Deconstructing Claremont

Claremont, CA. Home to 35,000 residents and 10,000 more students at the Claremont Colleges, Claremont is frequently described as "a little town an hour east of LA" and (in quieter tones) a haven for wealthy, aging white people. But once, Claremont was neither of these things, and its transformation from working-class citrus town to rich Los Angeles suburb can be traced back nearly 100 years, through a history of restrictive housing practices, the explosion of the interstate highway system, and the unchecked sprawl of suburbs that accompanied this new, car-centered infrastructure, forever altering both Claremont's landscape and the demographics of its inhabitants.

To understand Claremont's storied past, we'll take a look at some snapshots of Claremont over time, paying close attention to how zoning, landscape, and demographics change, as well as how they relate to the larger LA County area.

Our story begins in 1933, the year the Home Owners Loan Corporations (HOLC) was founded. HOLC created the federally recognized system in which neighborhoods were ranked by desirability--ranking newer, white neighborhoods as the best and older, black neighborhoods as worst. This racist system was adopted by the lending industry as well as the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) which created the modern mortgage system (Audet, 17). The history of redlining has had massive long term effects which continue to shape the demographics of neighborhoods and the layouts of cities and towns. Encouraged white flight, suburbanization and entrenched racial inequality.

B44: This area had the newest built structures and the most restrictive housing covenants. “Deed restrictions are of good character and protect against racial hazards” The areas proximity to Pomona and Scripps college were seen as assets.

C55: “Maybe a few better class Mexicans” as the only listed “foreign families”. “Many Latinx laborers were migrant workers, some workers settled in Claremont, creating two Latinx neighborhoods in Claremont: the East Barrio (also known as Arbol Verde) and the West Barrio (Audet, 27). Additionally, the presence of fraternities is mentioned to be a detriment to property value. 

C56: Redlining occurred at the end of the Great Depression. Created during a period of mass poverty, this neighborhood was a subsistence homestead made up of almost solely low income white families. This area held a high C ranking despite the fact that there is no minority community present because of substandard construction.

Note: none of the neighborhoods listed any Black citizens

There was a much larger increase in urban growth than rural growth from 1920 to 1930 in Los Angeles County: urban areas grew by 1,135,146 people while rural areas grew by 136,891. Claremont became classified as urban in 1940. Claremont’s population was mostly white at this time.

Now, let's take a quick tour around Los Angeles in the years when sprawl really started to take off: the 1950s and 1960s.

As you can see, sprawl expanded out from downtown LA in every direction, following the paths of the new freeways and making its way to Claremont. Let's look now at the effects of sprawl on Claremont's community.

This image of Claremont and the surrounding area, shot in the middle of the postwar boom period in 1960, beautifully captures the various elements of sprawl in LA as they are in the process of change and growth. Juxtaposed are the citrus fields, rapidly becoming a relic of the past in the Inland Empire, and the multitude of monotonous suburban tract house developments, the new use of land that is replacing the citrus. Also visible is the newly erected I-10 interstate highway, also known as the San Bernardino Freeway.

An example of the social consequences of highway and automobile expansion in LA hits close to home for us Claremont Colleges students. In the 1960s, the city of Claremont collaborated with the colleges to erect Claremont Boulevard, with the intent of facilitating easier and quicker ingress and egress to the Claremont business district and the adjacent campuses. The before-and-after pictures shown here, the former from 1965 and the latter from 1971, show how the four-lane divided road cut right through the Latino community of Arbol Verde (also known as El Barrio). Its construction demolished the local church and several houses and resulted in the physical division and eventual dissolution of a once-cohesive community.

There was a 132% increase in Claremont’s total population and a 88% increase in Los Angeles County’s total population from 1930 to 1950. Claremont had a higher median income and median years of schooling than the larger Los Angeles County. There was still a very low population of non-white people making up only 1% of the population with Mexican-Americans making up the largest non-white ethnic group. Los Angeles County was 97.5% urban. Demographics data from 1950 was used instead of from 1960 because the 1950 Census provided more data about Claremont than the 1960 Census.

As you can see from the map below, which marks the location of every previous photo, the seeds of sprawl were planted as early as the late 40s.

As the highways stretched for miles in every direction, LA kept growing. Claremont kept growing too--but not equally.

There was a 389% increase in Claremont’s total population and a 80% increase in Los Angeles County’s total population from 1950 to 1980. The non-white population in Claremont grew significantly from 1950 to 1980, however the percentage of Claremont’s population that was non-white was smaller than that of Los Angeles County. Claremont also had a lower percentage of foreign born people than the larger Los Angeles County. There was a larger portion of people with higher education in Claremont than in the larger Los Angeles County.

Sprawl may have taken just years to put down roots, but its effects have lasted generations. Let's take a look at some of the LA County sites that showed demonstrated the first signs of sprawl, and how they were truly harbingers of things to come.

For how different the landscape seems from 60 years ago, it's eerie to see how much has stayed the same. The structures laid down have persisted, mutated, and multiplied as the city has grown, but they're still the same structures, symptoms of car culture and white flight into the suburbs...like Claremont, where the lasting effects of sprawl are even more staggering.

Where there were once citrus fields (and citrus workers), there are now highways and commuters, professors and students and retirees. Growth and sprawl filled the "Inland Empire," but even as growth slowed, the consequences of sprawl remained.

There was a 12% increase in Claremont’s total population and a 31% increase in Los Angeles County’s total population from 1980 to 2010. The white population, the population with higher education, and the median income of Claremont continued to be higher than in Los Angeles County.

As LA County grew, it diversified, changing from more than 90% white to one of the most racially diverse cities in America. And while Claremont diversified as well, it remained a haven for wealthy whites, a gated community without gates, restricted by redlining and populated by sprawl.

This powerful interplay between landscape and inequity can be clearly seen as we return to the Arbol Verde neighborhood. Present day satellite image shows the continuation of the “college creep”, with most of the houses on the west side of the neighborhood now owned by Claremont McKenna College and their replacement of the community green space with athletic fields. A neighborhood first split in two, then choked out by wealth--a "modern" take on redlining.

Our journey comes to a close as we take a last look at R.C. Frampton's iconic aerial photograph of Claremont, taken in 1961. Look at it closely. Consider what you see--citrus fields, mountains, the Claremont Colleges, newly minted housing developments--and what you don't. The invisible yet painfully felt "red lines" drawn by the HOLC, the highways that necessitated new developments at their destinations, the expansion of a city into an entire valley, and the complex history of a small college town with a complicated reputation.

Now, consider that same view today.

Audet, Emily. 2017. “"White" Space: The Racialization of Claremont.” California Scripps College  https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1990&context=scripps_theses 

Masters, Nathan. Creating the Santa Monica Freeway. KCET, Public Media Group of Southern California. https://www.kcet.org/shows/departures/creating-the-santa-monica-freeway. 2012. 

Masters, Nathan. They Moved Mountains (And People) To Build L.A.’s Freeways. Gizmodo. https://gizmodo.com/they-moved-mountains-and-people-to-build-l-a-s-freew-1544225573. 2014.

Nelson, Robert K. et. Al. “Mapping Inequality.” Digital Scholarship Lab,  https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=12/34.123/-117.831&city=los-angeles-ca  

Tract Housing in California, 1945-1973: A Context for National Register Evaluation. The California Department of Transportation.  https://planning.lacity.org/odocument/7b3709a9-42d8-44ad-ac78-0bcf7fd70312/TractHousinginCalifornia_1945-1973.pdf . 2011.

 https://www.kcet.org/shows/departures/creating-the-santa-monica-freeway  

US Census Bureau(1930). Population, Reports by States. Retrieved from  https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1932/dec/1930a-vol-03-population.html  

 US Census Bureau(1930). Urban and Rural. Retrieved from  https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?q=1930%20urban%20and%20rural%20claremont%20california&tid=DECENNIALSF12010.H2&hidePreview=false  

US Census Bureau(1950). Census of Population and Housing. Retrieved from  https://www.census.gov/prod/www/decennial.html  

US Census Bureau(1950). Census of Population: Populations of California, by counties. Retrieved from  https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1950/pc-02/pc-2-48.pdf  

US Census Bureau(1950). Number of Inhabitants: California. Retrieved from  https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1950/population-volume-1/vol-01-08.pdf  

US Census Bureau(1950). Characteristics of the Population. Retrieved from  https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1953/dec/population-vol-02.html  

US Census Bureau(1950). General Characteristics. Retrieved from  https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1950/population-volume-2/37778768v2p5ch3.pdf  

US Census Bureau(1980). Census of Population and Housing. Retrieved from  https://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/1980/1980censusofpopu805unse_bw.pdf  

US Census Bureau(1880). Characteristics of Population: General Social and Economic Characteristics. Retrieved from  https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1980/volume-1/california/1980a_cacs2-01.pdf  

US Census Bureau(1980). General Population Characteristics. Retrieved from  https://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/1980/1980censusofpopu8011u_bw.pdf  

US Census Bureau(1980). Detailed Population Characteristics. Retrieved from  https://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/1980/1980censusofpopu8011un_bw.pdf  

US Census Bureau(1980). Detailed Population Characteristics: California. Retrieved from  https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1980/volume-1/california/1980a_cads3-01.pdf  

US Census Bureau(1980). Number of Inhabitants: California. Retrieved from  https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1980/volume-1/california/1980a_caab-01.pdf