t s Author ized
for Construct ion , 1 9 50 - 1 959
26
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1 970 Comp arat ive Median Hou s e Values ­
Sel ect ed Pl aces
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Cl imat i c Comp arisons -Select ed Pl aces .
9.
Comparat i ve Dens i t ies per Squar e
Mi le , 1 9 5 0 - 1970
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12 .
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33
37
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Manuf acturin g Employment Sour ce s ­
East ern Ventur a County , 1 9 6 5 and 1970
Emp loyment Area of Pr imary Wage Earners ,
Conej o Val ley and S imi Valley
40
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44
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Population Dens i t y Gradat ions , Simi
Val ley to Glendale - 1950
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57
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60
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13 .
Simi Area Popu l at i on Growth , 1 9 1 0 - 1960
14 .
Popu l at ion Dens it y Gradations , Simi
Val l ey to Gl enda l e - 1960
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61
r�·-------------�--------------------- ------------�------------------
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15.
Popu l at ion Dens i ty Gr adat ions , Simi
Valley to Glendale - 1 9 70 .
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17.
Annual Comp arative Growth , Ventura
County and S imi Val ley , 1 9 6 0 - 1 9 70
73
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Comp ar at ive Buildin g Trends , Simi
Val l ey and Thous and Oaks , 1 9 62 - 1964 .
20 .
Compar at ive Popu l at ion Growth , Simi
Val ley and Thous and Oaks , 1 960- 1 9 64
.
107
22 .
Home Marketab i l i ty by Pr ice Range ,
1 9 68 , Fourth Quart er
1 08
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115
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121
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126
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142
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Average Dai ly Traffic Counts
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Simi Valley Annual Growth , 1 9 67- 1 9 71
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25.
Simi P l anning Ar ea- 1 966 Emp loyment
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Land Use-Simi Val l ey , 1 964 and 1967
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99
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Age of Simi Val l ey Res ident s - 1 9 70 . .
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80
82
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Subdivi s ion Deve lopment : Simi Val ley
and Thous and Oaks , 1 9 50- 1 96 5
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Comparat ive Popul at ion Growth , Chat s ­
wo rth St at is tical Area ver sus the
Simi Val l ey , 1 9 60 - 1 9 69
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L IST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Pl ate
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Looking s outh toward Sinaloa Lake .
May , 1 9 71 . . .
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The west ern end of Simi Val l ey . . .
October , 1 9 59 . .
Loo king wes t along the San Fer nando
Val l ey -S imi Val l ey Fr eeway ( Hi ghway
1 1 8 ) . May , 1 9 71 . . . . . . . . . .
Looking north toward Tapo Canyon .
May , 1 9 71 . . . . .
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69
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84
Loo king nor thwes t toward the Kado t a
Fig Farm Subdiv i s ion . May , 1 9 71 .
The wes t ern end of Simi Val l ey ,
November , 1 9 70 . . . . . . . .
63
67
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86
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89
Lookin g no rth toward the r emaining
agr icu l tur e area . May , 1 9 71 . . . .
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119
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145
Loo king sou th along Err inger Ro ad .
May , 1 9 71 . . . .
Looking eas t along Los An geles
Avenue . May , 1 9 71 . . . . . .
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Simi Val ley P l ace Names .
2.
Study Ar ea Lo c at ion .
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Map
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Res ident i al Devel opment , 1 9 51 .
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Res ident ial Development , 1 9 59 .
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Residential Development, 1959-1964
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Residential Development, 1964-1967 . • • .
Residential Development, 1967-1970 . . . .
Residential Development, 1970. . .
Simi Valley Land Use, 1970 . . . . . •
Simi Valley, 1951. . . . . . . . . . . . •
Residential Development, 1964.
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148
ABSTRACT
URBANIZATION OF THE SIMI VALLEY
1950-1970
by
Mark Kimball Hocking
Master of Arts in Geography
July, 1971
The purpose of this study is to describe, analyze,
·and explain the population growth and landscape change in
'simi Valley, California, during the period of 1950 to 1970
in the context of regional urbanization.
The dominant
factors influencing population migration and the changing
spatial patterns of land use are described and explained.
Ventura County and Simi Valley are entwined in the
Los Angeles Five-County Regional urbanization pattern.
The
growth rate in this region during the 1950-1970 study
~period
was dramatic.
The population increased 102 percent,
from 4,934,246 to 9,972,037.
Ventura County's rate was
even faster, 228 percent, from 114,647 to 376,430.
How-
ever, even these rates pale beside Simi Valley's 1,930
~percent,
from 3,011 to 61,150.
X
This was an absolute gain
1of over 58,000, fully 8,000 more than Oxnard, the county's
largest city, gained in the same period of time.
The major factors affecting growth included: available
,quantities of developable and relatively cheap land; new
sources of water; new highways that increased accessibility; large supplies of relatively cheap housing; regional employment sources; and amenities, such as a relative
lack of crowding,traffic and pollution, and mild climate.
This influx of people changed the formerly rural,
agricultural landscape to an almost completely urbanized
one by 1970.
~ominated
The twenty square mile valley floor was
in 1970 by single-family subdivisions and rather
substantial retail developments.
At the close of the
study period, a city of 56,464 had been formed in Simi
Valley, and transformation to an urban landscape was nearly
complete.
xi
This is no mining boom based upon ledges that
can be pinched out or worked out. This is no
oil boom ••• the supply of which can readily
exceed the demand. This is no boom based on
wheat deals or pork corners ••• or railway combinations or other devices of man. This boom
is based on the simple £act that hereabouts the
good Lord has created conditions of climate and
health and beauty such as can be found nowhere
else ••• and until every acre of this earthly paradise is occupied, the influx will continue ••••
Carey McWilliams
Southern California Country, 1946.
xii
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this study is to describe, analyze,
and explain Simi Valley population growth•and landscape
change between 1950 and 1970 in the context of regional
growth.
The dominant factors causing population migration
will be set out in some detail.
The spatial pattern of
urbanization is described and explained so that findings
from this study will make a contribution to the existing
literature on the process of suburbanization.
Overview
In a short twenty-year span between 1950 and 1970,
the Simi Valley was almost totally changed from a rural to
an urbanized landscape.
In 1950,
th~
valley was typical of
the famous Southern California citriculture landscape depicted glowingly throughout the nation in early advertisements similar to the following:
The Simi Rancho is the largest single body of land
in Southern California which is now on the market
in small tracts.
It is nearly all in Ventura County,
though a part of the 96,000 acres is in Los Angeles
County. The Rancho contains 20,000 acres of firstclass farming and fruit lands in the valley; 20,000
1
acres of good hill lands suitable for vines, fruit
trees, and olives; about 40,000 acres of stock
ranges; and the remainder is rough mountain land
from which the water supply is drawn. The price
runs from $5.00 to $60.00 per acre. The cheap land
is suitable for stock growing, and the best of the
valley land can be had at $60.00. Good fruit and
grain land is sold from $40.00 to $60.00. The terms
1
of sale are reasonable to actual settlers.
The valley was agricultural, dominated by walnut and
citrus orchards, by large acreages of avocados, apricots
and other deciduous orchard trees, and by fields of beans,
wheat, barley, and various truck crops.
The valley floor
was dotted with neat farmhouses set amongst the groves, and
1
with occasional patches of urban environment.
The land-
scape was relatively stable throughout the early fifties,
but it was soon transformed into a pulsating sea of homogeneous subdivided segments.
The encroachment of a cityscape into a previously
rural landscape has occurred many times across the country.
Jean Gottman has observed that, "The push of the residenrtial expansion toward the periphery is a logical and
centuries-old trend in large urban centers, observed in
many cities around the world." 2
Similar successions of
events have occurred frequently at the ever-expanding edge
of the Los Angeles Five-County Region, but seldom has ur-
banization engulfed an entire valley the size of Simi with
such lightning quick change.
The rapid suburbanization of
an agricultural, rural landscape, then, is the subject of
study here.
Related Studies
There have been no detailed explanatory studies of
Simi Valley urbanization from 1950-1970.
There are extant
only cursory, peripheral comments available primarily in
Ventura County Planning Department publications and in
several other sources.
However, a few other studies have been made.
These
include a basically descriptive one entitled, "The Changing
Landscape of the Simi Valley, California from 1795 to
1968," by Crane Miller {M.A. thesis, UCLA).
In 1953,
Richard Lonsdale studied Simi Valley's water problems {M.A.
thesis, UCLA).
This work contributed much to the under-
standing of the role of water in the urbanization of Simi
Valley.
~
Glendinning published an article. in the Geograph-
Journal in 1938 that provides a complete geographical
overview.
Beyond these items there is no detailed study
of the urbanization of Simi Valley.
Procedures
The research methods used in this study are common.
Population statistics were analyzed on the regional and the
local level.
Most of the statistics were obtained from
ventura County Planning Department publications, others
from the U. S. Census, Security Pacific National Bank publications and the Los Angeles Regional Planning Commission.
These were coupled with aerial photographs for 1959, 1970,
and 1971; Ventura County Planninq Department maps for 1964,
1967, and 1969; the 1951 USGS Simi and Santa Susana quadrangles (1:24,000); and Ventura County Recorder's Office
records, to produce maps depicting the spread of urbanization through the period under study.
The maps gave ade-
quate visual evidence of emerging residential growth patterns necessary to proceed with the study.
Furthermore, field surveys and land use mapping 1n
1966 and 1969-1970 produced a 1970 land use map useful in
analyzing the urban spatial structure wrought by twenty
years of rapid population growth.
The paper is also based
upon a survey during 1966-1968 of materials and maps on
Simi Valley located in the Library of Congress and elsewhere.
General materials on Los Angeles County and
Southern California, theoretical and empirical studies on
urban structure, residential development, accessibility,
urbanization and other pertinent areas and subjects were
also examined.
In addition, various authorities were in-
terviewed for data not elsewhere available.
5
These materials formed an empirical superstructure
that allowed descriptlve and explanatory study o£ urbanization in Simi Valley between 1950 and 1970.
FOOTNOTES
1.
The Rural Californian, 1888, as quoted by
Janet Scott Cameron in Simi Grows Up (n.p.),
Anderson, Ritchie and Simon), p. 27.
2.
Jean Gottman, Megalopolis: The Urbanized Northeastern Seaboard of the United States (Cambridge:
The M.I.T. Press, 196l), p. 434.
CHAPTER II
THE GEOGRAPHIC SETTING
Physical Setting
Simi Val•ley is a compact and naturally well-delineated'
geographic entity.
Situated in a fold of Southern Califor-
nia's Transverse Ranges, it is an east-west trending inland
valley with a smooth, yet slightly sloping floor.
The
valley slopes from an elevation of 1,060 feet on the east
at the point where former State Highway 118 exits the Santa
Susana Pass to meet the valley floor, to 717 feet, where
this highway exits at a point eight miles to the west.
The
floor also slopes gently from the intersection of Tapo
Canyon Road and Walnut Avenue (1,072 feet) to the intersection of Erringer and Royal (833 feet)
(Map 1).
This
slope is largely due to the buildup of alluvial fans on the
north side of the valley, in a manner similar to that seen
in the San Fernando Valley just three miles to the east.
The valley floor is quite clearly separated from
surrounding, rather low lying hills and terraces, and is
almost completely walled in by them.
7
Some segments of
&,G
SIMI VALLEY
PLACE NAMES
SCALE I ?4000
these hills rise 400 feet within 2-3000 feet of the edges
of the valley floor.
To the northwest are the
foothil~
of Oak Ridge, with Big Mountain being quite close (two
miles from the floor at an elevation of 2,360 feet) and
the Santa Susana Mountains which interconnect with Oak
Ridge rising to the east.
Rocky Peak to the northeast in
the Santa Susana's is 2,714 feet high and is less than a
mile from the edge of the valley.
On the south the Simi
Hills rise to 2,403 feet (Simi Peak).
The relatively uninterrupted levelness of the valley
floor offers little physical resistance to suburbanization.
The valley extends east and west for eight to ten
miles, and is one and one-half to three miles wide.
This
study considers only the present builtup area, that presently stretches continuously for three miles from north to
south and for eight miles from east to west.
R~lativ~
Location
The only natural entrance to the Simi Valley, is atthe
west end through the Arroyo Simi, which is also the valjley's only drainage outlet.
The presence of this nearly
I
level exit directed the early cultural orientation of Simi
to the west and toward Ventura.
1
This natural orientation
of the valley undoubtedly had some influence on the align-
ent of the Spanish land grant boundary in this area, and
hence, on the present configuration o£ the Los AngelesVentura County border.
As may be observed on Map 2, Simi Valley is situated
almost exactly midway between the early population centers
of Ventura and Los Angeles Counties (Ventura and Los
Angeles cities).
Given this position then, one might ex-
pect that the largest population center would exert the
greatest influence on the Simi region, even though the
natural and political orientations are opposite.
This has
been the unresolved quandary o£ the Simi Valley; namely, to!
be leaning quite strongly toward Ventura, but to be attracted quite insistently toward Los Angeles.
Even with respect to the immediately adjacent agricultural and urbanized valleys, Simi is rather isolated.
Arroyo Simi opens directly into Little Simi and the town
of Moorpark to the west.
To the north, the Santa Clara
River Valley, although connected by a winding canyon, is
quite inaccessible because o£ the physical presence o£ Oak
Ridge, separating the two valleys by six and one-hal£
miles at the narrowest point.
San Fernando Valley lies
three miles to the east and is connect-ed with Simi by two
roads.
To the south is Westlake Village, in Russell
Valley (current population 9,077).
The intervening seven
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·MAP 2
tile breadth of the Simi Hills make this area somewhat
inaccessible.
~pment
The closest accessible area of urban devel-
is Thousand Oaks to the southwest.
The spread of
suburbanization outward from Thousand Oaks has come to
within two miles of Simi Valley.
The two areas are
separated by rather rough topography, but modern highway
construction techniques have effectively overcome this
problem, and will probably provide more interconnecting
routes in the future.
Summary
There is little evidence that any of the valley's
physical features will permanently restrict urban growth.
Physical and locational conditions necessary to promote
continuing urbanization are present.
Moreover, given a
=ontinuation of the present land consuming pattern of low
density urban expansion, the complete urbanization of Simi
Valley seems assured.
FOOTNOTES
1.
Crane Miller, The Changing Landscape of the Simi
Valley from 1795 to 1968, (unpublished M.A.
thesis, UCLA, 1968}, p. 6. Early agricultural
shipments of grains, etc. were shipped out
westward through Port Hueneme.
CHAPTER III
THE REGIONAL SETTING:
REGIONAL POPULATION GROWTH, 1950-1970
To explain urban growth in Simi Valley, it seems ap)ropriate to first examine development patterns in adjacent
regions.
This chapter offers discussion of urban growth
in Ventura County in relation to urban development elsewhere in the Los Angeles Five-County Region over the period
1950-1970, along with a discussion of the causes of population growth.
1
Ventura County Growth in
Relation to Urbanization
in the Los Angeles Five-County Region
The multiplication of incorporated cities and in number of urban residents in Ventura County provides an in1icator to which population growth of the Five-County
Region can be related.
In 1950 there were six cities in
Ventura County and there are nine presently.
These cities
contained 114,647 people, or fifty percent of the county's
population in 1950; 103,010, or fifty-two percent in 1960;
and 283,211 or seventy-five percent in 1970.
14
Also in 1970,
15
the Census Bureau declared that over ninety-two percent of
the county's inhabitants were in urbanized areas.
2
Table 1 indicates that the study period, 1950-1970,
has been the most active growth era in Ventura County's
history.
In this twenty-year span, the county added some
261,783 people for a 228 percent increase.
There have been·
eras with greater rates of growth, but in no other period
is the numerical change even remotely matched.
The most significant cause of urban growth in Ventura
County was the well-documented surge of in-migration to the
State of California, and, more particularly, to the four
I
Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas (SMSA's) centering
on Los Angeles.
These include the Los Angeles-Long Beach
SMSA (L.A. County), The Anaheim-Santa Ana-Garden Grove
SMSA (Orange County), the San Bernardino-Riverside-Ontario
SMSA (Riverside and San Bernardino Counties), and the
Oxnard-Ventura SMSA (Ventura County).
Tables 2 and 3 show
that this Five-County area increased its population from
I
4,934,246 to 9,972,037 between 1950 and 1970, thus doubling
itself in twenty years (102 percent increase).
The role of in-migration in this astounding regional
growth would be difficult to overstate.
In the Five-County
,Region, for the nineteen year period, 1950-1968, in!!Uigration consistently accounted for well over hal£ of the
these hills rise 400 feet within 2-3000 feet of the edges
of the valley floor.
To the northwest are the
foothil~
of Oak Ridge, with Big Mountain being quite close (two
miles from the floor at an elevation of 2,360 feet) and
the Santa Susana Mountains which interconnect with Oak
Ridge rising to the east.
Rocky Peak to the northeast in
the Santa Susana's is 2,714 feet high and is less than a
mile from the edge of the valley.
On the south the Simi
Hills rise to 2,403 feet (Simi Peak).
The relatively uninterrupted levelness of the valley
floor offers little physical resistance to suburbanization.
The valley extends east and west for eight to ten
miles, and is one and one-half to three miles wide.
This
study considers only the present builtup area, that presently stretches continuously for three miles from north to
south and for eight miles from east to west.
R~lativ~
Location
The only natural entrance to the Simi Valley, is atthe
west end through the Arroyo Simi, which is also the valjley's only drainage outlet.
The presence of this nearly
I
level exit directed the early cultural orientation of Simi
to the west and toward Ventura.
1
This natural orientation
of the valley undoubtedly had some influence on the align-
ent of the Spanish land grant boundary in this area, and
hence, on the present configuration o£ the Los AngelesVentura County border.
As may be observed on Map 2, Simi Valley is situated
almost exactly midway between the early population centers
of Ventura and Los Angeles Counties (Ventura and Los
Angeles cities).
Given this position then, one might ex-
pect that the largest population center would exert the
greatest influence on the Simi region, even though the
natural and political orientations are opposite.
This has
been the unresolved quandary o£ the Simi Valley; namely, to!
be leaning quite strongly toward Ventura, but to be attracted quite insistently toward Los Angeles.
Even with respect to the immediately adjacent agricultural and urbanized valleys, Simi is rather isolated.
Arroyo Simi opens directly into Little Simi and the town
of Moorpark to the west.
To the north, the Santa Clara
River Valley, although connected by a winding canyon, is
quite inaccessible because o£ the physical presence o£ Oak
Ridge, separating the two valleys by six and one-hal£
miles at the narrowest point.
San Fernando Valley lies
three miles to the east and is connect-ed with Simi by two
roads.
To the south is Westlake Village, in Russell
Valley (current population 9,077).
The intervening seven
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·MAP 2
tile breadth of the Simi Hills make this area somewhat
inaccessible.
~pment
The closest accessible area of urban devel-
is Thousand Oaks to the southwest.
The spread of
suburbanization outward from Thousand Oaks has come to
within two miles of Simi Valley.
The two areas are
separated by rather rough topography, but modern highway
construction techniques have effectively overcome this
problem, and will probably provide more interconnecting
routes in the future.
Summary
There is little evidence that any of the valley's
physical features will permanently restrict urban growth.
Physical and locational conditions necessary to promote
continuing urbanization are present.
Moreover, given a
=ontinuation of the present land consuming pattern of low
density urban expansion, the complete urbanization of Simi
Valley seems assured.
FOOTNOTES
1.
Crane Miller, The Changing Landscape of the Simi
Valley from 1795 to 1968, (unpublished M.A.
thesis, UCLA, 1968}, p. 6. Early agricultural
shipments of grains, etc. were shipped out
westward through Port Hueneme.
CHAPTER III
THE REGIONAL SETTING:
REGIONAL POPULATION GROWTH, 1950-1970
To explain urban growth in Simi Valley, it seems ap)ropriate to first examine development patterns in adjacent
regions.
This chapter offers discussion of urban growth
in Ventura County in relation to urban development elsewhere in the Los Angeles Five-County Region over the period
1950-1970, along with a discussion of the causes of population growth.
1
Ventura County Growth in
Relation to Urbanization
in the Los Angeles Five-County Region
The multiplication of incorporated cities and in number of urban residents in Ventura County provides an in1icator to which population growth of the Five-County
Region can be related.
In 1950 there were six cities in
Ventura County and there are nine presently.
These cities
contained 114,647 people, or fifty percent of the county's
population in 1950; 103,010, or fifty-two percent in 1960;
and 283,211 or seventy-five percent in 1970.
14
Also in 1970,
15
the Census Bureau declared that over ninety-two percent of
the county's inhabitants were in urbanized areas. 2
Table 1 indicates that the study period, 1950-1970,
has been the most active growth era in Ventura County's
history.
In this twenty-year span, the county added some
261,783 people for a 228 percent increase.
There have been
eras with greater rates o£ growth, but in no other period
is the numerical change even remotely matched.
The most significant cause o£ urban growth in Ventura
County was the well-documented surge of in-migration to the
State o£ California, and, more particularly, to the four
Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas (SMSA's) centering
on Los Angeles.
These include the Los Angeles-Long Beach
SMSA (L. A. County), The Anaheim-Santa Ana-Garden Grove
SMSA {Orange County), the San Bernardino-Riverside-Ontario
SMSA (Riverside and San Bernardino Counties), and the
Oxnard-Ventura SMSA (Ventura County).
Tables 2 and 3 show
that this Five-County area increased its population from
4,934,246 to 9,972,037 between 1950 and 1970, thus doubling
itself in twenty years (102 percent increase).
The role of in-migration in this astounding regional
growth would be difficult to overstate.
In the Five-County
Region, for the nineteen year period, 1950-1968, inmigration consistently accounted for well over hal£ of the
-----------------
TABLE 1.--VENTURA COUNTY
POPULATION GROWTH, 1880-1970
*Year
Total
Population
Absolute
Change
Percent
Change
Density
Population/
Square Mile
2.7
1880
5,073
1890
10,071
4,998
98.5
5.4
1900
14,367
4,296
43.0
7.7
1910
18,347
3,980
28.0
9.8
1920
28,724
10,377
57.0
15.4
1930
54,976
26,252
91.0
25.5
1940
69,685
14,709
27.0
37.4
1950
114,647
44,692
65.0
61.5
1960
199,138
84,491
74.0
106.9
1970
376,430
177,292
89.0
201.8
*Ventura County Created March 22, 1872.
· square miles.
Sources:
Area
= 1,865
Planning Research Corporation, Population Study
and Forecast, County of Ventura, California, 195~
p. 11; U. s. Bureau of Census, U. s. Census of
Population: 1970 Final Population Counts,
California, Advance Report, PC(V2)-6, p. 10;
Security Pacific National Bank, Economic Research
Department, The Southern California Report: A
Study of Growth and Economic Stature, 1970, p. 8~
I
I
!
TABLE 2.--COMPARATIVE LOS ANGELES FIVE-COUNTY REGION POPULATION
1950-1970
Los Angeles
Ventura
Ventura
County
Portion
216,224
4,151,687
114,647
2.3%
503,591
703,925
6,038,771
199,138
2.6
684,072
1,420,386
7,032,075
376,430
3.8
Year
Los Angeles
Five-County
Region
Riverside
San
Bernardino
1950
4,934,246
170,046
281,642
1960
7,751,616
306,191
1970
9,972,037
459,074
Sources:
Orange
Security Pacific National Bank. Economic Research Department, The Southern
California Report: A Study of Growth and Economic Stature, 1970, p. 83;
u. s. Bureau of the Census, U. s. Census of Population: 1970. Final Population Counts, California, Advance Report, PC(Y2)-6, p. 10.
TABLE 3.--IN-MIGRATION,LOS ANGELES FIVE-COUNTY REGION
1950-1968
Year
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
Net
In-Migration
96,611
156,058
208,526
229,681
213,912
217,663
239,806
207,261
160,738
148,666
142,892
141,866
195,021
213,998
165,697
100,248
84,144
75,099
43,815
Total
Increase
157,533
223,100
283,000
312,700
304,800
311,900
344,800
320,950
271,500
260,511
257,039
259,550
310,050
330,100
279,650
204,550
177,150
167,950
138,100
Migration
as Percent of
Increase
61.3
69.9
73. 7**
73.5
70.2
69.8
69.5
64.6
59.2
57.1
55.6
54.7
62.9
64.8
59.3
49.0
47.5
44.7
31.7*
* Low
** High
Sources:
l
Ventura County Planning Department, Estimated
Population Increase in Ventura County, unpublished report, February, 1970; Security
Pacific National Bank, Economic Research
Department, The Southern California Report:
A Study of Growth and Economic Stature, 1970,
p. 83.
annual absolute increases until 1965.
The average annual
share for in-migration for this same period is 61.9
percent.
While the regional importance of in-migration is very
significant, it has been even more important in Ventura
County.
In the 1950-1968 period, in-migration never
dropped below fifty percent of Ventura County',s total
annual gr,owth.
In fact, it ranged from a low of 55.9 per-
cent in 1955, to a high of eighty-seven percent in 1963,
compared to a regional high of 73.7 percent in 1952, and
the recent low of 31.7 percent in 1968 (Tables 3 and 4).
The occurrence of these lows and highs at opposite
ends of the twenty-year period are of some significance in
an analysis of Ventura County's current growth patterns.
While total regional in-migration rates began dropping off
rather quickly in 1963-64, Ventura County was experiencing
its highest rates.
During 1965-67, county in-migration
rates dropped momentarily, but spurted upward again in
1968-69, while regional rates sagged.
It appears that regional growth direction has shifted
1
toward the north.
An analysis of Ventura County's total
share of the regional annual growth is illuminating in this
!regard.
In the 1950's, Ventura County's share stood at a
~ of two percent, and it hardly seems correct to even
TABLE 4.--IN-MIGRATION,VENTURA COUNTY, 1950-1969
I
I
i
Year
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
*Low
Sources:
Net
In-Miaration
4,459
4,669
3,164
4,040
3,859
3,661
4,994
6,616
7,915
9,771
10,624
10,969
16,182
30,887
28' 170
6,810
6,760
5,976
12,828
13,983
Ventura Co.
Share of
Regional
In-Migration
4.6%
3.0
1.5
1.8
1.8
1.7
2.1
3.2
4.9
6.8
7.4
7.7
8.3
14.4
17.0
6.8
8.0
8.0
29.3
Ventura Co.
Share of
Regional
Increase
4.2%
3.1
2.0
2.2
2.2
2.1
2.4
3.1
4.2
5.2
5.7
5.9
6.7
10.8
11.8
5.7
6.4
6.3
12.6
Total
Increase
6,640
6,900
5,600
6,850
6,800
6,550
8,150
9,950
11,400
13,550
14,550
15,200
20,700
35,500
33,000
11,600
11,300
10,530
17,410
18,840
19 Year Average
=
5.4%
Migration
As Percent of
Increase
67.2
67.7
56.5
59.0
56;8
55.9*
61.3
66.5
69.4
73.2
73.0
72.2
78.1
87.0**
85.3
58.7
59.8
56.7
73.7
=
74.2
**High
Ventura County Planning Department, Estimated Population Increase in Ventura
County, unpublished report, February, 1970; Security Pacific National Bank,
Economic Research Department, The Southern California Report: A Study of
Growth and Economic Stature, 1970, p. 83.
----------·------------------------
·----··--
compare Ventura County at this time to its burgeoning
southern neighbors.
While Ventura County's share o£ total
growth has not increased spectacularly, the change is
locally important (Table 4}.
The county contributed 12.6
percent o£ the regional increase in 1968; a considerable
change £rom its 1952-56 role.
It is o£ even more importance that Ventura County's
share o£ annual regional population growth was rising
steadily while the absolute regional growth was tailing
o££ between 1964-1970.
This is another indication o£ a
regional change in growth directions, a shift that will
likely cause even more dramatic local population increases
than in the past.
In recent years, there has been a slow-
ing o£ population growth in the Los Angeles Five-County
Region.
The average annual growth rate £rom 1960-1970 was
222,042, compared to 281,737 £or the 1950-1960 period
(Table 5).
However, within Ventura County the picture was di££erent.
The county grew at an average annual rate o£
8,449 between 1950-1960 and o£ 17,729 during 1960-1970.
The local rate more than doubled, while the regional rate
dropped.
i
3
It appears at first glance that Ventura County is not
G_i_e~- t-~-~~-e--~~~~-~-~--~~- the
Los Angeles Five-County Region.
TABLE 5.--COMPARATIVE POPULATION GROWTH-LOS ANGELES FIVE-COUNTY REGION
1950 - 1959
Migration as a
Average Annual
Average Annual
Average Annual
Percent of
Pooulation Change
Count
Pooulation Change Natural Increase
Net Miaration
Ventura
Los Angeles
Orange
San Bernardino
Riverside
Five-County
Region
8,449
188,078
48,770
22,195
13,615
2,948
71,423
7,625
6,871
3,651
5,501
117,285
41' 145
15,324
9,964
65.1
62.2
84.4
69.0
73.2
281,737
92,518
189,219
67.2
1960 - 1968
Ventura
Los Angeles
Orange
San Bernardino
Riverside
Five-County
Region
Source:
18,504
107,655
73,654
20,190
15,110
4,519
74,186
16,286
7,574
4,043
13,985
33,469
57,368
12,616
11,067
75.6
31.1
77.9
62.5
73.2
235,112
106,608
128,504
54.7
Security Pacific National Bank. Economic Research Department, The Southern
California Report: A Study of Growth and Economic Stature, 1970, p. 93.
However, it is more accurate to say that the county has not
yet been affected by the slowdown in the regional population boom.
The larger region is not receiving the out o£
state input that has been so important to its growth, while
ventura County's population total continues to spiral.
Ventura is growing because o£ migration from the concentrated urban areas o£ the region.
Even though out o£ state
migrations have moderated, inter-county migrations have
continued.
This flow is not nearly so large as that £rom
out o£ state, but it is locally important.
Causes of Population Growth in Ventura County
There appear to be two general sets of £actors in£luencing Ventura County's growth:
(1) those that in£lu-
enced developers and builders, and (2) those that in£luenced the in-migrants' decision to come to Ventura County.
Forces Influencing Developers
There are three major £actors that have acted in concert to influence developers and construction in Ventura
County:
(1) land,
(2) accessibility, and (3) water.
Available land is necessary to precipitate and support a
population boom.
Relatively level, cleared land is in
j great supply in Ventura County.
In 1966, there were avail-
~~~~-~73,470 acres suitable £or urban development in the
southern hal£ of the county alone.
This figure includes
land that is either flat or has a slope of twenty-five
percent gradient or less.
capacity of 2.9 to 3.1
This land has a residential
. 1.1on persons. 4
m~l
Most of it is
agricultural, and, therefore, is generally not difficult to
prepare for subdivision.
Orchard land poses greater di£-
ficulty, but the large equipment presently available makes
I
quick work of most trees.
Use of prime agricultural land
for urban development has been much decried, but as yet
little has been done to halt it.
Gregor points out that
fifty percent of California's best soil is in urban expansion areas. 5
However, the best agricultural lands at the
city's edge will continue to be utilized by developers for
a variety of reasons.
Foremost amongst these is the high
accessibility of such lands, and the resultant savings accrued because of lower costs in extending utilities and
streets to these areas.
Savings are also accrued because
the usually level sites are easier to prepare for development.
Furthermore, the taxes on these sites rise quickly
because of tax assessment based on potential rather than
actual usage, and owners are frequently only too happy to
se11. 6
Farmers and other landholders of Ventura County sold
to developers looking for potential tract sites at
relatively low prices.
Compared to typical land prices
found in San Fernando Valley, for instance, much lower
costs in Ventura County were significant in encouraging
.
t"10n. 7
urban1za
The supply of land in Los Angeles County
suitable for large scale subdivisions was generally higher
in price, and cost the developer more to improve than did
land in Ventura County.
High land costs in Los Angeles County during the study
period also succeeded in driving final home costs up to a
level where a significant portion of potential house buyers
were forced out of the Los Angeles County market.
Sub-
dividers were aware of this potential lower income, and
generally younger market, and began to provide a large
housing supply in Ventura County (Table 6).
Many in-
migrants to Ventura County were young and had somewhat
lower than average earning capacity.
The 1970 Census
•howed that seventy-three percent and eighty-one percent of
Simi Valley and Camarillo residents, respectively, were
Under thirty-five years of age, compared to a figure of
~6.8 percent in Los Angeles County.
Realizing that there
:was a real market in the World War II "war babies," developers began to buy and to build up Ventura County land
from 1959 onward in an effort to gain the greatest profit
«rom the coming population surge. 8
----------------------------
TABLE 6.--VENTURA COUNTY DWELLING UNITS
AUTHORIZED FOR CONSTRUCTION
1950-1959
Year
Number
Year
Number
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1,949
2,362
1,664
2,055
2,522
3,165
2,553
2,622
3,385
5,264
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
4,108
6,937
6,798
9,263
8,846
5,937
2,609
2,899
4,776
5,991
Sources:
Security First National Bank, Research Division,
Southern California ReEort, 1965, P• 145;
Security Pacific National Bank, The Southern
California ReEort, 1970, P• 117.
Sensing that the Five-County Regional growth direction
was soon to be more toward the north, land speculators and
developers purchased properties where they determined
growth would occur first.
Land was developed in the first
two large level valleys that are northwest of the San
Fernando Valley, that is, Conejo Valley and Simi Valley.
Developers correctly calculated that access to Los Angeles
would be important to new residents, as outlying employ;ment centers were relatively scarce in the 1950's.
l__
A third factor allowing developers to move ahead was
newly available water supplies in the eastern part o£
ventura County.
Lack o£ water had been a detriment to
earlier growth and seriousness o£ the potential problem was
realized in all quarters.
9
Until the early 1960's, Ventura
County's only water supply was ground water.
10
Since
average annual rainfall £or the county as a whole is low
(14.75 inches per year), the growing demands £or water by
agriculture and people were having devastating e££ects on
the source.
Stead describes part o£ the problem well:
11
It wasn't long before the citrus ranchers
and the small valley towns o£ Southern California
learned that in the pressure aqui£ers ••• the water
table ••• dropped steadily as the draft exceeded
the rate o£ replenishment, and that even the
pioneering conservation e££orts o£ the Los Angeles
County Flood Control District could not halt this
slow, downward disappearance o£ the life blood o£
their economy.
Wells on the Oxnard Plain, being used to irrigate large
areas, had sufficiently drained the Oxnard aquifer so that
by 1951 ocean water was permeating the supply.
This was
slowly corrected by means o£ "hydraulic dams" (groundwater mounds produced by injecting water through wells).
12
Other water problems included " • • • the consistent lowering o£ ground-water levels, degradation o£ ground-water
quality, and serious diminution o£ surface and ground-water
supplies during periods o£ drought." 13
Adequate water-supply planning throughout the 1950's
increased the area's growth potential •. Three reservoirs
were completed: Santa Felicia, Matilija and Casitas.
Further improvements consisted of obtaining excess water
from the Metropolitan Water District (MWD) of Los Angeles
.
.
14
via the local Calleguas Water D1str1ct.
. .
1
S1m1 Val ey ob-
tained this MWD water in December, 1963, enabling growth
to proceed in an unhampered fashion, while in Conejo
Valley water became available from the same source in the
summer of 1964. 15
Lack of water, then, formed a barrier to further population growth just as it did in other sections of Southern
California until regional water problems were solved by
•importation of Owens Valley water, and later, Colorado
!
I
River water.
Even more water was contracted for in 1963 to
be imported in the near future by the California Water
Plan. 16
It is believed that this water will take care of
:Ventura County's needs till 1990.
17
l
Forces Attracting Migrants
Migrants to Ventura County have been influenced in
their decisions to move by a variety of factors.
These
include: (1) availability of desirable housing, (2)
amenities that footloose citizens are pursuing, such as
29
ild climate, increased space, clean air, and accessible
ecreational facilities, and (3) employment opportunities.
here are other forces which could be listed, but the group
"dentified will be considered here to see how they pulled
igrants into Ventura County.
ousing Availabilit •
Probably the most important attrac-
tive force, especially in the 1960's, was the ever increasing supply of housing.
In the period 1950 to 1959,
there was an annual average of 2,854 dwelling units authorized for construction in the county, compared with the
1960 to 1969 period's average of 5,816.
Over the twenty-
year study period, 86,705 dwellings were added.
The pace
of home building increased significantly in Ventura County
during the 1960's.
The large numbers of "war babies" establishing homes
during this period strove to carry on living patterns of
their parents by seeking a suburban life.
The answer to
this drive for "private space" lay on the rural-urban
fringe.
The same vision attracted their parents a genera-
ltion earlier.
During the 1950's, most home buyers avoided
I
lthe more congested areas of the urban core and went to San
:Fernando Valley or toward Orange County.
i
lt~~~-~ed
as fast as they could be sold.
Homes were conThe home-building
-----------
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ---·-----------
ate in Orange County doubled between 1951 and 1952, and
skyrocketed to a peak o£ 36,962 in 1963. 18
Meanwhile, the
ther major regional growth area, the San Fernando Valley,
as also being filled rapidly with homes:
San Fernando Valley
19
Average Annual Dwelling Unit Construction
1940-1949
7,448 annual average
1950-1959
13,483 annual average
1960-1967
13,330 annual average
Construction at these rates rapidly urbanized these
areas.
Increased densities and demand caused prices to
rise to intolerable heights.
Thus, many people looked to
the west beyond Los Angeles County £or their share o£ as
yet untainted rural areas.
Some empirical studies o£ the motives o£ people who
move have indicated that one prime rationale behind locational choices is the actual environment o£ the neighborhood, and that a major reason £or movi.r19 1.n the first place
is a need £or additional dwelling space.
Furthermore,
these studies indicate that accessibility, job changes, and
the desire £or more land space are not as important in the
I
!decision-making process as has previously been stated.
20
lstegman states in this regard that, "Regardless o£ their
I
~places
o£ employment, many families will reside in
betropolitan outer rings because that is precisely where
.
.
.
.
the single-family hous1ng they des1re 1s s1tuated.
~he
1121
findings of Hoover and Vernon in 1959 also indicate
that the two basic determinants of residence choice are
~ousing
supply and need for access.
22
The above mentioned
variables apparently work in varying degrees to help
determine residential patterns throughout the nation, and
they were also at work in Ventura County.
Developers constructed adequate housing in line with
previously well-established consumer preferences of
Southern Californians.
In this region, consumers have in-
dicated very strong preferences for houses on separate,
rather large lots that give them not only some measure of
privacy, but a measure of limited freedom.
Aschmann sums
:.1p this tendency by saying that, "Privacy, freedom from
social constraint and behavior, and direct access to the
environment at home, beaches, and in the mountains are
three major goals sought by the Southern Californian."
23
Gregor succinctly traces the Southern Californian's urge
to live in ever-expanding suburbs back to pre-1900 days in
Los Angeles.
Gregor believes that a tendency to recreate
an image of their midwestern ancestral hometowns in Los
Angeles was the cause of the growth of our present landscape's dominant element. 24
The rather high level of freedom displayed by the
Southern Californian in his choice of living patterns is
nowhere more in evidence than in Ventura County.
The in-
»dgrants have determined that the metropolitan core is not
suited to their desires, and that they prefer a house in
the suburban atmosphere.
In this regard, Stegman argues
that, "In actuality, physical proximity to the
[ci 'ty]
core is more often sacrificed not only for more residential
space, but also £or improved quality, amenity, and environmental considerations."
25
All of the typical suburban qualities o£ living were
available in Ventura County at lower costs than in Los
\ngeles County.
A brief look at comparative housing values
in the two counties
supports this.
The disparity in com-
parative house value shown in Table 7 is not too great;
however, when it is realized that seventy-six percent of
Ventura County's housing stock of 112,333 dwellings has
been built since 1950, the true significance of the di££erence becomes apparent. 26
Only forty-seven percent o£
:Los Angeles County's housing inventory has been built
.
s1nce 1950.
27
In rapid growth segments of Ventura County,
this condition is even more prevalent; for instance, in
the Simi Planning Area, ninety-two percent of the housing
l
~:t_()C~-w~s--~~il t
since _1_9_?0,
~:rl?
__ eighty-£our
percent since
l960.
28
TABLE 7.--1970 COMPARATIVE MEDIAN HOUSE VALUESSELECTED PLACES
Ventura County
Source:
$23' 100
Simi Valley
24,400
Camarillo ,
25,200
Los Angeles County
24,300
Los Angeles City
26,700
Burbank
26,300
U. S. Bureau of the Census. U. s. Census of
Housing: 1970. General Housing Characteristics,
California, Advance Report, HC (Vl)-6.
In summary, then, during the last twenty years, a
large supply of relatively low priced homes has been built
on large lots and they have been a major attractive force
during the population boom in Ventura County over the last
twenty years.
Amenities.
1
Other amenities have provided the second most
I
~forceful attractor to Ventura Oounty.
Many authors have
attributed some or all of recent Ventura County growth to a
phenomena variously labeled "spillout," "spillover," or
:"overspill," from Los Angeles County.29
I
L _____ _
There is no
question that growth in the two counties is related.
How-
ever, the use of such a generalized, undefined term will
~ot
be used here to explain Ventura County's growth.
trover spill," as used most often, connotes that the subject
or
action totally lacks any attractive force of its own.
~is
is not true of Ventura County.
The County of Ventura,
the Los Angeles Five-County Region, and all of Southern
California, possess an irrefutably magnetic-like quality
ail their own.
It is doubtful that any but a very small
percentage of the in-migrants were literally forced out of
Los Angeles County by the "population pressures" to which
allusion is frequently made.
It is, however, undoubtedly true that many migrants
have come from more densely settled core areas of the
larger region by their own choice, people unhappy with the
traffic, the smog, the high home prices, the racial strife,
and the crowds.
Let "overspill" then be defined and as
such applied to that segment of the in-migrants from an
urban area into a suburban-rural environment, whose move
has been motivated by a desire to seek out amenities that
were no longer present in their original homesites.
In
this context, it might even be proper to attribute the
growth of all of Southern California to overspill from the
~est
of the country.
The desire for increased amenities
is, however, a force that explains only a portion of the
moves into Ventura County,
and is a complex force, parts
af which must be discussed separately.
Total landscape appearance is also an important
amenity force operative today; that is, the presence of
>
~nbroken
~rchards,
miles of row crops, walnuts, avocados, and citrus
growing along uncrowded highways, against the
backdrop of rugged, close mountains and a smog-free sky on
cool summer days.
The Southern California of the 1930's
is still to be found in Ventura County, and this, of
course, was even more true in the 1950 to 1970 era than it
will be in the future.
The authors of the 1985 Ventura
County General Plan described the landscape quite appropriately:
The landscape of Ventura County reflects in part
a happy combination between man and nature.
Modifications to the land with terraced orchards,
citrus groves and walnuts, vistas of green fields
under cultivation flanked by plantations of
Eucalyptus have reduced and softened the natural
California countryside. Beyond the lower mountain slopes and in the vast territories of the
national forest, the wild landscape prevails and
concern for its preservation is widely recognized.
Native vegetation in the mountainous and hilly
parts is usually a mixture of stunted trees and
chaparral.
It is an evergreen growth varied in
composition, accustomed to rugged combinations
of temperature, rainfall, evaporation and soils.
Within the alluvial valleys, agriculture and the
township settlements have now to face the tremendous impact of tract residential development
and urbanization on an intensified scale. It is
therefore the cultivated landscape that is
principally under change, rather than the wild
landscape. 30
Many other authors have decried the loss of this
"typical Southern California landscape," out of a fear of
creation of a never-ending suburban wilderness, that paradoxically is the desire and ideal of nearly all potential
homeowners from coast to coast.
The landscape created in
Southern California during its first eighty years of
cataclysmic change was an attractive one and subject to
self-destruction by its own magnetic forces.
Among the other amenities, climate is as important in
Ventura County as it is throughout the Southern California
coastal zone.
However, Ventura County's climate is milder
than that experienced in some other parts of the Los
ngeles Five-County Region.
This fact attracts residents
from these sections that are trying to escape hot summers,
for instance, of the San Fernando Valley.
Climate is a
ore important attractive force for out of state migrants,
·due to the likelihood that they have originated in harsher
climates, and Ventura County offers relief from climatic ex1
1tremes (Table 8).
The climate of Ventura County and of
~--~~ S-~~~t~=~~ ~-::ifornia
is basically a dry, subtropical
TABLE B.--CLIMATIC COMPARISONS-SELECTED PLACES
Mean Temperatures
Annual
Maximum
Minimum
Rainfall
OXnard
59.3 0 F.
69.7 F.
48.8°F.
Inches
14.75
Conejo Valley
67.0
81.0
53.0
14.26
Simi Valley
62.0
75.0
49.'0
12.28
Canoga Park
62.9
79.4
46.2
14.04
Great Falls
45.3
56.2
34.4
14.07
Albuquerque
56.6
69.4
43.7
14.75
Los Angeles
63.3
73.1
53.5
14.68
Sources:
0
Security First National Bank. Economic Research
Department. The Growth and Economic Stature o£
San Fernando Valley and the Greater Glendale
Area, 1967, p. 30; University o£ California.
Agricultural Extension Service, The Projected
Environment £or Agricultural Extension in Ventura
County, 1967, pp. 29-30; u. s. Weather Bureau,
Climatography o£ the United States No. 20-04,
Oxnard, California, Climatological Summary, as
reprinted in Gruen Associates, Oxnard-2000General Plan, Volume I, Appendix r-·;_:::·
Mediterranean type, and, as such, does not exist elsewhere
in the United States.
Ventura County, therefore, is in
.Possession o£ a very rare climatic amenity, even more important today, in combination with a general lack o£ eye
Climate is not to be underrated as a
very strong attractive £actor in interpretations o£ county
t
·~ growth, as is the case throughout Southern California.
I
"
Ventura County also o££ers relie£ £rom some sel£destructive aspects o£ the urban core that have always been
easy targets £or those who have been so sharply critical
o£ "city li£e." 31
pollution.
The most obvious culprit here is air
Many people seek to leave the heavily smog
ridden Los Angeles area £or valid health reasons, and
others just because o£ the smog's irritating presence.
On
weekend trips to the north, inhabitants o£ the "core areas"
see that smog is not yet a major problem on the metropolitan fringe and they naturally begin to wonder why they
should continue living in its midst.
The Ventura County
Planning Department conducted a survey in October o£ 1963
regarding reasons £or moving to the Conejo Valley.
They
found that the majority came to enjoy climate, £or health
reasons, and to escape smog and congestion o£ the metropolitan area.
Others had been transferred to branch
companies in the area by their employers. 32
Tra££ic problems are merely part o£ the larger problem o£ "crowding" that is an outgrowth o£ urbanization.
1
This problem was not so apparent in the early 1950 1 s, but
, soon thereafter became acute.
II
.The majority o£
I
U:~!l-mig:.::~nts
come]
• £rom Los Angeles County to escape
the congestion of the metropolitan area, although the move
frequently involved them in much longer commuting distances
to their work." 33
Enjoyment is removed from many an outing
by the long waiting period.
One must wait to buy a ticket,
to see lions at a zoo, to see a movie, wherever one goes
he must wait.
Waiting is a negative attribute to be
directly correlated with population densities.
Although
to my knowledge, it has not been empirically tested, the
average length of waiting must correlate positively with
population density.
avoid waiting.
Given the choice, most people will
Therefore, it can be said that this in-
creasingly negative aspect of the Los Angeles Five-County
Region must be considered as a factor influencing decisions
I
/to move to Ventura County.
As may be observed in Table 9,
the overall population density is lower in the peripheral
counties, an amenity pulling migrants outward at present.
It is likely only a matter of time before "waiting" becomes
a critical Ventura County problem too, and another regional
amenity will be lost.
Availability of outdoor recreational and leisure time
facilities is another amenity affected by waiting time.
Such facilities are ubiquitous throughout the Los Angeles
1
Five-County Region, and there is no denying that many
b~:_e ~~~-=-~~--~~~-~-~=:r:_~---~~-~~~~~nia
to enjoy them.
Ventura
TABLE 9.--COMPARATIVE DENSITIES PER SQUARE MILE
1950-1970
L. A. County
·Ventura
Orange
Riverside
tsan Bernardino
Note:
People Per Square Mile
Square
Miles
1950
4,068.6
1,863.4
782.0
7,176.3
20,118.8
1,020.4
61.5
276.5
23.7
13.9
1960
1970
1,484.2
106.9
900.2
42.7
25.0
1,728.4
202.0
1,816.4
63.0
34.0
These figures are useful £or making only the most
general comparisons, due to the varying amounts o£
relatively uninhabited area in each county.
Sources:
Security Pacific National Bank, Southern California Report, 1970, pp. 83 and 86; U. s. Census o£
Population, Final Population Counts, 1970, p. 3.
County has its share, and £or the present, most o£ the
Ventura County facilities are relatively uncrowded.
Most o£ the Ventura County recreational amenities are
of the outdoor type, such as, camping, fishing, boating,
and hunting, rather than man-made cultural attractions.
However, in 1971, one can enjoy a degree o£ urban life
style, and still be just ten minutes from the "duck club",
and five minutes from a sailboat in the harbor.
Ease o£
access to these sites and the relative lack o£ congestion
are a contributing £actor to their enjoyment.
There are
41
two small craft marinas, forty-two miles of beach area,
fishing, hiking and other outdoor recreational opportunities.
Such facilities, their ease of access, combined
with a lack of crowds, underscore their role as growth
attractors throughout the study period.
In summary, seeking greater amenities in addition to
pleasures of suburban life played a significant part in
stimulating population growth in Ventura County throughout
the twenty-year study period.
Amenities as a growth
factor were identified in 1954 by Ullman as an important
contributor to, "significant population increase, particularly in the United States.!l
34
As individual mobility
increases, amenities will play an even larger role as a
force molding future population patterns similar to those
already extant in Southern California.
Accessibility.
The role of accessibility in contributing
to population growth in Ventura County will be discussed in
detail in later chapters.
Suffice it to say here that the
overall accessibility of Ventura County has increased significantly during the twenty-year study period.
Connection
to southern counties has been improved immensely by addition of two freeways: the Simi Valley-San Fernando Valley
Freeway (State Highway 118) and the Ventura Freeway (U. S.
Highway 101).
With completion of Highway 101 as a limited
access expressway in December, 1958, developers and the
general populace discovered the Conejo Valley and the land
rush was on.
This freeway was widened to eight lines as
far as the Las Virgenes interchange by October, 1967, and
35
on to Moorpark Road in April, 1970.
Freeways reduce time required in the journey to work,
and thus, enlarge the potential "habitation area" for
homebuyers.
Given a desirable area such as Ventura County,
the necessary in-range employment opportunities, and high
population densities at one end, a freeway will effectively
,open up previously empty lands on the rural-urban fringe.
I
Without these ingredients, freeways will not necessarily
have this effect.
Witness the opening of the Santa Paula
Freeway in 1963-65. 36
There has been only a very limited
urban development of land along this route.
However, with
the Ventura Freeway, the priming factors were there.
Most
significant was the recent buildup of employment in the
1
west end of San Fernando Valley.
37
Population densities
in the west end of San Fernando Valley rose quickly, but
this area was within commuting range for many people, so
that many new employees attracted to jobs located there
found the lower density residential sections of nearby
43
-------------------------------------·····-···---
...
-
--
.
entura County more to their financial liking.
38
People
ho wanted to escape high home prices, congestion, smog,
and traffic, could easily do so by working in the West San
Fernando Valley and by living in Ventura County.
Employment opportunities are linked very
closely with Ventura'County population growth.
Without the,
necessary job supply, growth could not have occurred.
Throughout the study period, the eastern edge of Ventura
County acted as a labor source for both San Fernando
Valley and the Los Angeles Basin.
Employment in San
Fernando Valley rose rapidly in this period with 146,000
jobs created from 1955 to 1966, making a total of 412,000
job opportunities in the valley. 39
Later in the study period, employment built up even
further out on the periphery when new industry located in
Conejo Valley.
By 1965, twelve firms were located on the
eastern edge of Ventura Oounty (Table 10).
By 1970, this
area began to create its own industrially-oriented economic base.
Compared to the scale of development occurring
in San Fernando Valley, however, it is miniscule.
The
i
'8,666 manufacturing employees listed in Table 10 barely
!represented two percent of those in the San Fernando Valley
..._------------------------------·-·--------
·;
TABLE 10. --MANUFACTURING EMPLOYMENT SOURCES - EASTERN
VENTURA COUNTY, 1965 and 1970
Location
Burro Flats
simi Valley
Simi Valley
Newbury Park
Newbury Park
Newbury Park
Newbury Park
Thousand Oaks
Thousand Oaks
Thousand Oaks
Thousand Oaks
Firm
Rocketdyne-Atomics
International
Houston Tool Company
Charm£it
Northrop-Ventura Corporation
Talley
North American Aviation
Science Center
Westinghouse
Technology Instrument Corporation
Packard Bell
Janss Corporation
Westland Plastics
Total
Employees
1965
1970
2,700
20
35
1,600
300
3,200
20
55
1,200
375
200
250
200
193
275
192
150
95
300
300
125
90
5,817
By July, 1970, the following were added:
Newbury Park
Newbury Park
Newbury Park
Newbury Park
Westlake
Thousand Oaks
Simi Valley
Newbury Park
Newbury Park
Newbury Park
Newbury Park
Newbury Park
Simi Valley
Simi Valley
,Simi Valley
i
Capitol Record Club
Reflective Laminates/
Fansteel
Teller Industries -Electronics
Ventura Castings - Wax Castings
IBM - Computer Software
Cathy Accessories - Clothing
Shasta Ind. - Mobile Homes
Purolator - Electronics
Semtech Corporation - Electronics
Lorenz Housewares
Smith Precision Products
W. S. Shamban - Plastics
Oberg Construction Corporation
Free Drop Top - Plastics
Big Three Ind. Gas & Equip. Co.
300
183
95
25
400
70
200
750
350
30
27
110
50
30
8
I----------------------------J_u~l~y~,__l~9~7~0--~T~o~t~a~l~------------~8~,~6~6~6~
,Sources:
L__
Ventura County Economic Development Association,
1965 Factual Analysis, pp. 107-108; Ventura
County Economic Development Association, Direc-
----·---~;_~;-~~-~~;-~~;l~~-;;_t;~~s ~ndustrial
Property, July,
in 1966.
In 1966, the Ventura County Planning Department
estimated that the combined work force o£ the Simi and
40
Oonejo-Coastal Planning areas contained 26,900 people.
It was also estimated that existing employment in these
areas totaled 13,081.
41
It is quite apparent that there
were not nearly enough work opportunities available in this
region to adequately support the population.
It is ob-
vious that the prime employment outlet £or the area is in
the San Fernando Valley. 42
This £act is buttressed by the
survey found in Table 11.
Another survey by the Ventura County Planning Department in October, 1963, found that £i£ty-one percent o£ the
working force o£ Newbury Park and Thousand Oaks commuted
daily to Los Angeles County.
The mean distance was forty-
six miles a day, with some trips up to 150 miles per day.
43
Summary
In summary, the eastern edge o£ Ventura County has
not yet developed an industrial employment base comparable
to that in the central sections o£ the county.
Sectors o£
the Los Angeles area that are within commuting distance
provided the bulk o£ employment supporting Ventura County
population boom areas at the close o£ the study period.
46
--------------------------------------------------
TABLE 11.--EMPLOYMENT AREA OF PRIMARY WAGE EARNERS
Place
SIMI
RESIDENTSAUGUST, 1970
CONEJO
VALLEYRESIDENTS
FEBRUARY, 1971
Source:
Percent
San Fernando Valley
44
Simi
24
Los Angeles-Long Beach
18
Conejo Valley
8
Miscellaneous
4
Conejo Valley
38
Los Angeles-Long Beach
27
San Fernando Valley
27
Oxnard
6
Ventura
2
Moorpark College, Department of Business and
Economics, Economic Newsletter, August, 1970 and
February, 1971.
Local employment as a factor contributing to the growth in
eastern Ventura County is presently of growing significance
Other factors previously enumerated must be considered
!prime causes of growth in this area.
Land developers made
I
I investments
because of available supplies of relatively
I
I
I
1cheap land, new supplies of water from the Metropolitan
lWater District allowed development to proceed, and highway
puilding programs rendered the region accessible.
~ppulace
~heaper
came to Ventura
seeking desirable and
housing and attributes made accessible by the free-
may extensions.
~actors,
Co~nty
The
As a result of a combination of these
growth in Ventura County proceeded faster than
ever before, moreover some sections of the county experienced urbanization for the first time.
Simi Valley was one
of these areas.
Simi Valley also possessed the necessary priming
factors for rapid urban growth.
of
There were large acreages
level land available for housing development.
Land
values were relatively low and as a result developers were
anxious to build.
Once water became available in the
early 1960's houses were constructed at increasing rates.
As a result many of the region's migrants settled in the
Simi Valley.
It was close to the large supply of jobs
that developed in the San Fernando Valley in the sixties.
There was also a large supply of relatively cheap housing
for people to choose from.
Amenities of the area served
to reinforce the population influx so that Simi Valley became a major regional growth center in the 1960's.
FOOTNOTES
:
L_____ -
1..
The Los Angeles Five-County Region includes:
Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino
and Ventura Counties.
2.
u.
3.
U. S. Bureau of the Census, loc. cit.
4.
Ventura County Planning Department, Population
Growth: Ventura County, California ( [Ventura] ,
1966), p. 28. The projected population is based
upon a calculation assuming five acres per
dwelling unit with 3.5-3.7 persons per unit.
5.
Howard Gregor, "Spatial Disharmonies in
California Population Growth," Geographical
Review, 53 (Jan., 1963), 121.
6.
Cameron, Simi Grows Up, p. 90.
7.
Security First National Bank. Research Department, The Growth and Stature of Ventura County,
1960 ([Los Angeles], March, 1960, 8 ; interview with Bernard Moore, Larwin Company, Los
Angeles.
8.
Ventura County. Recorders Office, Miscellaneous
Records Books, Numbers 25 -date.
S. Bureau of the Census, u. s. Census of
Population: 1970. Final Population Counts,
California, Advance Report :PC(Vl)-6
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office,
February, 1971), p. 3; Security First National
Bank. Economic Research Division, The Growth
and Economic Stature of Ventura, Santa Barbara
and San Luis Obispo Counties ( [Los Angeles] ,
July, 1966), p. 65.
9.
Lonsdale, Richard E., Water Problems of the Simi
Valley {unpublished Master's thesis, UCLA,
1953), p. 31; Wilsey, Ham and Blair, 1985 Preliminary General Plan Report, Second Year
Program {Ventura: Ventura County Planning Commission, August, 1962}, p. 5.
10.
James M. Campbell, Economic and Industrial Survey
and Study of Industrial Land Use and Zoning,
Ventura County, California ([Ventura] , Ventura
County Board of Supervisors, 1956}, p. 31.
11.
Frank M. Stead, "Losing the Water Battle," Cry
California, {Summer, 1968), 17.
12.
Ibid. , p. 18.
13.
Campbell, loc. cit.
14.
Ventura County Planning Department, ££• cit.,
p. 30.
15.
Interview with Frances Kimball, Colleguas
Municipal Water District, Thousand Oaks, April
28' 1971.
16.
Ventura County Economic Development Association,
Ventura County, California. 1965 Factual Analysis
{Camarillo, 1970), p. 71.
17.
Ventura County Planning Department, loc. cit.
18.
Security Pacific National Bank. Economic Research Department, The Southern California Report: A Study of Growth and Economic Stature
( [Los Angeles] , March, 1970) , p. 131.
19.
Security First National Bank. Economic Research
Department, The Growth and Economic Stature of
San Fernando Valley and the Greater Glendale
Area ( [Los Angeles] , October, 1967), pp. 69-70.
~----------
20.
James W. Simmons, "Changing Residence in the
City: A Review of Intra-Urban Mobility,"
Geographical Review, LVIII (October, 1968),
632-633; Michael A. Stegman, "Accessibility
Models and Residential Location," Journal of the
American Institute of Planners, XXXV (January,
1969), 22; Peter H. Rossi, Why Families Move,
(New York: The Free Press), p. 154; John B.
Lansing and Eva Mueller, Residential Location
and Urban Mobility (Ann Arbor: Institute for
Social Research, 1964), p. 21; Herbert J. Gans,
The Levittowners (New York: Pantheon Books, 1967)
p. 35; Simmons,~· cit., p. 407; Stegman,
'
loc. cit. ; Stegman, p. 26.
21.
Ibid., P• 25.
22.
Edgar M. Hoover and Raymond Vernon, Anatomy of a
Metropolis (Garden City: Doubleday and Co.,
1962 ) ' p • 199.
23.
Homer Aschmann, "Purpose in the Southern California Landscape," reprinted in Robert W.
Durrenberger, ed., California: Its People, Its
Problems, Its Prospects (Palo Alto: National
Press Books, 1971), p. 107.
24.
Howard F. Gregor, "Urban Pressures on California
Land," Land Economics, XXXIII (November, 1957),
315.
25.
Stegman, loc. cit.
26.
Ventura County Planning :Department, Generalized
Data on Ventura County Housing Characteristics
(unpublished report, March 6, 1969), Chart 2;
U. S. Bureau of the Census, U. s. Census of
Housing: 1970. General Housing Characteristics,
California. Advance Report HC (Vl)-6, p. 41.
27.
U. s. Bureau of the Census, loc. cit.; Security
First National Bank. Research Division, Southern
California Report: A Study of Growth and Economic
Stature (Los Angeles, January, 1965), p. 143.
28.
U. s. Bureau of the Census, u. S. Census of
Housing: 1970, p. 30; Ventura County Planning
Department, Housing Characteristics, loc. cit.
29.
Security First National Bank, Ventura County,
1960, fnot paginated] ;
Norman Karl Sanders,
Recent Interaction o£ Man and Physical Environment in Coastal Ventura County (unpublished
Master's thesis, UCLA, 1964), p.
Ventura County Planning Department, Planning
Newsletter, 20 (January, 1966), p. 4; Real Estate
Research Corporation, Government Center Site
Evaluation Study, prepared for Ventura County
(April, 1968), p. 20; Ventura County Economic
Development Association, 1965 Factual Analysis,
p. 29; Los Angeles Regional Transportation Study,
Employment Growth, LARTS Technical Bulletin 2-8
(Los Angeles: Transportation Association of
Southern California, April, 1968), p. 20.
30.
Wilsey, Ham and Blair,
31.
Witness the long lists of authors, academicians
and otherwise who have attacked urban life and
the city, in Morton and Lucia White's, The
Intellectual versus the City (New York: The New
American Library), 1962. The valid and non-valid
criticism of the city has also recently run rampant amongst all levels of people during the
recent "Environmentalist" fad of concern. This
will most likely run its course and there will be
a general return to the normal status quo apathy
about man's witless destruction of his only
world.
32.
Ventura County Planning Department, Population
Estimate, County of Ventura, Bulletin No. 11
(October, 1963), p. 1.
33.
Security First National Bank, Ventura County
Report, 1966, p. 9.
34.
Edward L. Ullman, "Amenities As a Factor in Regional Growth," Geographical Review, 44 (January,
19 54 ) ' p • 48 •
~·
cit., p. 16.
35.
Interview with Milton Stark and Charles F.
Gustafson, California Division of Highways,
Information Officers.
36.
Loc. cit.
37.
Security First National Bank, San Fernando
Valley Report, 1967, PP• 8-9.
38.
Security First National Bank, San Fernando
Valley Report, 1967, P• 44.
39.
Se'curi ty First National Bank, San Fernando
Valley ReEort, P• 8.
40.
Ventura County Planning Commission, Simi Area
General Plan, [Ventura] , 1967, p. 6; Ventura
County Planning Commission, Conejo-Coastal Area
General Plan, Ventura: Ventura County Planning
Department, March, 1967, p. 24.
41.
Ibid., p. 9 and p. 25, respectively.
42.
Security First National Bank, San Fernando
Valley Report, 1967, p. 44.
43.
Ventura County Planning Department, Bulletin 11,
1963, p. l.
CHAPTER IV
THE SUBURBANIZATION OF SIMI VALLEY
The Simi Valley in the early 1950's was not unlike
that o£ 1930 or even before.
The valley was basically a
modestly prosperous extension of the Southern California
landscape seen throughout the region (Map 3 ) •
The £arming,
citriculturist resident o£ 1950 saw little need to particularly cherish his serenity.
He probably did not envision
that his rural valley would not persist into the next
decade.
'
I£ he did have such foresight, he probably shud-
dered, and thought o£ putting his fifty acres up for sale.
By the mid-1950's the Simi Valley had begun to traverse the
long road toward urbanization.
By 1970 the farmer had been
largely replaced by parallel, equally spaced suburban
homes, and about 57,000 city dwellers.
The 1950-1960 Period-Population Growth
j
With the 1950 Census, the State o£ California's popu-
llation pushed over the ten and one-hal£ million mark.
!should have been a sign to the farmer, mentioned above,
53
This
/
·,,.0.
B ' G
M
0
N
I.J
T
A
I N
s
A.
T
A
s
u
s
r
SIMI
VALLEY
RESIDENTIAL
DEVELOPMENT
1951
.'601
SCALE I ?4 CCO
I M,./
=~~========~--=:I"""~--~===:::E:::==:=::=:=:=_-=::-_~--=--------=--==~=-=-----'-~~
JOt~'
'J
IWlO
,'000
l'"~'
·=--==r---.:-=--:--::=r:=:::-=_~-:~
l=::r:=E:_~~-=-c:I:~
..
~
I
~<11
l
/
..
5
M
L
I
..
..
y
·.
,.
I
•
/~~
··.
I'
·.
~k.-~~~~~.~~·-~·~·~------,--/
I
I
•.-4-50
map, 1951;
Simi,Ca., map, 1951.
MAP
3
in just 77.6 square miles.
Stretching out further into the
Greater Glendale Statistical Area of 51.9 square miles were
205,162 people.
Clearly, a distinct pattern of progression
emerges as we moved toward the Los Angeles Basin.
Graph-
ically, it might look like Table 12.
The population density of the San Fernando Valley was
very high on its east end, and in the older, more settled
portions, like Burbank, Glendale and North Hollywood.
Mov-
ing westward, into the heart of the valley, Van Nuys, and
out towards Woodland Hills and Chatsworth, the density
dropped rapidly.
There were still orange groves, walnuts,
and truck farms in abundance in this area.
It, too, was
not totally urbanized in 1950.
The landscape encountered at the east end of Simi
Valley was composed mainly of extensive walnut groves.
There was also vacant land, mixed in with wheat, and perhaps some beans.
Further west in the valley, citrus ap-
peared, Valencia oranges, navels, and some lemons, along
with apricots and other minor crops.
2
To the south of
Highway 118 and nestled in the rocky, oak covered foothills was the well concealed community of Santa Susana
Knolls.
Traveling west down Los Angeles Avenue the first
signs of a large settlement was encountered at the inter-~~ction
of Tapo ~o-~<f· ... - This community was Santa Susana.
TABLE 12. --POPULATION DENSITY GRADATIONS - THE SHH
VALLEY TO GLENDALE - 1950
0 Miles
SIMI VALLEY
Band I - 150 people/square mile
OlATSWORTH.
Band II - 241 people/
square
mile
TA:'-IPA AVEl\TUE
Band I I I - 1,485
people/~quare
mile
COLIJ.vATER CANYON 1\ VENUE
Band IV - 2,750 people/ sguare
mile
ALLEN
AVEl\~E,
GLEl\~ALE
Band V - 3,895 people.
SILVER LAKE
Note:
square
mile
32 miles
The distance from the top to the bottom of the chart
represents the distance from Simi Valley to Los
Angeles, 32 miles. The vertical line::; represent
population density.
Santa Susana contained a small airport and a cluster
of about fifteen commercial and residential buildings at
the junction of Los Angeles Avenue and Tapo Road.
There
was a church on the south side, and a railroad station on
the north side with old grain warehouses next door.
The
southern Pacific line bisected the valley as it has done
since 1990, when a line was constructed from Oxnard.
3
Con-
tinuing down Los Angeles Avenue, the same pattern was
encountered passing through Community Center and Simi
(Map 3).
There were five small clusters of housing and
urban activity sprinkled throughout the twenty square miles
of valley floor.
A turn north across the Southern Pacific tracks led
into the heart of the area of better soils, and, hence, to
the more heavily planted section.
Wending one's way east-
ward led through more orchards, broken every now and then
by a driveway leading back to a modest, white frame house.
4
This was the cultural landscape of Simi Valley between 1950
and 1960 in a nutshell.
There were 3,011 residents in the valley's twenty-plus
square miles in 1950, and 5,219 residing in the larger 168
/square mile judicial township of Simi.
5
According to
;Lonsdale, even at this time, only about a thousand were de-
~ending
--------·-·
on the valley for their living.
-- -- --
-----~------~-
--------------------· --------
The rest ". • •
--------------
-~---------~~-------~
- --
derive their income from outside the valley, and have made
their homes in Simi Valley because of relatively cheap land
and the desire to live outside of congested areas."
6
This
is a pattern with deep roots and there appears to be little
change on the horizon even in 1971.
The late 1950's signaled the impending gross urbanization of the Simi Valley, and by 1960, 4,710 people had been.
added. 7 (Table 13).
This was a 156 percent increase, but
even this dramatic rate pales next to what was to come.
Some of the factors necessary to promote large-scale urban
growth were at work, but others were not.
As is shown by
Table 14, San Fernando Valley absorbed most of the region's
influx of in-migrants.
Between 1950-60, in-migrants were
moving to Los Angeles County at an average annual rate of
117,285, while they were coming to Ventura County at a rate
of only 5,501 annually.
8
The suburbs were being filled in rather rapidly in the
San Fernando Valley in this period.
Preston describes
the situation aptly:
L_~
No part of the valley escaped some new construction,
and the majority of the new homes were mass-produced.
It appears that a constantly improving highway system, an abundance of open and relatively cheap land,
a fairly small population, and the prolific development of dispersed communities greatly assisted the
rapid spread of an automobile-oriented, suburban
landscape. 9
TABLE 13.--SIMI AREA POPULATION GROWTH 1910 - 1960
Towns hiE_
Simi Valley
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1955
1957
748
1,538
2,890
3,406
5,219
5,740
8,000*
N.A.
N.A.
N.A.
N.A.
3,011
N.A.
6,350
1960
8,110*
7,721
*Census County Division
Source:
Planning Research Corporation: Population Study
and Forecast • • • , pp. 17-18.
The San Fernando Valley was experiencing the problems
of rapid urbanization all through the fifties.
However,
Simi Valley was still almost completely independent of the
urbanization phenomena transforming Los Angeles and Orange
Counties.
Comparison of Maps 3 and 4 reveals only two areas of
any substantial population growth in the 1950's.
One area
was located around the intersection of Pitts Street and
Sinaloa Road and the other on the northwest corner of
Sycamore Street and Los Angeles Avenue.
Apparently the
first minor subdivision recorded in this decade was the
Tract in May, 1955 10 , with a total of twenty-
rABLE 14.--POPULATION DENSITY GRADATIONS - THE SIN!
VALLEY TO GLENDALE - 1960
SIMI VALLEY
0 Miles
Band I - 386 people/ square mile
CHATSWORTH
Band II - 1,411 people/
square
miles
TAlVIPA AVE0.'UE
Band III - 3,887 people/
COLIY/JATER
CANYO~
AVENUE
Band IV - 3,794 people/
.1
square
miles
ALLEN AVENUE, GLENDALE
II
'""
square
miles
Band V - 4,256 people/
,ill
SILVER LAKE
square
miles
32 tvli 1 es
62
seven lots (Plate 1).
Then, £or the next £our years, one
or two tracts were recorded in each year, and in addition
a few other small clusters were built.
Before the decade
concluded, at least 628 homes had been constructed in units
ranging £rom 10 to 162 homes, with several hundred more
being built on an individual basis
11
(Map 4).
Part o£ the first development area mentioned above was
not a typical subdivision by any means.
There were three
large lot divisions o£ land amongst orange trees on the
non-marine terraces overlooking Sinaloa Reservoir.
lots were one-hal£ to one acre in size.
The
These were rather
exclusive developments still unmatched in the rest o£ the
valley.
It is o£ interest that this section is not part
of the City o£ Simi Valley today.
12
Another major development occurred immediately south
of the old town of Simi.
There, 144 mass production
subdivision models were built, similar to the hordes that
would follow.
By far the largest, most concentrated
developments were Tracts 1040 and 1099 on Chamberlin
property and by Valley Vista Homes at the intersection o£
Sycamore Street and Los Angeles Avenue.
The first com-
prised 162 lots recorded in December, 1958, and the second
comprised 129 lots recorded in July, 1959.
In a tour o£
Simi Valley today, it is obvious that these homes are among
E9
63
/
A
I
s
G
A
I>
s
u
,_,
RESIDENTIAL
DEVELOPMENT
OCTOBER 14, 1959
SCALE I ?4 000
l
-1.-_:::-_ J-:=
F-:Oc;.~-...:_~:_---:::r:-~
JOOU
0
10-L:::E--lF-L:"
-J.--
1000
3~'0
f=-
-=:~.-'~-·-r:::.
l
1 MILf
"
.-----::-_-]-
/000
,
::- .::::::==:~1
111\1()
-,
">0:)(1
60()(1
_:_ :___] -=-'~-=--=-==;:L_-_ --=-=
l
1 Kll(IMfi]R
0
E-:'=f.::-_l-~_::__]~=.I~-=-:r::-_E
lOOIJ H£1
-.::=:::-~-=-c:j
;j'
I
c-
/
r
I
;
-
/
5
M
•••
·····l· ·J
.Jl.Illl········
.... :·:·:·:·:·J
........
'
.·•····
.. ........
::::::
... ·=·
. a a a
I
....
'"'
Source: October 14, 1959 aerial photos.
MAP 4
the earliest "tract types" built.
They were forerunners of
the 1960's.
Remaining residential development in the 1950's was
mostly of a piecemeal variety.
Vacant lots were filled
in the Santa Susana Knolls area and in a large lot residential area one-half mile north of the Santa Susana airport
and Community Center.
There was a
forty-un~t
trailer park
at the northeast intersection of Stow Street and Los
Angeles Avenue.
In October, 1959, there were four discern-
ible clusters of development spread across the valley.
These four were the Sinaloa Lake - Simi nucleus, Community
Center, Santa Susana (Plate 2), and the Santa Susana Knolls
nucleus.
These areas were generally those that were the
least desirable for irrigated agriculture.
13
Except for
the widely dispersed homes of the central cluster north of
the airport and for Tracts 1040 and 1099, the greatest
amount of developed area was south of Highway 118 (Plate 3).
In acreage, the valley was still dominated by
agriculture in one form or another in the 1950's.
The
major agricultural section was in the central portion between Tapo Street and Sycamore Street to the north of
Highway 118, with a secondary section in the Sinaloa LakeSimi area on the west (Plate 1).
The area on the uppermost
portions of the alluvial fans held the most and best water
0
()
r+
0
0'
ro
li
L9
67
Plate 3.
Looking west along the San Fernando ValleySimi Valley Freeway (Highway 118). May, 1971.
Q\
1.0
69
71
r---i
necessary for irrigation, and the temperatures were slight-
1
I
.
14
Windbreaks
lly more favorable to the needs of c1trus.
!
I
iseparated the low lying citrus orchards, as they still do
I
;in some portions.
In 1950, there were 5,667 acres of
;irrigated agriculture, and at the beginning of the next
Idecade,
1961 , there were only 4, 190 acres.
15
But the
I
I
!general valley character was changing to a more suburban
I
I
:nature, rather than rural, as it was in 1950.
was no longer isolated.
The valley
The farmer described earlier had
!probably already sold out to a subdivider and beat a hasty
retreat to yet another area in California.
A New Era Dawns
in Simi Valley
Formerly when a tract was opened generous lots
were surveyed and sold; the purchaser designed
and built his own home subject to the zoning
rules of the area. But in 1958 subdividers began moving in and old timers were confronted
with a new technique: a company bought up a plot
of ground; leveled it and divided it into lots,
too often as small as possible; built houses on
the assembly line plan and sold them ••••
Therefore after leveling the land streets were
and are excavated with heavy ditchers and the
surplus dirt piled up on the lots to raise them
above the street level. Again heavy machinery
is used to pack this dirt as hard as possible to
prevent erosion and settling. Next the various
crews appear in order. The surveyors line up
L__________~or a score or more foundations; a crew comes on
-------------------------------------------------------------------.
and builds the forms; the cement is hauled in by
I
great ready-mix tanks and trucks; foundations
and floors are poured; then the lumber, readyI
cut, for each house is followed by carpenters who
I
,; ~~\;
put up the frames. The plumbers have already
put in the necessary pipes and fittings for the
plumbing requirements. Then follow the roofers,
the plaster-board hangers, the stucco men, until
at last the sidewalks are in, the grounds read~
6
for planting and the new occupants move in ••••
-~ -'i
.I
---~
i!¥
Janet Scott Cameron
l~
The 1960-1970 Period - Population Growth
if
!U
The Simi Valley of the 1950's had a close call with
1
~ "urbanization".
The Simi Valley of the 1960's was to be-
~
~·come
~
q of
"urbanized", along with the rest of the eastern edge
Ventura County (Maps 5 through 9).
The "Dreadnought"
to the southeast, called San Fernando Valley, had already
been urbanized and its occupants were looking for the next
area of escape.
For those interested, Simi Valley and
Conejo Valley were not far off.
What had ten more years wrought upon the San Fernando
ya1ley' s residents?
An examination of Table 15 shows a
1
I
two- to four-fold increase in population density all across!
the valley.
Band II added an average of 7,279 people
annually in the 1960's.
Bands III and IV added an average
12,876 and 2,408 respectively annually.
The central por-
tion was still growing most rapidly, and the eastern edge
was definitel
reachin
saturationo
I
1
--==--..:===~=.L__-=-====:;.__;;;:_-=-.:.:..::..:::::=-=.==:._:_-----------------_j
TABLE 15. --POPULATION DENSITY GRADATIO.;'-JS - THE SIMI
VALLEY TO GLENDALE - 1970
SIMI VALLEY
Band I
-
0 1\'liles
2,823 people/
square
mile
CHA TSTiJORTH
Band II - 2,404 people/
square
:nile
TAJ.V!PA AVEr.uE
I
liD
Band III - 5,090 people/
COLD;.,TATER CANYON
.
square
mile
AVE~uE
Band IV - 4,105 people/
square
mile
ALLEN AVENUE, GLENDALE
IL
Band V_- 4,661 people/
I
I
.
I
SILVER LAKE
square
miles
32 Miles
/
·,.(>IJ
[l
I
(,
M 0
U N
T
A I N
\
('
_.-/
4
s
'J
SIMI
VALLEY
RESIDENTIAL
u
r
• •• ,.lJ
DEVELOPMENT
1964
~
l
~-f-==--:::Eo::.-o.r:=_::~l"-.::;:-1
101':(1
SCALE I ?4 000
0
~-l_.Io-1::_:.:__::.:,::-
l
0
1 MILf
_---=-t-'c-""~-;-::_r=-----r=__-!
__:-::-c:_--=OJ
~000
]()('ll
•l()(i(l
--7=1:.. ---:;:-_..::_J--=-:_ '- _('
J_O:~
-;:_---L:._--_:_::.:_:_J
(1
~'------7T=-T~--r-___r;---=r-_~.r::=-J~:
::=:::: -:=:=:---=-
I KILI}MfT[R
::--:::---~~
I
I
...-......... .
..............
..............
·-·-····························
.............
..........
.......
....
r
I
,- /
··a•a•a•a•a•a•a•a•a•a•a•a•a•a•a•
I a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a
•••••••••••••
,.
•••••••••
...
.........
.
•...•.•
M
I'
5
I
........
y
I
I
~
'
I
~
·:·:
....
....
....
I
a
a
a
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I
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•
a ••
I
8
•• J
I
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
....
....
.·:·:·:·:·
...s\
I
I
:::::::::
....
\
'
,_ ••• _z ~t
-.
/
\
General Plan, 19n4.
:::::::::
....
·.•.· ,_._ ..
'-...•
MAP 5
!
--
/
0
&,G
/408
s
A
A
s
SIMI
VALLEY
RESIDENTIAL
(J
(
I
I
I\
s
)\
DEVELOPMENT
1959-1964
,160!
SCALE I ?4 000
·E---o~ _ 1 _------,---::-~.-----::~.:::..=E.._-.:_~---
I
r=-~~:r::.-::=::-____E_:O::
-1"
0
HlOO
---=-~___:~-
I
'>
2000
11l()l)
-'---!.:
T--
F-.?-=r:..:-1-·=:::t:.:.I--r:-~---:r=-.r-
''
4fll>(>
o-=---cc--
!
'>ll()()
- 1-.-:-=--
-'-~..::Mitf
6000
m::l(l
>((1
,
1 KllllM[Ifl>
r
I
/
I
'
5
A
l
/
111111!
• .....so
1964; 1959
aerial photos.
MAP 6
r/
.111011
&,(,
M
0
U
N
s
T A I N
A.
N
I
4
s
IVJ
SIMI
VALLEY
RESIDENTIAL
I
u
s
s
"'
A;
DEVELOPMENT
1964-1967
l
~
SCALE I 24 000
.'601
()
\ Mil f
ro_=o~~~·---7'-=-= -:-:;;;;-r. ---::=:~:;-=·==:,om:'='""'~,moC::=~'C,':'ooo=='""""'6000=:'~~"=oo,"u"'•""'~'
:r::
1
ET..E.L...E:L=:~-E
l
5
0
m==E----r:7--=c--::r:=.:E-~~E:..."'O::..:::__,--==.;=-
E
_--- o...::
_=.:_..:.""J
1 KILQM!TER
--==:=::=J
·,,':JI
I
.------
::::Jf[ --·~~----
v
A
L
L
Santa Susana
-,-:.\
,
I
"/;
•!+SO
/;;;
(
~
Source: Ventura County Planning
----. Simi General Plan, 1964.
Co~ission,
Simi Area General Plan, 1967;
MAP 7
MKH ~,..,,
I
l
s
Nr
e,c,
MOUNTAI
A
A
s
i
I
,.3,9
r
SIMI VALLEY
RESIDENTIAL
(J
s
s
DEVELOPMENT
1967-1970
I MilE
·:-==----.::..:.~
1000
0
Er"....EL:EL:::
1000
2000
3l00
4000
5000
flCOO
1000 ~HT
r::: -~_:_-=----=-=e~---=--=·}
IE=<==>===:-;;i:J=~-{=:L
Kll0Mfl[ll
ri
/
/
5
II
M
v
A
I
-··..!!•
/
•14-.50
Source: Ventura County
MAP 8
£)
I
(;
M 0
U N
T
A
I
s
N
A
,'y
r
4
s
SIMI
s
s
VALLEY
RESIDENTIAL
u
DEVELOPMENT
1970
SCAt E 1 /,1 Q(l()
1
f-~:_~--
lfYXl
~
II
'-~-----'------_L__~..:..._.:;,.=o--~~--~~~
0
~~~L~I
?()00
]()I)(]
f:=LLT:r=r-:- _.:._
1
L-
-:J
4!1(.0
<,(l()(1
I
1
~
I
I
{:
bQOO
-
]
M'i f
---
XI 1, ( 1
L-
J
I ><>tOM! TFR
J~_.i__E--~======
.........
;:;::::::::::::::::
I
a .-.-.-.-. a
I
.....
·-·
•
8 •
·.·.·.·.·~·;·;·:·:·:·:
8 II
·-
I
______ _
........
;.
·-·-· ...... .
r ;i~•:•:•:•:•:•:•:•:•
a a a a a a a a a I
-~:=:·:·;s:·:·:·:·:
··········
]·················Ill
'•:a:a:a:a:
··········-·······-=.. ~·
I
a a a a
~
~I
~I
Source: Ventura County Public Works
..... .........
.-.. ·•····••··
......... ::::::::::::::::::::::::::
····=·=·=·=·=·=·=·»
.........
·.·~············· ................
-·-·-·-·-·-·-·····
..·:·;
.·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·······:·:·:·
........ ....
I
l
a a a a
I
:~:-:·:·:·:·:·:·:·
.
a •
8 8
...
8
•
8
a a a il a
• • a • a •• a
MAP 9
I
I
"······
.•
a •
.·.~-·
By 1960, many residents of the Los Angeles FiveCounty Region were ready to move out of congested areas.
Through the early 1960's the number of in-migrants entering
the region increased (Table 3, p. 18).
The number stood
at 142,892 in 1960, peaked in 1963 at 213,998, and dropped
over the rest of the decade.
County was slightly different.
The situation in Ventura
In 1960, 10,624 arrived,
the figure climbed to 30,887 in 1963, then dropped till
1968.
The rate rose again between 1968 and 1969, and
dropped once more in 197o.
17
Such large population influxes, combined with high
intensity development in the Los Angeles area generated
dissatisfaction and population spin off, and the still desirable landscape of Ventura County and of Simi Valley,
specifically, attracted many people.
"Population growth" became such a byword in this era,
that the County Planning Department published a quarterly
newsletter dealing solely with tp,at Sl.;lbject.
Utilizing
their accurate population estimates a very detailed look
at the 1960's is afforded (Table 16).
Through population growth surges of the 1960's, Simi
Valley became a demographically more important segment of
both Ventura County and of its immediately adjacent region.
During 1960-63, Simi Valley contributed between twenty to
I'
J
TABLE 16.--ANNUAL COMPARATIVE GROWTH VENTURA COUNTY AND SIMI VALLEY
1960-1970
April
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
Ventura County
Total Population
199,138
212,200
229,337
248,857
288,275
320,361
328,550
340,710
351,170
368,130
376,430
Ventura County
Annual
Increase
------
13,062
17' 037
19,520
39,418
32,086
8,189
12,160
10,460
16,960
*
Simi Valley
Total Population
7,721
11,150
14,937
18,986
31,882
40,209
43,730
45,090
48,020
52,460
61,150
Simi Valley
Annual
Increase
-----
3,429
3,787
4,049
12,896
8,327
3,521
1,360
3,110
4,440
*
Simi Valley
Percent Share
of County
Increase
---26.3
22.2
20.7
32.7
26.0
43.0
11.2
30.0
26.2
*
Simi Valley Average Annual Increase = 4,991
*Not comparable
Sources:
~-~---
Ventura County Planning Department, Population Estimate Bulletins, Planning
Newsletters, and Population, 1960-1969 inclusive; u. s. Bureau of Census.
Final Population Counts, California, Advance Report, 1971.
-- ------
J
I
twenty-six percent o£ the county's total growth (Table 16 Map 4).
Toward the close o£ the decade, this share had
increased to a very signi£icant £orty-three percent, while
Thousand Oaks contributed a maximum o£ thirty-seven percent in the same year.
Quite clearly Simi Valley had be-
come the major growth center o£ eastern Ventura County.
Even in relation to the western edge o£ San Fernando
'
Valley, Simi Valley gained stature in the 1960's. Average
annual growth £or Simi Valley in this period was 4,874
people yearly.
This compares with a 7,279 £igure £or Band
II or the Chatsworth Statistical Area {6.0- L.A. Regional
Planning Commission).
Simi Valley actually added more
people in its twenty square miles in the years 1964 and
1965 than the Chatsworth Statistical Area did in its 73.1
square miles (Table 17).
18
A clearer picture is obtained by looking at the popu'
lation density gradations £or the year 1970 (Table 15).
:·c ':Sand II,.
or
th~. Chatsworth Statistical Area occupying· t:h~'\.
west edge o£ San Fernando Valley, had actually dropped
I
1.
T.,-".
I
I
behind Simi Valley.
I
!I
Summary
During the 1960's Simi Valley was £irmly welded into
the pattern o£ expansion previously exhibited elsewhere
TABLE 17.--COMPARATIVE POPULATION GROWTH
CHATSWORTH STATISTICAL AREA
VERSUS SIMI VALLEY: 1960-1969
Chatsworth (S.A. 6.0)
Year
13,092
7,009
7,246
8,391
8,285
7,566
4,577
3,695
6,816
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
Sources:
Simi Valley
3,429
3,787
4,049
12,986
8,327
3,521
1,360
3,110
4,440
Ventura County Planning Department, Population
Estimate Bulletins, Planning Newsletters, and
Population, 1960-1969, inclusive; Security First
National Bank, The Growth and Economic Stature
of San Fernando Valley and the Greater Glendale
Area, October, 1967, pp. 34 and 44; Interview,
Los Angeles Regional Planning Commission, Population Research Section, April 30, 1971.
in the Los Angeles Five-County Region.
;
It became obvious
that Simi Valley growth was not just an isolated phenomenon, but was an inseparable component of regional urbani-
i
zation.
By November, 1970, the four-settlement clusters extant!
j
in 1960 had almost coalesced into a single urban landscape (Map 7).
i
The widest vacant break in the continuity
of this virtual sea of suburban homogeneity was merely a
quarter mile wide at the corner of Stearns Street and
!
_________________________________j
l
Los Angeles Avenue.
This was a large unused piece of land
I
l
adjacent to Simi Valley High School, presently zoned for
residential development.
Otherwise, the landscape was
spotted with commerce, new roads, a freeway, schools,
small parks and other urban uses.
Substantial acreages of
citrus in the north central section provide the widest gap
. in the present urban landscape (Plate 4).
The major thrust of development was on an east-west
axis, between Community Center and the southern edge of the!
valley along Los Angeles Avenue.
South of the Avenue there!
I
I
is presently little developable land remaining.
This area :I
is crossed by the deeply cut and wide Arroyo Simi, which is
not yet concrete lined.
The other major line of development is oriented
north-south along Tapo Avenue.
The area between Los
Angeles Avenue and Alamo Street was subdivided prior to
1950.
When the former Kadota Fig Farm property to the
north was released for development early'~ln the 1960's,
this section got a major boost (figs were not grown on the
property at the time) (Plate 5).
Almost 800 homes were
built on this sloping site east of Tapo Road.
The slightly disjointed cluster of development located;
on the east end of Simi Valley is all new since 1960, except for the isolated Santa Susana Knolls hill site
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Ij
I
~
84
Plate 5.
Looking northwest toward the Kadota Fig Farm Subdivision.
May, 1971.
86
--------------------------------------------------------------------,
.
19
I
(formerly called
Mort~mer
Park).
I
The balance o£ develop-j
ment, then, bas almost completely turned Simi Valley's
once rural landscape into an urban one (Plate 6).
It re-
mains now to explain why.
I
~----------------J
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89
FOOTNOTES
1.
Security Pacific National Bank, The Southern
California Report, 1967, p. 83.
2.
Richard E. Lonsdale, Water Problems of the Simi
(unpublished Master's thesis, UCLA, 1953),
p. 21.
Valle~
3.
Clifford M. Zierer, "The Ventura Area of Southern
California," Geographical Society of Philadelphia
Bulletin, XXX (January, 1932), 36.
4.
u.
5.
Planning Research Corporation, Population Study
and Forecast, County of Ventura, California, Prepared for the Ventura Board of Supervisors
([Ventura], September 1, 1957), p. 189.
6.
Richard E. Lonsdale, Water Problems •••• , p. 46.
7.
For the purposes of this report, the Simi Valley
shall include all of the populated area immediate-:
ly adjacent to the valley floor. This includes
Santa Susana Knolls and Tapo Canyon, but not
Burro Flats, or Box Canyon. Census Tract 75 is
not a very m~~nin;gful , stat:.i;~ti~_.l?\)._JJ.ni t for this
study.
It includes Burro Flats, as well as
Chatsworth Lake Manor, (a part of the San Fernando
Valley), Box Canyon, and an undeveloped section of
Thousand Oaks.
Its predecessors, the Planning andj!
Statistical areas, separated Burro Flats, Box
Canyon, Chatsworth Lake Manor, and Thousand Oaks
/
from the Simi Valley proper. The change occurred
in July, 1969. The Census County Divisions were
not used after April, 1962. The townships were
redistributed in 1934, making comparisons to
earlier data difficult.
S. Geological Survey, Santa Susana and Simi,
California, topographic quadrangle maps. Scale
1:24,000 (Washington, D.c., 1951); Richard E.
Lonsdale, 12£· cit.; Janet Scott Cameron, Simi
Grows Up, 1963.
I
I
8.
Security Pacific National Bank. Economic Research Department, The Southern California
Report ••• ( [L.A.] , March, 1970, p. 93.
9.
Preston, Richard Ellis, "The Changing Landscape
of the San Fernando Valley Between 1930-1964, 11
The California Geographer, VI (1965), 65.
10.
Ventura County. Recorder's Office, Miscellaneous
Records Books 22MR89 and 24MR1.
11.
u. s.
Department of Agriculture. Aerial Photos,
AXl-lOW-167, 107,, 108, AXl-llW-20, 21. August
21, 1959; AX1-19W-169. October 14, 1959; Ventura
County. Recorder's Office, Miscellaneous Records
Books 25 to date.
12.
Janet s. Cameron, Simi Grows Up, 1963, p. 79.
This site had once been a locally important
vineyard and tomato farm. The grapes were exported south to Tustin, Orange County, for conversion into juice, and the tomatoes were raised
for seed. The Robertson family owned the site
and converted it into an attractive subdivision.
13.
Lonsdale, loc. cit.
14.
Robert M. Glendinning, "The Simi Valley, California, 11 Geographical Journal, XCII (December, 1938 ),
p. 532.
15.
Crane Slater Miller, The Changing Landscape of
the Simi Valley ••• (M.A. thesis, UCLA, 1968),
p. 120.
;:
..
16.
Janet Scott Cameron, Simi Grows Up, p. 84.
17.
Ventura County Planning Dept. Population, No. 40
(Jan. 1971), p. 4. The Ventura County birth
rate has dropped steadily since 1955, from 24.8 ;
per 1,000 to 18.6 per 1,000 in 1970, it was noted;
in this issue. This appears to be due to a com- 1
bination of non-unique factors, namely, increased'
use of birth control methods, inflation, and
large numbers of males in a war.
18.
Ventura County Planning Department, miscellaneous population bulletins, 1960-1970; Los
Angeles Regional Planning Commission. Population Research Section, interview, April 30,
1971.
19.
This was originally subdivided in the twenties
and was called Mortimer Park until 1941. Janet
Scott Cameron, Simi Grows Up, P• 75.
CHAPTER V
CAUSES OF URBAN DEVELOPMENT IN SIMI VALLEY
The causes of population growth in Simi Valley can be
div"ided into two distinct sets of factors:
{1) those
effecting owner and developer decisions to build, and (2)
those affecting the location of in-migrants in the Simi
Valley.
Among the first group of factors, there are three
basic reasons why developers chose Simi Valley:
availability,
{1) land
(2) water supply, and {3) accessibility.
1
Owner and Developer Decisions
Land Supply:_
Land availability is an important factor underlying
recent growth in Simi Valley.
In studies carried out in
!i ·,.
· ·. the early. ·sixties by Voorhees, Barnes, and others, the
availability of a large supply of land was determined to
i
beJ
a major factor in influencing urban growth direction.
Voorhees pointed out that, " ••• other things being equal,
an area with cheap land may develop up to three to four
times as fast as it theoretically should ••• u
2
a more limited study, also concluded that land
94
Barnes, in
availabilit~J
was a prime influence in determining growth patterns.
3
The floor of Simi Valley and its sloping terraces contain about twenty square miles of choice residential or
urban land.
land.
4
Unfortunately, it was also choice agricultural
Such land is a scarce commodity.
It was valuable
to the farming community, but the land was also valuable
for potential urban development, especially at relatively
low prices.
In the early 1950's, there was little need to
use good farm land for residential purposes, for development booms were not yet on the horizon.
The volume of home
building in this period did not threateh the farmers.
However, beginning in 1955, modern type mass-produced
subdivisions slowly began appearing.
As the potential
market increased between 1955-60, other lands were sought
by developers.
Tracts 1040 and 1099 mentioned above, took
approximately seventy-eight and one-half acres of walnuts
ou t o f
.
5
pro d uct1on.
Some trees were left as token remnants
for suburbanites to enjoy.
one tract immediately to the
south of the original town of Simi took about thirty-seven
acres out of row crop production before 1960.
However, the
single largest tract ever developed, 758 homes on approxi;mately 353 acres, was built on idle lands in 1960-62. 6
I
I
This was on the former Kadota Fig Farm and pigeon farm
l ~-~-te, abandoned as a failure years earlier.
Another site
o£ a very large subdivision, 594 lots, took about 200 acres
o£ prime row crop land out o£ production in 1961.
7
Yes,
land was available aplenty.
It was primarily a question o£ price that settled
developers on Simi Valley.
Lonsdale, in 1953, stated that
land lacking adequate water was available £or $1,000-1,500
per acre; land planted in walnuts at $1,500-2,500; and land
planted in citrus at $2,500-3,500 per acre.
8
The demand
£or residential land at this point was not great, o£
course.
9
Later in the £i£ties, however, low land prices became
a very significant choice £actor £or developers.
A spokes-
man from the purchasing division o£ the most important
subdivider in the Simi Valley, Larwin Company, stated that
lower prices induced his company to enter Simi.
previously been operating in San Fernando Valley.
They had
There
was as much as $8,000-10,000 difference in costs per acre
between Simi Valley and San Fernando Valley ip ...'1957 -62.
Differentials, such as these, needless to say, can cause a
rapid change in urban growth patterns.
10
Some of the
original purchases were o£ walnut groves for Tracts 1040
and 1066.
Due to problems with recurring drought in the
!valley, disappearing ground-water supplies, and increasing-,
I
L:y
I
saline water, many farmers were only too happy to sell
I
at a quick profit.
Simi Valley land costs were also very low, by comparison with Conejo Valley.
day.
This relation persists to this
Before the 1960's were out, land costs had climbed
considerably in Simi Valley.
Good, level, residential land
was being assessed at around $12,500 per acre in 1968-69.
11
Prices were still considerably more in Conejo Valley.
I
In 1955, there were comparable amounts of desirable
residential land available both in Conejo Valley and Simi
Valley.
By 1960, the Thousand Oaks area had forged ahead
of Simi Valley in numbers of people - 9,444 to 7,721,
respectively.
This situation persisted only a short while,
for by April, 1962, it was reversed, 14,937 people were in
Simi Valley and 13,642 in Thousand Oaks.
Examination of Table 18 shows that the cumulative
total of lots recorded in the Thousand Oaks area exceeded
those in Simi Valley until 1963 when they stood at 7,510
and 8 ,460, respectively.~ At this point~
rate moved ahead to stay.
trate this trend.
..m,., .._.,.,.... ... .
.
siili:ifs... buiid.ing
Tables 19 and 20 also illus-
The most important results of this
I
I
change in development direction are shown in Table 20.
I
The/
population of the two areas had been rather close until
January, 1964, when the difference surged from 2,396 in
October, 1963, to 5,690 in January, 1964, a period of just
TABLE lB.--SUBDIVISION DEVELOPMENT SIMI VALLEY
AND THOUSAND OAKS - 1950-1965
Simi Valley
Lots Recorded
Year
Annual
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
0
0
0
7
3
65
112
277
215
539
1,204
1,789
1,457
2,792
2,287
1,115
*
Cumulative
0
0
0
7
10
75
187
464
679
1,218
2,422
4,211
5,668
-lE-8' 460
10,747
11,862
Thousand Oaks
Lots Recorded
Annual
0
18
0
0
0
97
152
241
606
1,660
739
807
1,554
1,636
1,442
955
Cumulative
0
18
18
18
18
115
267
508
1,114
2,774
3,513
4,320
5,874
*7,510
8,952
9,907
Critical Year
Sources:
Security First National Bank, The Growth and
Economic Stature of Ventura County, 1960,
[·unpaged] ; Security First National Bank,
The Growth and Economic Stature of Ventura
•••• Counties, 1966, p. 109.
------------------------------------------------------------------1
TABLE 19.--COMPARATIVE BUILDING TRENDS
SIMI VALLEY AND THOUSAND OAKS
1962-1964
April
Simi Valley
Thousand Oaks
Lots Recorded Per
1,000 Population:
Lots Recorded Per
1,000 Population:
1962
97.5
113.0
1963
153.6
99.9
1964
75.4
58.5
Sources:
Security First National Bank, The Growth and
Economic Stature of Ventura County, 1960,
[unpaged] ; Security First National Bank,
The Growth and Economic Stature of Ventura ••••
Counties, 1966, p. 109.
ninety days.
Never before had the disparity been so great.
Through the rest of the 1960's, the difference between the
two areas grew.
In 1970, the difference stood at 20,132.
12
It is believed that lower land costs in Simi Valley by com, .. parison
~with.
t}lose in Conejo Valley is one of several
iI
.;·
'
factors acting in combination to produce this pattern.
Higher land costs in Conejo-Thousand Oaks area were
mainly due to freeway accessibility.
Highway 101 (the
Ventura Freeway) was widened to expressway standards from
the Los Angeles County line to Oxnard by December, 1958.
It was finished to eight-lane standardsthrough the San
j
I
TABLE 20.--COMPARATIVE POPULATION GROWTH-SIMI VALLEY AND THOUSAND OAKS
1960-1964
Simi Vallez
Thousand Oaks
Persons Per
Dwelling
Unit
Persons Per
Dwelling
Unit
Year
Population
Dwelling
Units
April 1960
April 1961
7,721
11,150
2,754
3,948
2.80
2.80
9,446
12,850
3,231
4,422
2.90
2.90
1962
April
July
October
14,937
15,420
16,602
5,328
5,499
5,930
2.80
13,642
14,737
15,466
4,667
5,040
5.311
2.92
1963
January
April
July
October
18,178
18,338
24,118
26,547
6,481
6,769
6,845
7,529
2.81
16,372
17,286
18,318
24,149
5,618
5,951
6,301
6,863
2.91
1964
January
April
July
October
30,346
31,882
33,886
36,229
8,593
9,021
9,579
10,222
3.53
24,656
26,296
28,319
31,120
7,009
7,474
8,029
8,392
3.52
Source:
~-
3.54
Population
Dwelling
Units
3.70
Ventura County Planning Department, Population Estimate Bulletins, April, 1960
to October, 1964.
__
,_
---·
----·~
·------· -·- ----
'Fernando Valley by 1960.
,~developable
property
13
This increased the value of
a~jacent
to the freeway.
In Thousand Oaks, due to higher land costs, houses put
:, on the market were higher priced.
This had a pyramiding
effect in that this in turn drove future land values even
higher in new developments adjacent to expensive tracts.
In summary, the general availability of twenty square
'
miles of land for development in Simi Valley, and the disparity in land values between Simi and Thousand Oaks-Conejo
Valley were perhaps the most significant factors in attracting development to the Simi Valley.
Water Supply
Water availability played an important role in the
valley's urbanization.
Barnes ascertained that in a two-
year empirical study of the Hartford area that, " ••• poor
sewer and, or water facilities ••• reduced the potential
growth of a town by SO%."
J.i'urthermore, by means of a nine
variable multiple correlation analysis, it was concluded
that actual availability of water facilities was of "relative minor importance" in determining growth patterns.
14
Voorhees, in a similar study of ten cities and utilizing teU:
I
variables, concluded tentatively that a lack of water service held growth to about one-third of what would be
normally expected.~~
A lack of adequate well water for an
increasing population was also a negative factor in Simi
Valley between 1953-63.
Lonsdale investigated Simi Valley
water problems, and concluded that the diminishing ground
I
water reserve,
1
11
•••
has restricted agricultural, urban, and
industrial development."
16
In 1951, there were 114 active
water wells draining underground reserves.
17
Water was not i
only becoming scarce but was of poor quality.
By 1962, the water quality situation was acute.
Water
content of total dissolved solids had reached unacceptable
levels.
State health authorities deemed 800 parts per
million (ppm) to be the maximum level, and Simi well water
was reaching 1,200 ppm.
This level had been reached sever-
al years earlier, but because of increased population using
the water, state authorities took steps to alter the
•t ua t.~on. 18
s~
At that time, to prevent enlargement of the
problem, a development moratorium was leveled on the SimiThousand Oaks region.
Developers who had purchased land for construction
purposes were frustrated by this water dilemma.
'bination
19
A com-
of pressures were applied, and arrangements were
:made for the local Calleguas Water District to join the
Metropolitan Water District, thereby making the latter's
Lsu~-~~~-~vailable
to Ventura
Cou~-:~:----~-~~=-~:r co~~~-~~ _was
brought down Tapo Canyon from the MWD lines to the north.
This reached Simi Valley in December, 1963, but did not
reach Thousand Oaks till the next summer.
Analysis of
Tables 18, 19, and 20, reveals that this was the exact time
during which Simi Valley's total development count in
housing forged ahead of Thousand Oaks.
Therefore, it ap-
pears that advent of an increased water supply was a
positive growth force for Simi Valley, and also gave it a
significant edge over Thousand Oaks, merely because of the
water pipe's route.
The importation of water, as in the
rest of Southern California, held one key to further urban ,
growth in Simi Valley.
Accessibility
Regional accessibility plays a significant role in
determining which areas developers will choose next.
Re-
garding the influence of accessibility at the eastern edge
of Ventura County, most developers apparently intended to
I
i
. I
build first along the Ventura Freeway in Thousand Oaks.
However, Simi Valley was much closer to major employment
and shopping areas, in Canoga Park for instance.
It was
twenty miles to Thousand Oaks and twelve miles to Simi
Valley from Canoga Park.
Freeways seem to make psycholog-
ical impressions on people that places are much closer,
in distance and time, than they actually are.
Apparently
l
this has much to do with the impression created by nonstop travel versus stop and go traffic.
Nonetheless, this
£actor played a role in the early start o£ Thousand Oaks,
but was apparently outweighed quickly.
Closeness o£ Simi Valley to major employment areas in
the San Fernando Valley assumed a large role in Simi's
early development.
It is true that the Santa Susana Pass
road was not designed for heavy traffic flows, nonetheless
it carried a great deal o£ tra££ic.
20
Many people chose
Simi and made this trip, rather than one to Thousand Oaks,
simply because it was closer.
Therefore, it is concluded
that regional accessibility was a positive growth £actor,
and that lack of a freeway in the mid-stages o£ the study
period had little negative ef£ect.
In summary, available, relatively cheap developable
land, an increased water supply, and a strategic regional
location.we:re- significant causes influencing developers to
construct thousands o£ homes and thus rapidly £ill the
Simi Valley landscape with urban sprawl during the study
era.
Forces Attracting Migrants
Many interacting £orces caused the great in£lux o£
people into Simi Valley that is being considered here.
j
Regional growth forces were cited earlier and included the
availability of desirable housing at the right time, retional amenities, accessibility, and employment.
These
factors were also at work in Simi Valley, but with varying
powers.
Housing Supply
The availability of desirable and low 'priced housing
in large and varying quantities was the single most consequential element in the in-migrants' choice of Simi Valley
as a place to live during the sixties.
was not so important.
In the 1950's, this!I
However, between 1960 and 1970,
I
!
I
there was an increase of 11,206 dwelling units in Simi
Valley, or 407 percent.
The populace increased by a 631
percent over the same time period.
Migrants were apparent-
ly not only bringing larger families, but were also of
child-bearing ages.
Average family size in this time
period rose from 2.18 persons to 4.05 persons.
In-migrants!
tended to be of the younger, child-bearing group typical of
suburbs, rather than of the older rurally oriented group of
earlier periods.
Examination of 1970 Census data indicates
that fully seventy-three percent of the Simi Valley resi'
dents are under age thirty-five, sixty-seven percent of the:
Thousand Oaks residents are, and only fifty-seven percent
of the Los Angeles County residents (Table 21).
The mi-
grants into Eastern Ventura County, then, seem to be substantially younger than inhabitants of the regional urban
core.
Simi Valley subdividers were able to penetrate the
housing market with a lower cost unit than nearby competitors because of cheaper land.
This fact is important
in explaining the growth of population in Simi Valley.
A generalized picture is given by 1970 Federal Housing
Census data.
Thousand Oaks median home value, for
instanc~
was $30,100 in 1970, while Simi Valley's was $24,400.
These homes were entering the market at precisely the same
time.
Table 22 illustrates the difference in home price
range between Conejo and Simi.
In 1970, sixty-four per-
cent of Simi Valley's homes were below $25,000, while only
twenty-two percent of the Thousand Oaks' homes were below
that price level.
The implication is that there was a
larger.niarket for lower priced homes throughout the sixties, as during any other time, and as a result, the
larger number of people, generally younger families went
to Simi.
As a result, it became the most rapidly growing
center in Ventura County.
Further examination of Table 22 indicates other regional disparities that are much grosser than those between
I
TABLE 21.--AGE OF SIMI VALLEY RESIDENTS - 1970
Age
Male
Female
Under 5
3,269
3,333
5 - 6
1,816
1,757
7 - 9
2,809
2,709
10 - 13
3,410
3,350
14
694
687
15
657
589
16 - 17
1,103
1,057
18 - 19
670
611
20
212
264
21
181
261
22 - 24
720
1,146
25 - 34
4,712
5,383
35 - 44
4,202
3,682
45 - 54
2,238
1,949
55 - 59
501
491
60 - 61
155
'
62
-
145
..
. '
165'
64
-~,
..
194
65 - 74
339
564
75 +
177
262
28,030
23,434
Total
Source:
u. s.
Bureau of the Census, u. s. Census of
Population: 1970, General Population Characteristics, California, Advance Report, p. 28.
J
I
1
TABLE 22.--HOME MARKETABILITY BY PRICE RANGE
1968 - FOURTH QUARTER
San Fernando
Valley
$15,000 17,499
0
$17,500 19,999
0
$20,000 24,999
4.0
$25,000 29,999
P e r c e n t
Los Angeles
Conejo
County
0
0
Simi
0
4.1
19.5
14.8
18.2
44.9
.8
17.5
19.4
29.0
$30,000 34,999
13.9
15.7
24.0
5.4
$35,000 +
81.2
51.8
34.3
1.2
12,814
1,497
1,694
Total
Units
Source:
.02
2,991
Wilbur McCann, Residential Research Report,
Los Angeles: Residential Research Committee of
Southern California, Fourth Quarter, 1968,
PP • 32 and 35 •
Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley identified above.
Homes in
San Fernando Valley in 1968 were almost completely out of
the range of the young and/or lower income buyer.
Fully
ninety-six percent cost over $25,000, by comparison with
only thirty-six percent found in that range in Simi Valley.i
j
The price of homes, combined with increased interest
ates, inflation and tight mortgage money policies, became
a real problem for families just entering the market in the
late sixties.
County either.
It was not just a problem for Los Angeles
In Ventura County in 1965, forty-one per-
cent of all joint income tax returns indicated an income of
$7,000 or less.
21
Assuming that there was not a signifi-
cant change in the distribution of income, then forty-one
percent of the county population would qualify to buy homes
only in approximately the $17,000-18,000 price range in
1969.
Considering the amount of this price-class of hous-
ing that was available, these people were rather effectively priced out of the Ventura County market.
22
Therefore,
the relatively low cost of housing available in Simi Valley
assumes an even greater significance as an economic force
driving population migration to Simi.
By putting such un-
usually low priced homes on the market, Simi Valley subdivid~:r;s
were effectively undercutting competitors in
Thousand Oaks, San Fernando Valley, and in Los Angeles
[County, and thereby capturing a large share of Southern
California and intra-regional migratory home buyers.
Accessibility
It is probably safe to say that urbanization of Simi
~-ley_~_oul?_~~!_l_:_~~c:_oc~~rr~~ -~t_l_::_~I'l~ _:!~e _s~udy
period if
it had been located in a more remote section of the county,
for instance near Ojai.
Ojai Valley brims with developable
land and desirable amenities.
It, however, lacks one in-
trinsic physical property required for large-scale urban
growth, that is a high degree of "accessibility".
As
established above, regarding the influence of accessibility
on developers' decisions, it must be said that accessibility was also very important in most migrant's decisions
to locate in Simi Valley.
The influence of accessibility on urban growth is
well documented
I
bu~before
proceeding, it is useful to con-I
!
Eliot Hurst describes the central role
I
sider it briefly.
of accessibility in the urban growth process.
He says,
"It is doubtful whether or not cities would be built at all
but for the need for accessibility."
He continues,
"Accessibility is at once the raison d'e'tre for urban
living and its outstanding characteristic and function."
23
·Most- researchers have either used or defined accessibility
according to their own needs, and this is to be expected.
However, Haig (1927) has an excellent case for a beginning.!
One then has a circular plane whose center is,
of course, the point most easily reached from
all the points within its circumference. The
essential quality which the center possesses
is physical proximity, or accessibility, to all
parts of the area ••• The term accessibility as
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _j
I
used in the preceding paragraph, really means
ease of contact--contact with relatively little
. t"1on ••• 24
f r1c
The following attempt at evaluating the role of
accessibility in the development of Simi Valley does not
presume to be definitive in any sense, but merely sets out
the author's perspective.
bility
wh~ch
The relative degree of accessi-
a specific location possesses is due in part
to the adjacent natural environment, specifically to
physical barriers, and distance to other points and in
I
part to the adjacent cultural environment, specifically thej
\
transportation systems converging on or around it.
i
The first encompasses such natural obstructions as
rivers, mountains, deserts, and swamps.
Physical barriers
for the Simi Valley in the early part of the study period
were important.
Isard notes that ''physical features •••
have critical value as barriers only with respect to a
given or assumed state of technology, and in particular of
.-:-·: -·
.
transport technology.·"
25
Distance, the second component, is of major significance here.
However, its effect upon total accessibility
is rather straightforward.
In any given fixed location,
airline distance relationships are an unalterable, natural
property which must always be considered.
Obviously, how- '
ever, Simi Valley is not in an unobstructed, central location.
Therefore, men have alleviated the situation by
means or the railroad, highway, and airport.
These trans-
port nets have been superimposed upon the landscape and
greatly alter the relative degree o£ accessibility that
Simi Valley has.
Throughout the study period, Simi Valley's accessibility increased.
In 1950, Simi Valley was relatively
isolated, due to its low accessibility.
time was the critical £actor.
Distance at this
Oxnard was the closest
population center, twenty-rive miles distant, with 21,567
people.
Ventura,
(16,534), the governmental center, was
seven miles £urther.
26
The distance to the San Fernando
Valley was very short, two miles.
Yet the distance to the
nearest large urban community, Van Nuys with 57,053, was
over twe 1 ve
"1 es. 27
Chatsworth at the time was not much
m~
larger than the Simi Valley, with a population o£ only
4,717.
Canoga Park just to the south o£ Chat.s:worth, con-
tained 3,603 people.
28
Therefore, at this stage Simi
Valley was a considerable distance £rom a truly large urban!
1
center.
The hills opened on the west to the Little Simi Valleyi'
!
and Moorpark, but there was little interaction between
these two areas, except £or social and family contact.
ills on both the north and south obstructed other avenues
of access.
l
Nor was there need for them, as the Los
Virgenes-Malibu and Santa Clara River Valley areas generated no pressure for mountainous crossings.
The only mountain section that warranted a crossing
already had one.
two ways.
Santa Susana Pass had been breached in
A highway over the pass had been improved
through time, having its beginnings as a horse trail for
stagecoaches.
raJ."1 roa d • 30
29
In 1904 work was begun on a tunnel for the
For many years transportation links had con-
nected Simi with San Fernando Valley.
This situation was
greatly improved in 1968 when the Simi Valley-San Fernando
Valley Freeway was completed.
Improved accessibility for
Simi Valley in the 1950's was a minor consideration due to
its low population and its considerable distance from
developed urban centers.
The situation was different, however, in the 1960's.
Accessibility was of increasing concern because of the .•.,
growing population pressures and interaction between the
San Fernando Valley and Simi Valley.
By 1960, there were
21,837 people in the community of Chatsworth and 56,840
in Canoga Park.
31
By 1967, there were 45,090 in the Simi
1Valley (Table 16, p. 80).
I
I
I
!
Major demands for interaction were caused by commuting patterns established in the early 1950's.
32
Ap-
proximately two-thirds of the Simi populace then depended
on jobs outside of the valley.
In 1966, it was estimated
that seventy percent of the total work force of 14,600 commuted to outside areas.
There were only 5,900 local jobs
available, not nearly enough to support the 44,350 people
.
33
living there at the t1me.
this situation has worsened.
A 1970 survey indicated that
Seventy-four percent of the
labor force worked outside the valley.
This seems to cor-
relate well with figures for Conejo for the same periods.
A 1963 survey there showed that fifty-one percent commuted
outside the area, and that seventy percent did in 1967
( Tabl e 1 1, p. 46).
34
This trend must be attributed to the
fact that the area is not attracting new work places as
fast as it is attracting new labor.
Traffic flow in and out of Simi Valley reached
crit:ig~l stages according to the Califor_nia ·Division or' ·
Highways average daily traffic counts in 1965 (Table 23).
Also, personal observation of the situation on two typical
weekdays in 1966 revealed that between 3:40p.m. and 6:00
p.m., the rush hours, almost 4,100 cars passed by on
Highway 118.
Three thousand and forty were going into the
. . v a 11 ey, an d th e res t were ex1. t.1ng. 35
S 1m1
Even at this
I
_j
TABLE 23.--AVERAGE DAILY TRAFFIC COUNTS
Highway 118 - 1965
At Topanga Canyon intersection
At the County Line
At Kuehner Drive intersection
23,500 (both ways)
23,6QQ
II
II
26' QQQ
II
II
Moo!Park Road - 1969
9,700
3,300
At Olsen Road interse~tion
At Tierra Rejada intersection
Source:
"
"
"
II
Milton Stark and Charles Gustafson, California
State Division of Highways, Interview.
rate, however, on the winding two-lane road, there were
only two complete halts in the flow.
cars moved by in just five minutes.
At one point, 361
In 1969, Highway 101
at the Moorpark Road intersection (the major Thousand Oaks
interchange) was carrying only 51,000 cars daily.
The
Santa Paula Freeway carried only 17,000 at the intersection:
Ij
with Highway 101 in 1969.
36
In order to put this flow into!
r
proper perspective, these figures can be compared to those
in Table 23.
It was obvious throughout the 1960's that there was
a great need for increased highway access to Simi Valley.
Since the mountains were not going to evaporate and distances were not going to change, the transportation system
..m:ust
I
The State and the County responded by making three
arked highway system improvements.
The first involved
ompletion of Olsen Road between Moorpark Road at the north
end of Thousand Oaks to Madera Road (formerly Kujawski
oad) in October, 1966.
status road.
This was a four-lane expressway
The four years after the completion of this
road saw greatly increased development activity at the west
end of Simi Valley due partially to the increased accessiility there.
There had already been considerable sub-
division at this end; Maps 5, 6 and 7 show that residential
J
development was definitely concentrating there from 1960-
:
1967.
I
This is an interesting phenomenon, for the major exit
for the Simi Valley had for years been the east end.
This residential concentration can be partially attributed to the subdivisions built here in the 1955-1958
period (Map 4 ) •
This earlier residential buildup at-
tracted further construction to this section.
The Sinaloa
I'
tracts:t·loca:ted. sout]:;l.:of_ :the town of Simi, and Simi itself, '\
had much to do with influencing later locations.
It had
long been a policy of the Ventura County Planning Com-
I
I
I
i
I
mission and Board of Supervisors to discourage urban sprawl!
by keeping subdivisions compact and having these areas expand gradually.
"Great savings in money and time can be
made if residential areas expand in an orderly manner.
scattered residential developments make it difficult and
expensive to provide schools, school bus services, utilities and other services for the public. 1137
is also a very real one to the developer.
This concern
He cares not
so much about his buyer's convenience as he does about cost
savings.
The developer has to bear a large part of the
cost of extending sewers, water mains and streets to isolated tracts.
Therefore, it always behooves him to locate
close to existing facilities.
This very practical matter
is a real control on subdivision location.
mented the force of these relationships.
Weiss docuAlthough they
were not the most significant factors in her study, the
proximity of other subdivisions and utilities were
definitely locational influences.
38
The completion of
Olsen Road reinforced already existing patterns and increased the accessibility of the Simi Valley toward its
southwestern neighbors.
The second, and the most ifflportant-'1:6ri<j~range improvement in the local and regional highway system was the
addition of the Simi Valley-San Fernando Valley Freeway in
July, 1968.
39
In order to see if a pattern of development
occurred that might be influenced by the freeway, Maps 7
and 8 were drawn to show only new developments between 1964:
!
and 1967, (prior to the freeway's existence) and between
mid-1967 and late 1970.
There was no discernible shift
eastward where the freeway entered the valley.
Rather,
scatteration of new developments occurred in both periods.
There are two forces at work to create this pattern.
The
freeway effectively equalized accessibility all across the
Simi Valley.
Most residents worked in the San Fernando
Valley and exited via the east end.
Travel time to the
san Fernando Valley now varied by only a matter of minutes
from one end of Simi to the other.
Assuming a lack of
traffic jams, then, there is now really little difference
in the degree of accessibility in relation to San Fernando
Valley from any part of Simi Valley.
Equalizing accessi-
bility along the length of the valley also has the effect
of equalizing land values, which means the developer has
more from which to choose.
A second force creating this very dispersed pattern
1
I
is that the Simi Valley is approaching a cfpwded ccmdi ~:i..~p,,J
I
and there are fewer choice tract sites left than in the
early 1960's.
Therefore, the buildup process of the last
three years and more, was primarily a filling in of smaller
vacant plots.
There remains a large agricultural acreage
in the north central section, but this is apparently too
valuable to sell at today' s prices (Plate 7 ) •
,~
Plate 7.
Looking north toward the remaining agriculture area.
May, 1971.
119
------------------------
---------
- -------
The effect of the Simi Valley-San Fernando Valley
Freeway is not discernible in population growth statistics
(Table 24).
TABLE 24. --SIMI: VALLEY - ANNUAL GROWTH
1967-71
April
April
April
April
April
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1,360
3,110
4,440
*8,690
*3,470
*Not comparable to figures above due to a change in
statistical units.
sources:
1
Ventura County Planning Department. Population
Bulletins 1967-70; Ventura County Planning
Department, Population Research Section, Virginia
Dillard, April 26, 1971.
The freeway was, of course, built during a period of recession and during a major war.
It is also important to
consider that the freeway is as yet only an isolated segment, not connecting to another freeway.
i;the
This means that
freeway's maximum utility has not yet been attained.
'These factors acting simultaneously have undoubtedly effected the influence that the freeway has had.
Therefore,
.it is too early to validly assess the freeway's role in inLc:r.easing_the_ruz.eralL.acces.sibili ty__ of__ Simi_Valley. _
This can also be said about the newly constructed
segments o£ the Moorpark Freeway (Route 23).
It was
opened £rom the Ventura Freeway as £ar as Tierra Rejada
Road in May, 1970.
A newer segment, to Highway 118, was
opened in January, 1971.
40
There are now three westerly
routes out o£ Simi Valley that connect with a freeway in
less than £our miles.
I
These three highway improvements have greatly increased Simi Valley's accessibility.
Their e££ects on
population growth remains to be seen.
Assuming that the
future will bring changes in national outlook, these freeways will undoubtedly have the same e££ects observed elsewhere.
So £ar, the Simi Valley-San Fernando Valley Free-
way has apparently changed the internal accessibility o£
the valley, so that recent development has been more widespread than heretofore.
The e££ects o£ Olsen Road and
Route 23 have more to do with regional accessibility and
'
II
I
will most likely not pull development. the.~r wPr~.,.inside
the :I
.:,..,·.Mr'
._.,..
I
valley.
These two roads may contribute, however, to an
I
eventual buildup outside the valley.
I
I
The degree o£ accessibility now present in Simi
Valley is adequate £or present demands.
The apparent im-
provements still to be made would be to make north-south
the
bordering
.._crossings
_ _ _ _ _o£
__
__
_ _ _ _ _hills.
_ _ _ _The
_ _1964
_ _ _and
_ _1967
_ _ _ _ _j
General Plans £or the Simi Valley planning area called £or
such construction.
These plans are no longer in e££ect
since the City o£ Simi Valley rejected them upon incorporation.
41
However, such connections may eventually be built.
One was scheduled to pass through Tapo Canyon to the Santa
Clara River Valley.
The two southward connections were to
cross the Simi Hills via
Skeleton Canyon and Las Virgenes
I
Canyon, both were to intersect Highway 101.
When or i£
these roads are built, an even higher degree o£ accessibility £or Simi Valley will have been attained.
With such roads, the physical barriers will have been
e££ectively diminished.
Accessibility has played an im-
portant role in the development o£ the Simi Valley urban
!landscape, and there is no question but what it will conitinue to do so.
'
I
Employment
A third significant force in the" attraction
o~.
in.";'· ..
migrants to Simi Valley, and hence directly shaping its
spatial structure, is the regional employment base.
The
availability o£ employment in immediately adjacent areas
is a principal reason why many people came to the Los
Angeles-Ventura area.
First, let us examine the Simi Valley employment
ase.
Major employer class in Simi Valley up until the
point of rapid urbanization was agriculture.
There were
approximately 1,000 persons working directly in agricultural pursuits at this time. 42
Citrus and walnuts comprised
eighty-nine percent of the irrigated acreage in 1950.
grap~s,
pricots,
truck or row crops, beans and alfalfa,
made up most of the rest of the 5,667 acres.
43
By 1961,
I
acreage had dropped thirty-five percent to 4,190 acres. 44
In 1966 only ninety people in the whole Simi Planning Area
were employed in
.
agr~culture.
45
Agriculture has ceased to
be a major employer.
What else did Simi Valley offer?
In 1966 there were
approximately 2,260 jobs in manufacturing available in the
Planning Area.
46
These were almost entirely at the North
American Aviation Rocketdyne and Atomics International
plants.
Both located in the Burro Flats area of the Simi
Hills in November, 1948, and as such provided early. support
fb'F -growth
in Simi Valley.
i
I
Employment at the a(;t~al ·fieid..-';
test sites has varied considerably over the years, ranging
from 500 to
3,ooo. 47
Throughout the 1950's and early
1960's, Rocketdyne and Atomics International provided the
only major source of employment within the Simi Planning
I
Area, and during the study period there were very few
additions.
The few new firms included: Oberg Construction
j
------------------------------------------------------------------.
orporation - 50 employees; Shasta Industries - 200 em-
I
loyees (mobile home production); Free Drop Top, Inc. 0 employees (plastics); Big Three Industrial Gas and
Equipment Company - 8 employees, and Charm£it o£ Hollywood55 employees {brassiere makers).
48
Their contribution to
total employment has been small (see Map 10 £or location o£
industry, and Table 10, p. 44).
Other major employment categories in 1966 included
wholesale and retail trade and government workers (Table
25).
These combined to provide a total o£ 6,000 jobs in
Simi Valley in 1966.
Simi residents.
0£ this total, 4,400 were filled by
Since there was a total work force o£
14,800, approximately 10,400 were commuting outside the
planning area.
It is apparent that the major economic support £or
Simi Valley lies elsewhere.
This is not an atypical trend
in the early development stages o£ urbanization, particu. larly on-the periphery o£ major industrial regionl:). 49
.
safi.··f
- I
I
Fernando Valley was basically a dormitory £or Greater
50
Los Angeles all through the 1940's and most o£ the 1950's. ;
The situation there, however, was very different, as San
Fernando Valley is about thirteen times as big as Simi
Valley.
51
Therefore, homes could occupy vast stretches o£
land and still leave large areas £or industrial development!
_j
_, __
TABLE 25.--SIMI PLANNING AREA - 1966 EMPLOYMENT
Percentage
Industry Groups
Number
Agriculture, Forestry
and Fisheries
90
1.5
Mining
40
.7
200
3.3
2,260
37.7
Transportation, Communications and Utilities
230
3.8
Wholesale and Retail Trade
1,220
20.3
Finance, Insurance and
Real Estate
220
3.7
Services
590
9.8
1,150
19.2
Contract Construction
Manufacturing
Government
6,000
Source:
California Department of Employment, as cited in
1967 Simi Valley General Plan, p. 9.
For example, throughout the San Fernando Valley, tract
housing stayed relatively clear of' the Southern Pacific
tracks, thereby leaving room :for industry.
Such was not the case in Simi Valley.
There popula-
tion influxes were so swift and the area so small that very
little land was reserved :Eor industry.
It is estimated
~--------------------------------------------------__j
that if all the industrial acreage proposed in the 1967
General Plan were developed, there would be only 5,600 persons employed therein.
Conceivably, there could be further
expansion in the Burro Flats area and that might create a
total of 10,000 jobs there.
52
Barring major upheavals in
the already builtup areas, or the location of industry in
areas previously designated residential, long distance
I
commuting will be a permanent way of life for Simi residents.
Transformation of some land zoned for residences
to industrial zoning was actually being attempted at this
writing.
A citizens' General Plan Advisory Committee was
attempting to head off a new apartment proposal to reserve
the site for
.
~ndustry.
53
Apparently there is an awareness
iof the need for a substantial economic base.
There is little question that San Fernando Valley and
Conejo Valley employment centers must provide Simi Valley
residents with jobs.
The trend in Ventura County itself
was increasingly r~sidential in 1967.
54
Population migra-
tion into Simi Valley and Ventura County was racing ahead
of employment growth, so the area was becoming more delpendent on the economy of Los Angeles County.
Summary
In conclusion, it can be stated that available employlmJant in_ Si!lli__ y_e,:I,_l~y_j.s ___ llQ.:t._a _Il_l,aj_o:~;_ _:forGe attracting_
residents; regional employment is such a rorce, however.
The availability or employment in nearby parts o£ Los
Angeles County has contributed directly to the buildup or
the present Simi Valley landscape.
The dominant residential
appearance o£ Simi Valley has been created in answer to a
need £or homes.
Industry and other employment sources were
not attracted during the buildup process because most
everyone migrating to Simi already had a job nearby.
Therefore, plans were not laid to create an economic
cornerstone that would support a ruture city.
Simi Valley
residents are now aware or this need, especially with unemployment rates rising in 1971.
55
A local employment base
has not been an important £actor in population growth, but
Ilack o£ it has contributed to present landscape usage.
II
I
The great inrlux o£ migrants described above naturally
I
put great pressure upon the existing school system.
I£ the
schools had not been able to withstand the growth pressures
and keep up with expanding demands, , tnigrantsi~~;iu±gh't well
!have been deterred.
)
·grants
was
.
cons~dera
The average ramily size or these mib ly 1 arger than
.
prev~ously
encountered
in the Simi Valley Uniried School District, and rapid
changes were required in school planning programs.
For-
tunately there was a uniried school district able to cope
.with the problems with much assistance £rom the state.
rhis District,formed in 1934,has risen from one with two
schools and 474 students in 1950, four schools and 1,954
students in 1960, to 21,886 students in thirty schools
spread throughout the valley's neighborhoods.
56
The
.schools were a positive force in the rapid urbanization of
I
!Simi Valley.
Prime causal factors contributing to the urbanization
of Simi Valley throughout the 1950's and the 1960's have
worked in varying proportions at various times.
Amongst
them, the construction of over 11,000 free standing dwellings has been the most significant population attractor
and physical shaper of the spatial structure of Simi Valley.
These homes have been built to accommodate part of a great
'surge of in-migrants to Southern California.
These mi-
!grants have come in response to regional employment opporI
I
jtunities and regional and local amenities.
FOOTNOTES
1.
This study assumes that there was a ready market
for the development and does not presume to
discuss the extent or reasons for it, except
where peripherally necessary.
2.
Alan M. Voorhees, "Development Patterns in
American Cities," in Hig11way Research Board
Bulletin 293 (Washington, D.C., 1961), p. 6.
3.
c. F. Barnes, "Integrating Land Use and Traffic
Forecasting," in Highway Research Board Bulletin
~(Washington, D.c., 1961), p. 5.
4.
u. s.
Department of Agriculture, Soil Conservation Service and University of California
Agricultural Experiment Station, Soil Survey,
Ventura Area, California (Washington, D.C.:
Government Printing Office, April, 1970),
PP• 3-4.
5.
u. S. Department of Agriculture, Aerial Photos,
August 21, 1959 and October 14, 1959; Ventura
County Recorder's Office, Miscellaneous Records
Books, 2'5MR84, 26MR61.
6.
Ventura County Recorder's Office, Miscellaneous
Records, 31MR37, 33MR45, 33MR85, 33MR89,
35MR64, 36MR66.
7.
Ventura County Recorder's Office, Misc~J,laneq"Us
Records, 30MR13, 30MR22, 30MR87, 31MR7.
8.
Richard E. Lonsdale, Water Problems ••••
p. 30.
9.
The official records of the County Assessor are
not available past 1963-4. Land prices were
thought to be a significant factor in this story~
but adequate documentation was not accessible.
'
Interviews with developers, businessmen, Simi
Valley Chamber of Commerce personnel, planners,
1954,
-----------------··---·----- ----------------and assessors provided the only clues to
support these arguments.
---
10.
These statements were supported by Robert T.erry,
Principal Appraiser, Ventura County Assessor's
Office.
11.
Interview with Robert Delacruz, Ventura County
Assessor's Office.
12.
u. s.
13.
Interview with Milton Stark and Charles F.
Gustafson, California Division of Highways,
Information Officers.
14.
Barnes, .2.2.· cit., PP• 6 and 9.
15.
Voorhees, .2.2.• cit., P• 5.
16.
Lonsdale, .2.2.· cit., P• 31.
17.
Lonsdale, p. 39.
18.
Interview with Carl Rowley, Ventura County Planning Department, Senior Planner.
19.
Interview with Bernard Moore, Larwin Company.
20.
Bureau of the Census, U. S. Census of
Population: 1970. General Population Characteristics, California. Advance Report PC (V2)-6
(Washington, D.c., Government Printing Office, ,
February, 1971), pp. 28-29.
The author's traffic counts, April, 1966;
·:;:Cali:fprnia Division of Highways Traffic Counts,
1965. These points are discussed in greater detail on p. 77.
21.
Ventura County Planning Department, Generalized
Data on Ventura County Housing Characteristics,
unpublished report, March 6, 1969; Ventura County
Planning Department, Housing Element of the
Ventura County General Plan. Background Report,
unpublished report, August 6, 1969, p. 2.
22.
Loc. cit.
23.
Eliot Hurst, M. E., "Accessibility and the
Town Plan," Association of Pacific Coast
Geographers, Yearbook, 31 (1969), 116.
24.
Robert M. Haig and Roswell C. McCrae, Regional
Survey of New York and Its Environs, Major
Economic Factors in Metropolitan Growth and
Arrangement, I (Regional Plan Association of
New York, 1927), p. 38.
25.
Walter Isard, Location and Space-Economy
(Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1956), p. 12.
l
I
26.
Security First National Bank. Economic Research
Division, The Growth and Economic Stature of
Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo
Counties ( [Los Angeles]
, July, 1966), p. 65.
27.
Security First National Bank. Economic Research
Department, The Growth and Economic Stature of
San Fernando Valley and the Greater Glendale
Area ( [ Los Angeles] , October, 1967), p. 39.
28.
Security First National Bank,
Valley •••. , 1967, p. 36.
29.
Janet Scott Cameron, Simi Grows Up, p. 19.
30.
Frank M. Keffer, History of the San Fernando
Valley (Glendale: Stillman Printing Co., 1934),
p. 69; Janet Scott Cameron, Simi Grows Up,
p. 66. Cameron maintains, however, that the
railroad was begun in 1900 and completed in
1904.
31.
Security First National Bank, loc. cit., P• 36.
32.
Richard E. Lonsdale, Water Problems •••• , p. 46.
33.
Ventura County Planning Commission, Simi Area
General Plan ( [Ventura]
1967)' P• 10.
J
•••• San Fernando
'
34.
Ventura County Planning Department, Planning
Newsletter, No. 25 (April 1, 1967), p. 1.
·
~--------------------J
-----------------------------------·-·---------·
35. Author's field survey, April, 1966.
36.
Stark and Gustafson, 2£• cit.
37.
Ventura County Planning Commission, Planning
Policy and Design Concept, Ventura County,
California ( [Ventura] , 1964), p. 24.
38.
Shirley F. Weiss and Edward J. Kaiser, "Decision
Agent Models: A Review of Recent Research,"
Traffic Quarterly, XXIII (October, 1969, 613614.
39.
Stark and Gustafson, 2£• cit.
40.
Loc. cit.
-
41.
A San Francisco group of planning consultants,
Candeub and Fleissig, is preparing a new general
plan.
42.
Lonsdale, loc.
43.
Lonsdale, p. 44.
44.
Crane Slater Miller, The Changing Landscape of
the Simi Valley ••• , p. 120.
45.
California State Department of Employment, as
cited in Ventura County Planning Commission,
Simi Area General Plan, 1967, p. 9.
46.
Loc. cit.
47.
Interview with Lea,r Hochstrasser, Atomics
International, Department of Public Relations.
48.
Charmfit left Simi Valley in the fall of 1970.
49.
Raymond E. Murphy, The American City: An Urban
Geography (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), p. 37.
50.
Richard Ellis Preston, "The Changing Landscape
of the San Fernando Valley Between 1930-1964,"
The California Geographer, VI (1965), 67.
£!1•
L ___ - ------ - ---. ---··-- --------------------------------- ·- - -- --- --- - -· -- -·-.
.------------------------------------...,
I
51.
Security First National Bank, San Fernando
Valley Report, 1967, p. 44.
52.
Ventura County Planning Commission, Simi Area
General Plan, 1967, p. 8.
I
53.
Interview with Bob Dillard, Simi Valley Planning'
Department, April 29, 1971.
54.
Los Angeles Regional Transportation Study,
Employment Growth, LARTS Technical Bulletin 2-8
(Los Angeles: Transportation Association or
Southern California, April, 1968), p. 3.
55.
Interview with Connie Susman, Simi Valley
Chamber or Commerce.
56.
Interview with Martin Morocco, Simi Valley
Unified School District.
I
_j
CHAPTER VI
LAND USE
The present urban landscape in Simi Valley is disroportionately weighted toward residential usage and
slightly toward
comm~rcial
use (Map 10).
are mainly oriented along two axes.
Commercial areas
One is along Los
Angeles Avenue, which in some segments is dominated by
"string street" type o:f development.
Most newer shopping
centers have been located according to the dictum o:f earlier general plans.
Thus, governmental policy has played a
major role in the location and scale o:f these centers.
Spot commercial building has been discouraged since at
least 1964.
Instead, development o:f a hierarchy o:f shop-
ping centers has been the policy.
These range :from a re-
gional shopping center o:f 125 acres plus ;~',1:6 'the neighborhood center o:f up to :fifteen acres, much the same as the
system suggested b y
.
Chap~n.
1
Therefore, some measure o:f
rationality was introduced into the commercial land use
structure demonstrating the practicality o:f Berry's
hierarchical planning scheme.
2
This measure o:f planning
will halt :further growth o:f Los Angeles Avenue into a
135
s
s,G
N
I
A
s
SIMI VALLEY LAND USE- 1970
l'vJ
Residential
Commercial
I
i.J
s
s
-1
A;
"?!12J
.1800
Industrial
Agriculture
1¥-W;"~I
Public
DB
b~=-·
•.
I
Vacant
SCALE I 24 000
~
I
•:
0
J"'llE
;~~~~ -~~~T=--~~~1.=-l~:Ec!x"',~"',:Cooo:-:'-"==c"'""'cc":c===,"'ooo"""==,=ooo~nET =="
.
~J-=..:c::~-,::co_:OO'O~=-=:r.==::~--=--:E:· .o:-~=
l
~
0
s.,,,
'.
-=~
::-:1:~=-~--==--.:a:::=.-=-=-=..::J
1
KllOMfTf~
~~~.::J-.-,.~-::.:o:c===:_::·.:_-..:..:.._-::::- ~=--'-=---==..=J
\I
5
\..
•!+.50
MAP 10
'Ventura Boulevard type."
The valley's major commercial section stretches for
almost two miles along Los Angeles Avenue between Madera
oad and Erringer Road (Map 10).
A single structure oc-
cupied by K-Mart, a junior department store, is at the
orthwest corner of Madera Road and Los Angeles Avenue.
A
large variety type department store, Newberry's is schedled to locate to the south of K-Mart soon.
Immediately
j
I
east of this a regional center is planned with Sears forming the anchor.
From this point to the east are found some j
of the older individual businesses lining the avenue.
There are well over a hundred stores found in this one and
a half mile stretch.
Located at the corner of First Street and Los Angeles
Avenue are the thirty-six stores found in the Larwin Square
shopping center.
This center includes three banks, a major
drug store, one theater, a junior department store, six
restp:q.rants, and other stores.
This center was the fore-
runner of the valley's "planned" shopping centers.
The second most significant commercial concentration
!is found along Tapo Road, between Los Angeles Avenue and
i
jCochran Street.
The major component here is on the east
'side of the street and is a shopping center with forty-two
stores.
Thrifty Drugs is the largest.
Directly to the
i
I
.....J
south are eleven other stores, and across the street are
seven more.
Some of the oldest commercial ventures in the
valley are located in this concentration along Los Angeles
venue in both directions from Tapo Road.
Included is a
ost office here, an old railroad station, a packing house,
and an assortment of small businesses ranging along both
sides of the street.
Throughout the valley are found three other relatively
significant commercial centers, all of very recent vintage.
Located at the southeast corner of Sycamore Street and Los
Angeles Avenue are fourteen stores including a bank, major
food store and major drug store.
At the northeast corner
of Alamo Street and Tapo Road are seventeen stores with a
major food store being the anchor.
And at the northwest
corner of Stearns Street and Los Angeles Avenue are nine
stores with a major drug store serving as a focus.
At this point in time the valley seems to have ade•
.
•
quate commercial deve'topment
-. '·"'!"''• -·
._
t"6.' ·s~r;Je 'most
especially for minor purchases.
consumer needs,
But there is not yet any
development that is significant on a regional scale.
Be-
!cause of the valley's relative isolation, it is likely that:
I
!commercial development will never serve the San Fernando
i
!Valley, but will most likely serve as a regional commercial_
source for the Moorpark area.
The northern portion of
I
i
housand Oaks may also be attracted by proposed developments
!
at the western edge of the valley.
The disproportional
eighting of development toward the west is explained by
these potential market areas.
I
I
The present commercial areal\
structure is due partially to the dispersion of the populace throughout the valley, but is also due to the earlier
concentration upon Los Angeles Avenue as the valley's prime
thoroughfare.
The single most outstanding feature of the valley's
urban spatial structure is the loosely knit, almost continuous, very low density carpet of one-family homes extending all through the Simi Valley (Plate
8).
In 1967,
fully sixty-five percent of the total developed land was
devoted to these homes (Table 26).
3
The 1967 General Plan
called for an ultimate development of some 74,819 dwelling
units, with only one percent being high density apartments.
This means an addition of over 60,000 units to those
present in April, 1970.
How does this residentially dominated landscape compare to what other cities in the United States have already
!
!developed?
Bartholomew's 1955 survey of fifty-three
I
'
!variously sized cities indicated that the typical u.
s.
1city had only about forty percent of its land in residen-
l
ces.
4
Clearly then, the Simi Valley is a major departur=._ ___;
0'171
140
TABLE 26.--LAND USE - SIMI VALLEY*
1964
Acres
Percent
Acres
-1967
3,496
r
Percent
2,630
60.9
Commercial
152
3.5
185.1
3.4
Public and SemiPublic
826
19.1
1,223.9
22.6
35
•8
Residential
Industrial
64.6
35
•6
1
I
I'
I
*Developed areas only. Figures for transportation and circulation not included due to unreliability. Rocketdyne
not included.
Source:
i
Ventura County Planning Commission, Simi General
Plans, 1964 and 1967, pp. 4 and 8.
from this norm.
California.
However, it is not unusual in Southern
Oxnard, for instance, has envisioned that
fifty-seven percent of its sixty-three square mile planning
.
area w1'1 1 b e res1'dent1al.
5
Blumenfeld and others have
empi1:ically demonstrated that residential usa,gg~ :i,.s, do111inant ,
in cities, but the Simi Valley is definitely overweighted
this category according to previous studies.
6
Subdivisions encountered in Simi Valley are of a very
I
!typical variety (Plate 8 ).
Many of them are examples of
,what is loosely called "good subdivision design."
This is
i
a compromise between the planner and the developer that
~----------------------------------------------------------------__j
,....-------------------------------------1I
aves money for both.
The result is generally a stultify-
1
I
·ng wilderness of look-alike homes on slightly curved
treets, with a school and park placed in the center creat·ng a square doughnut or homes.
Each neighborhood in the
imi Valley is generally bounded by secondary arterials,
iscouraging to root traffic.
An ideal unit contains 2,500
,400 persons, or enough to support an elementary school.
7
Policies adopted by the Ventura County Planning Comission are in a large part responsible for suburban spread
in Simi Valley.
J
I
It has determined that eighty-two to
I
eighty-eight percent of the future residential areas would
~e
occupied by single-family homes on 7,000 to 80,000
!square root lots.
i
They have, however, noted that "residen-
!tial developments should be planned carefully so as to con-
I
lserve agricultural and open spaces."
a
This latter policy
has not been successful in Simi Valley.
The highway and transportation systems superimposed
!upon the S;imi __ Valley have contributed to its urban spatial
,-1-
•.
---
c>-
•""
structure and can be divided into three categories:
railroad,
(2) freeway, and (3) other roads.
(1)
The railroad
I
has long been a major structural element of Simi Valley.
1
It was an accepted feature of the agricultural landscape or
the 1950's and before.
The tracks enter the valley via a
!tunnel from San Fernando Valley.
Once there, it lines _______
the _!1
'
·~.-,.
I
I
hillsides staying south of Arroyo Simi until a jutting hilll
pushes it out into the middle of the valley.
Here the
I
track parallels Los Angeles Avenue for about four miles.
Then, it heads for the Arroyo Simi Narrows and exits Simi
Valley.
The rail line forms a visually significant element
of the 1970's.
In some towns the railroad tracks follow
minor streets or go through industrial areas in a generally
unobserved manner.
In Simi Valley, they occupy a prominent,
I
position next to the main street and have the effect of
splitting the narrow and long valley into segments.
The orientation of the new freeway accentuates this
trend.
It is visually even more dominating than the
tracks, being built above ground all the way.
Both the
railroad and the freeway support the valley's strong
east-west physical and cultural orientation (Plate 9 ).
The pattern of secondary roads also trends dominantly
east-west.
The pattern of roads was basically pre-
determined. by the: ·rectangular survey system of townships
and ranges.
Among the east-west roads that lie directly
upon a boundary line are Royal, Cochran, and of course,
Township.
Los Angeles, Fitzgerald, Katherine, Leeds,
!Alamo, and others exactly bisect a township.
I
North-south
:streets that lie upon a boundary line are Madera, First,
Erringer, Sycamore, Walnut, and Tapo.
The earliest
I
145
established road pattern follows surveyed boundary lines,
uch in contrast to later roads built within this established grid (Map 11).
These newer roads have been created in response to
neighborhood planning criteria, traffic flow problems,
drainage course alignment, property lines and the like.
A
rather fine grained pattern of major and minor streets has
emerged in the 1970's in great contrast to that of the
1950's and earlier (Compare Maps 3 and 9).
The industries discussed above have located in two
widely dispersed places (Map 10).
These locations were
also designated as industrial on the 1967 General Plan,
The third location for industry in the General Plan is
south of the intersection of Kuehner Street and Katherine
Street at the extreme southeast corner of the valley.
Summary
The generalized structural pattern of land use in
Simi Valley resembles a checkerboard cut into an elongated,
rough-edged shape overlaid with a rather uniform height
and density of residential buildings, and sprinkled with
larger commercial buildings at intersections and along the
ithoroughfares.
This checkerboard is splotched with a
large patch of green in the north central section, and
24
19
20
20
21
0
J
30
28
29
3
10
18
I
24
19
20
E
,\,~
---I
2.1
\
25
\
D
28
\
I
\
I
36
31
I
l
c
:.;:.;
----
__
I
2\1
B
\
I
24
I
~
l
\
27 \
26
\
\
s
I
r.4
30
r
--
--- -
t-34 r
--~
20
19
35
-··
36
,_...,
0
~-~
- ..... 1
1
--s;;;;;;;;a,
MILES
"<
(:)•
I
Ill
~
2
I
I
I
MAP 11
~4-
1-'
~
ro
149
'
i
smaller patches elsewhere, these being the last vestiges of!
the valley's agricultural past.
Vacant land is also
I
resent in small amounts both in the interior and especial-!
ly around the periphery, but it is largely in the foothills.
Three major longitudinally oriented barriers slice
through the valley, these being the freeway, the railroad,
and the Arroyo Simi (Plate 9 ).
The spatial structure of
Simi Valley in 1970 is typified by a rather low density,
loose, homogeneous character.
-~1
FOOTNOTES
1.
F. Stuart Chapin, Jr., Urban Land Use Planning,
2nd edition {Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 1965), p. 293.
2.
Brian J. L. Berry, Geography of Market Centers and
Retail Distribution (Englewood Cliffs: PrenticeHall, 1967), P• 132.
3.
Ventura County Planning Commission, Simi Area
General Plan, 1967, p. 4.
4.
Harland Bartholomew, Land Uses in American Cities
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1955),
p. 46.
s.
Gruen Associates, Oxnard-2000, General Plan;
Basis for Planning, Final Report I ( [Los Angeles]
1969.
6.
Hans Blumenfeld, "The Modern Metropolis," in
Scientific American, Cities {New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1966), p. 51; Chapin, Urban Land Use
Planning, p. 338; Chicago Area Transportation,
Final Report I: Survey Findings {Chicago: Western
.Engraving and Embossing Co., 1959), as cited in
Brian J. L. Berry and Frank E. Horton, eds.,
Geographic Perspectives on Urban Systems (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1970), pp. 444-5.
The Chicago area had 32.1 percent in. residential
usage.
7.
Ventura County Planning Commission, Planning
Policy and Design Concept. Ventura County,
California ( [Ventura] , 1964), p. 24.
8.
Ventura County Planning Commission, Planning
Policy •••• , p. 31.
i
_________ J.1
I
·· -·---1
I
I
I
Every person who goes to suburbia s eeking
the edge o£ the count rys ide pushes the
countrys ide away £rom s omebody el s e - and
then he in turn su££ers £rom having it
pus hed away £rom him . The inhab i t ant s o£
suburb ia cont inual l y thwart th ems elves and
each other , and the more they t ry to make
the best o£ b oth wor lds the mor e they make
the wor s t
•
I
•
•
•
•
Thomas Sharp , Town P l anning , 1942 .
I
I
I
,_
i
I
I
i
i
_j
CHAPTER V I I
IMMED IATE PROSPECTS AND CONCLUSIONS
In 1 97 1 the l ands cape o£ Simi Val ley is dominat ed by
low den s i ty s in gle -fami l y homes th at s eem to me et the de s ires and aspirat ion s o£ their inhab i t ant s .
The mode o£
l ivin g e s t ab l i shed in t he Los Angel e s Five -County Region is
also prevalent in the S imi Val ley , and perhap s with good
r eason .
Ri ley s t ated that the " l iving pat t erns as soc iated
with suburban development in o l der regions h ave be come the
s t ructural patt ern o£ the ent ir e city , and £or the same
r easons o£ amenity . "
1
Thi s is appar ent ly what happened in
S imi Val ley , becau s e mor e peop le pr efer low den s i t y subur ban livin g as oppo s ed t o crowded central c it y condit ions .
Th ere ar e immediat e s i gns o£ increa s ed dens it ies ,
however .•
In May , 1 97 1 , the S imi Val ley Planning Commis s ion
was asked to approve 1 , 5 63 new apar tment unit s in £our
wide l y disper s ed locat ions .
2
The 1970 U .
s.
Census o£
Hous ing showed that only one per cent o£ al l dwel l ing uni t s
i were mu l t iples . Appr oval o£ the se new uni t s wou ld change
I
! the rat io to e l even per c ent . This is a considerab l e shift .
l
I
A two hundred unit mob i l e home park was also under
________
1 52
j
_j
Th i s new emphasis by developer s may
cons iderat ion .
the coming o£ an apartment bui lding boom s imi l ar to that
hich swept San Fernando Val ley in 1 9 6 1 , when large subdivis ion plots became s carc e , popul at ion dens i t i e s c l imbed ,
and land values s kyrocke t ed .
3
There is l i t t l e doubt that
apartment bui ldings w i l l dominate res idential building in
the future .
'
This is due pr imar i l y to a decreas ing supp ly
of l arge t ract lands and r i s i n g land prices .
I
Commercial construct ion wi l l also ge t a boo s t short ly
wi th the construction o£ two l ar ge c enters at the corner o£
Los An gel es Avenue and Madera Road .
S ears and Newb erry ' s
have purchas ed l and her e , repo r t edl y £or r apid development .
I
The indus trial ou t look i s no t t oo good .
I
/ bui lding pr ograms
ar e on the hor izon .
No immediat e
The relat i vely new
City o£ Simi Val l ey , inco rpor ated October 1 6 , 1969 , wil l
f ind that the lac k o£ an adequat e indu s t r i al bas e will b e a ,
growing prob l em
.
. -�-
r·
I
!
•
In c onc lus ion , the urbaniz at ion o£ Simi Val ley on the
eas t ern edge o£ Ventura County was precip i t at ed by a mix
! s everal
I
1 97 0 .
£actor s acting s imu ltaneou s l y between 1950 and
Af t er a s low beginning in the ear ly 1 9 50 ' s , Ventura
County ' s in -migrant shar e o£ the regional growth increas ed .
f The land developers , c lo s ely fo l lowin g such changes , came
i
Lto
Simi Val ley and Ventur a County becau s e o£ the l ar ge
_j
,-----------
!supp ly of relat ively cheap land , improved regional ac -
I
:ce s s ib i l i t y , and increas ed wat er supp l ies .
'
Developers
i
p l ac ed l ar ge amount s of relat ively che ap hous ing on the
;m arket and succeeded in att r acting many of the county ' s
!in
-mi grant s to Simi Val l ey .
r
'
i
The val l ey ' s excellent acces -
i s ib i l i t y to San Fernando Val ley ' s employment cen t er s
i
! induced more peop l e to come , and b y 1 970 popu lat ion had
I
i
'inc reas ed abou t 193 0 p er cen t over 1 9 5 0 .
The r esu l t is a
dormi tory suburban re gion of 61 , 1 5 0 peop l e l iving in a
' l ands cape that is of an evenly disper sed res idential
nature , largely devo i d of indus t ry , as wel l as many other
·I char acter i s t i c urban phenomen a .
r--- ---- -----;
I
FOOTNOTES
1.
l
Robert B . Riley , "Urban Myths and the New
Cit ies of the Southwes t , " Lands cape , ( Autumn ,
1 9 67 ) ' 22 .
2.
Int erview with Bob Dil lard , loc . c i t .
3.
Richard El l i s Pres ton , "The Chan gin g Landscape
of the San F ernando Val ley Between 1 930- 1964 , "
Th e Cal ifornia Geo grapher , 1965 , 72 .
---- -------
___ _______
j
r--------- ---------�
B IBL IOGRAPHY
Ackerman , Edward A .
"Wher e is a Res earch Front ier , "
Annals of the As s oc i at ion of American Geographers ,
53 ( December , 1 9 63 ) , 42 9 -440 .
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C l iff s : Pr ent ice-Hal l , 1 9 64 . 661 pp .
Al lpas s , et al . "Urban Centres and Chan ges in the Centre
St ructure , " in Urban Cor e and Inn er Ci ty . Pro ­
ceedin gs of the Internat ional Study Week .
Ams t erdam , Sep temb er 1 1 -17 , 1 966 . Univers it y of
Ams t erdam . Socio - graphical Dep artmen t . Leiden :
E . J . Bri l l , 1 9 67 . pp . 1 03 - 1 17 .
A l lpas s , John .
" Changes in the Structure of Urban Cen ­
t er s , " Journal of the American Ins t itut e of
Pl anner s , XXX IV ( May , 196 8 ) , 170-72 .
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As chmann , Homer .
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Sou thern Cal iforni a . Bul letin 17 0 , by Richard H .
Jahns , ed . , Sacramento : 1 954 , pp . 3 1 -44 .
156
�--Barnes
- ----- ,
!
'
-------------
c . F . " Int egrating Land Us e and Traffi c For e ­
cas t ing , " in Highway Res earch Board Bul l et in 297 .
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Land Us es in American Cities .
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470 pp .
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,
and Fr ank E . Horton , eds . Geographic
Engl ewood Cliff s :
Persp ec tives on Urban Sys t ems .
Pr ent ice -Hal l , 1 970 .
564 pp .
------
Blumenfel d , Hans .
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Amer ican Academy o£ Po l i tical and Soc ial Sci ence ,
( 1 964 ) ' 74-83 .
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Amer ican , 213 ( S ept ember , 1 965 ) , 6 4 -7 4 .
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Bourne , Larry S .
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As sociat ion o£ Americ an Geogr aphers , 1 ( 1 9 69 ) ,
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,_.,,
Brus s at , Wil l iam K .
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1770 - 1 8 5 1 , " Annal s of the Assoc iat ion o£ American
Geo graphers , 59 ( Sep tember , 1969 ) , 417 -440 .
,--·--·
i Californi a .
Univer s i t y . Agr icul tur a l Ext ens ion Servic e .
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Ventur a , 1967 .
1 05 pp .
( n . p . ) Ander son ,
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1 1 9 pp .
Campbe l l , James M .
Economic and Industrial Survey and
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County , Cal iforni a . [ Ventura ] , Ventura County
Bo ard of Sup ervi sors , 1 95 6 . 64 pp .
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ed . Urban a : Univers i t y of I l l inois Pres s , 1 965 .
498 pp .
"Act ivi t y Sys t ems and Urban S t ructure , "
Journal of the Amer ican Ins t i tute of Pl anner s ,
XXX IV '( J anuary , 1 9 68 ) , 1 1 - 18 .
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Growth Dynamic s in a Regional C lu s t er of Ci t ies .
New York : Wi l ey , 1 9 62 .
484 pp .
Fac tors Inf luencing Land Deve lopment ;
Evaluation of Input s for a For ecas t Model . Chapel
Hi l l : Ins t i tute for Res earch in Soc ial Sc ience ,
Un iver s ity of Nor th Caro lin a , 1962 .
101 pp .
Chor ley , Ri chard J . and Peter Hagget t , eds .
Economic Model s in Geography . London :
1 96 8 . 468 PP •
Soc io ­
Methuen ,
Cooke , R . U . and I G . Simmons
" Some :c·Recent Changes in
Cal ifo rni a , 11 T IJDSCHR IFT VOOR ECONOMISCHE EN
SOCIALE GEOGRAF IE , 57 ( November-Decemb er , 1 9 66 )
232 -242 .
•
•
Dasmann , Raymond Fr ederi c k . The Des truct ion of Califor ­
223 pp .
nia . London : Col l i e r -Macmi l lan , 1 966 .
Di l l ard , Robert . Simi Val ley Plannin g Department ,
Interview , Ap ril 2 9 , 1 97 1 .
Dil l ard , Vi rginia .
Int erview .
Ventura County Pl annin g Department .
�-
-·
1 Durrenb erger , Robert W . , ed .
1
·
-
- -------- - · - ------ ·-··-- · -- · ···-· - ·
-· . .
Cal ifornia :
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Weis s , Shirley F . , e t a l . R e s 1 d e t ial De
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