Santa Monica
—  City  —
Downtown Santa Monica as seen from the Santa Monica Pier.
Official seal of Santa Monica Seal
Nickname(s): SaMo, People's Republic of Santa Monica
Motto: Populus Felix in Urbe Felici  (Latin) "Fortunate People in a Fortunate Land"
Location of Santa Monica in Los Angeles County, California
Santa Monica Location of Santa Monica in Los Angeles County, California
Coordinates: 34°01′19″N 118°28′53″W / 34.02194°N 118.48139°W / 34.02194; -118.48139
Country	United States
State	California
County	Los Angeles
Settled	August 3, 1769
Incorporated	December 9, 1886
Government
• Mayor	Bobby Shriver
• City Council	Kevin McKeown Robert Holbrook Richard Bloom Gleam Davis Terry O’Day Pam O'Connor
Area[1]
• Total	8.416 sq mi (21.797 km2)
• Land	8.415 sq mi (21.794 km2)
• Water	0.001 sq mi (0.003 km2)  0.01%
Elevation	105 ft (32 m)
Population (2010)
• Total	89,736
• Density	11,000/sq mi (4,100/km2)
Time zone	PST (UTC-8)
• Summer (DST)	PDT (UTC-7)
ZIP codes	90401-90411
Area code	310/424
FIPS code	06-70000
GNIS feature ID	1652792
Website	www.santa-monica.org

Santa Monica is a beachfront city in western Los Angeles County, California, US. Situated on Santa Monica Bay, it is surrounded on three sides by the city of Los Angeles — Pacific Palisades on the northwest, Brentwood on the north, West Los Angeles on the northeast, Mar Vista on the east, and Venice on the southeast.

Santa Monica is home to executives and Hollywood celebrities amongst others and it is a mixture of affluent, single-family neighborhoods, renters, surfers, young professionals, and students. The Census Bureau 2010 population for Santa Monica is 89,736. Santa Monica is named after Saint Monica of Hippo because the area in which the city is now located was first visited by Spaniards on her feast day.

Partly because of its agreeable climate, Santa Monica had become a famed resort town by the early 20th century. The city has experienced a boom since the late 1980s through the revitalization of its downtown core with significant job growth and increased tourism.

History[link]

Attractions and cultural resources[link]

Santa Monica Pier entrance

A busy day on Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, California; the south end is the entrance to Frank Gehry's Santa Monica Place.

The Santa Monica Pier.

The Santa Monica Looff Hippodrome (carousel) is a National Historic Landmark. It sits on the Santa Monica Pier, which was built in 1909. The La Monica Ballroom on the pier was once the largest ballroom in the US, and the source for many New Year's Eve national network broadcasts. The Santa Monica Civic Auditorium was an important music venue for several decades and hosted the Academy Awards in the 1960s. McCabe's Guitar Shop is still a leading acoustic performance space, as well as retail outlet. Bergamot Station is a city-owned art gallery compound that includes the Santa Monica Museum of Art. The city is also home to the Santa Monica Heritage Museum.

Santa Monica has three shopping districts, Montana Avenue on the north side of the city, the Downtown District in the city's core, and Main Street on the south end of the city. Each of these districts has its own unique feel and personality. Montana Avenue is a stretch of boutique stores, restaurants, and small offices that generally features more upscale shopping. The Main Street district offers an eclectic mix of clothing, restaurants, and other specialty retail.

The Downtown District is the home of the Third Street Promenade, a major outdoor pedestrian-only shopping district that stretches for three blocks between Wilshire Blvd. and Broadway (not the same Broadway in downtown and south Los Angeles). Third Street is closed to vehicles for those three blocks to allow people to stroll, congregate, shop and enjoy street performers. Santa Monica Place, the indoor mall designed by Frank Gehry, is located at the south end of the Promenade. After a period of redevelopment, the mall reopened in the fall of 2010 as a modern shopping-entertainment complex with more outdoor space.^[2]

Santa Monica hosts the annual Santa Monica Film Festival.

The oldest movie theater in the city is the Majestic. Also known as the Mayfair Theatre, the theater which opened in 1912 has been closed since the 1994 Northridge earthquake. The Aero Theater (now operated by the American Cinematheque) and Criterion Theater were built in the 1930s and still show movies. The Santa Monica Promenade alone supports more than a dozen movie screens.

Palisades Park stretches out along the crumbling bluffs overlooking the Pacific and is a favorite walking area to view the ocean. It features a camera obscura. For 48 years local churches and the Police Association assembled a 12-tableau story of Christmas in Palisades Park. The sheds were open on the street side, protected by chain-link fencing (for years there was no fencing because vandalism was not yet a large problem). Inside were dioramas of the Holy Family made from store mannequins; critics argued that many of them did not resemble real people, were damaged, or were otherwise inappropriate. In 2001 the city decided to temporarily end the practice of allowing private groups to place displays in city parks, but in 2004 the Christmas displays returned.

The Santa Monica Steps, a long, steep staircase that leads from north of San Vicente down into Santa Monica Canyon, is a popular spot for all-natural outdoor workouts. Some area residents have complained that the stairs have become too popular, and attract too many exercisers to the wealthy neighborhood of multimillion-dollar properties.^[3]

Natives and tourists alike have enjoyed the Santa Monica Rugby Club since 1972. The club has been very successful since its conception, most recently winning back-to-back national championships in 2005 and 2006. Santa Monica defeated the Boston Irish Wolfhounds 57-19 in the Division 1 final, convincingly claiming its second consecutive American title on June 4, 2006, in San Diego. They offer Men's, Women's and a thriving children's programs. The club recently joined the Rugby Super League.

Every fall the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce hosts The Taste of Santa Monica on the Santa Monica Pier. Visitors can sample food and drinks from Santa Monica restaurants. Other annual events include the Business and Consumer Expo, Sustainable Quality Awards, Santa Monica Cares Health and Wellness Festival, and the State of the City.

Santa Monica is an international mecca for skateboarding culture.^{[citation needed]}

Santa Monica has two hospitals: Saint John's Health Center and Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center. Its cemetery is Woodlawn Memorial.

Santa Monica has several newspapers and magazines, including the Santa Monica Star, Santa Monica Daily Press, the Santa Monica Mirror, the Santa Monica Observer, Santa Monica Magazine, and the Santa Monica Sun.

Geography[link]

Ocean Avenue at sunset.

The city rests on a mostly flat slope that angles down towards Ocean Avenue and towards the south. High bluffs separate the north side of the city from the beaches.

Climate[link]

Classified as a moderate Mediterranean climate (Koppen Csb), Santa Monica enjoys an average of 310 days of sunshine a year.^[4] Because of its location, nestled on the vast and open Santa Monica Bay, morning fog is a common phenomenon in May, June and early July (caused by ocean temperature variations and currents). Locals have a particular terminology for this phenomenon: the "May Gray" and the "June Gloom". Overcast skies are common for June mornings, but usually the strong sun burns the fog off by noon.^[5] Nonetheless, it will sometimes stay cloudy and cool all day during June, even as other parts of the Los Angeles area enjoy sunny skies and warmer temperatures. At times, the sun can be shining east of 20th Street, while the beach area is overcast. As a general rule, the beach temperature is from 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit (3 to 6 degrees Celsius) cooler than it is inland.

It is also in September that highest temperatures tend to be reached. It is winter, however, when the hot, dry winds of the Santa Anas are most common. In contrast, temperatures exceeding 10 degrees below average are rare.

The rainy season is from late October through late March. Winter storms usually approach from the northwest and pass quickly through the Southland. There is very little rain during the rest of the year. Yearly rainfall totals are unpredictable as rainy years are occasionally followed by droughts. There has never been any hail,snow,or frost.

Santa Monica usually enjoys a cool breeze blowing in from the ocean, keeping the air fresh and clean. Therefore, smog is less of a problem for Santa Monica than elsewhere around Los Angeles. However, in the autumn months of September through November, the Santa Ana winds will sometimes blow from the east, bringing smoggy inland air to the beaches.

Environment[link]

The city is well known as one of the leading sustainable cities in all of the US.^[who?] Three of every four of the city's public works vehicles run on alternative fuel, making it among the largest such fleets in the country. All public buildings use renewable energy. In the last 15 years, the city has cut greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 10%. City officials and residents have made the ongoing cleanup of the Santa Monica Bay a priority – an urban runoff facility catches 3.5 million US gallons (13,000 m³) of water each week that would otherwise flow into the bay. Other environmental features include miles of beaches, extensive curbside recycling, farmers' markets, community gardens, and the city's bus system.^[7][8]

Cityscape[link]

Santa Monica beach and pier viewed from the end of Santa Monica Pier. Note that the bluff is highest at the north end, to the left of the image

Santa Monica

Demographics[link]

Santa Monica City Hall, designed by Donald Parkinson, with terrazo mosaics by Stanton MacDonald-Wright

Santa Monica's population has grown from 417 in 1880 to 89,736 in 2010.^[9] For population statistics by decade, see History of Santa Monica, California.

2010[link]

The 2010 United States Census^[10] reported that Santa Monica had a population of 89,736. The population density was 10,662.6 people per square mile (4,116.9/km²). The racial makeup of Santa Monica was 69,663 (77.6%) White, 3,526 (3.9%) African American, 338 (0.4%) Native American, 8,053 (9.0%) Asian, 124 (0.1%) Pacific Islander, 4,047 (4.5%) from other races, and 3,985 (4.4%) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 11,716 persons (13.1%).

The Census reported that 87,610 people (97.6% of the population) lived in households, 1,299 (1.4%) lived in non-institutionalized group quarters, and 827 (0.9%) were institutionalized.

There were 46,917 households, out of which 7,835 (16.7%) had children under the age of 18 living in them, 13,092 (27.9%) were opposite-sex married couples living together, 3,510 (7.5%) had a female householder with no husband present, 1,327 (2.8%) had a male householder with no wife present. There were 2,867 (6.1%) unmarried opposite-sex partnerships, and 416 (0.9%) same-sex married couples or partnerships. 22,716 households (48.4%) were made up of individuals and 5,551 (11.8%) had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 1.87. There were 17,929 families (38.2% of all households); the average family size was 2.79.

The population was spread out with 12,580 people (14.0%) under the age of 18, 6,442 people (7.2%) aged 18 to 24, 32,552 people (36.3%) aged 25 to 44, 24,746 people (27.6%) aged 45 to 64, and 13,416 people (15.0%) who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40.4 years. For every 100 females there were 93.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 91.2 males.

There were 50,912 housing units at an average density of 6,049.5 per square mile (2,335.7/km²), of which 13,315 (28.4%) were owner-occupied, and 33,602 (71.6%) were occupied by renters. The homeowner vacancy rate was 1.1%; the rental vacancy rate was 5.1%. 30,067 people (33.5% of the population) lived in owner-occupied housing units and 57,543 people (64.1%) lived in rental housing units.

2000[link]

As of the census^[11] of 2000, there are 84,084 people, 44,497 households, and 16,775 families in the city. The population density is 10,178.7 inhabitants per square mile (3,930.4/km²). There are 47,863 housing units at an average density of 5,794.0 per square mile (2,237.3/km²). The racial makeup of the city is 78.29% White, 7.25% Asian, 3.78% African American, 0.47% Native American, 0.10% Pacific Islander, 5.97% from other races, and 4.13% from two or more races. 13.44% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race. There are 44,497 households, out of which 15.8% have children under the age of 18, 27.5% are married couples living together, 7.5% have a female householder with no husband present, and 62.3% are non-families. 51.2% of all households are made up of individuals and 10.6% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 1.83 and the average family size is 2.80.

The city of Santa Monica is consistently among the most educated cities in the United States, with 23.8 percent of all residents holding graduate degrees.^[12]

The population is diverse in age, with 14.6% under 18, 6.1% from 18 to 24, 40.1% from 25 to 44, 24.8% from 45 to 64, and 14.4% 65 years or older. The median age is 39 years. For every 100 females, there are 93.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 91.3 males.

According to a 2009 estimate, the median income for a household in the city is $71,095, and the median income for a family is $109,410 .^[13] Males have a median income of $55,689 versus $42,948 for females. The per capita income for the city is $42,874. 10.4% of the population and 5.4% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total population, 9.9% of those under the age of 18 and 10.2% of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line.

Education[link]

Elementary and secondary schools[link]

The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District provides public education at the elementary and secondary levels. In addition to the traditional model of early education school houses, SMASH (Santa Monica Alternative School House) is "a K-8 public school of choice with team teachers and multi-aged classrooms." ^[14]

Elementary schools[link]

The district maintains eight public elementary schools in Santa Monica:^[15]

• Edison Language Academy
• Franklin Elementary School
• Grant Elementary School
• John Muir Elementary School
• McKinley Elementary School
• Roosevelt Elementary School
• Will Rogers Learning Community

Middle schools[link]

The district maintains two public middle schools in Santa Monica: John Adams Middle School and Lincoln Middle School.^[15]

High schools[link]

The district maintains two high schools in Santa Monica: Olympic High School and Santa Monica High School.^[15]

Private schools[link]

Private schools in the city include:

• Carlthorp School
• Santa Monica Montessori School
• Crossroads School
• Saint Monica Catholic Elementary School
• Concord High School
• Pacifica Christian High
• St. Anne Catholic School^[16]
• Saint Monica Catholic High School
• New Roads School

Post-secondary[link]

Santa Monica College is a junior college originally founded in 1929. Many SMC graduates transfer to the University of California system. It occupies 35 acres (14 hectares) and enrolls 30,000 students annually. The Frederick S. Pardee RAND Graduate School, associated with the RAND Corporation, is the U.S.'s largest producer of public policy PhDs. The Art Institute of California — Los Angeles is also located in Santa Monica near the Santa Monica Airport. L.A. Leadership College, an online institution, for underprivileged young adults, is located in Santa Monica.^[17]

Universities and colleges within a 22-mile (35 km) radius from Santa Monica include Santa Monica College, Loyola Marymount University, Mount St. Mary's College, Pepperdine University, California State University, Northridge, California State University, Los Angeles, UCLA, USC, West Los Angeles College, California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Los Angeles City College, Los Angeles Southwest College, and Los Angeles Valley College.

Public library system[link]

The Santa Monica Public Library consists of a Main Library in the downtown area, plus three neighborhood branches: Fairview, Montana Avenue and Ocean Park.

Transportation[link]

Bicycles[link]

Santa Monica has received the Bicycle Friendly Community Award (Bronze) by the League of American Bicyclists in 2009. The distinction was mostly based on the local bicycle valet program. Local bicycle advocacy organizations include Bikerowave (moved to Mar Vista in 2009) and Santa Monica Spoke. Local police cracked down on Santa Monica Critical Mass rides in 2008 and effectively discontinued this flourishing tradition.

Pacific Coast Highway running through Santa Monica

Motorized vehicles[link]

The Santa Monica Freeway (Interstate 10) begins in Santa Monica near the Pacific Ocean and heads east. The Santa Monica Freeway between Santa Monica and downtown Los Angeles has the distinction of being one of the busiest highways in all of North America. After traversing Los Angeles County, I-10 crosses seven more states, terminating at Jacksonville, Florida. In Santa Monica, there is a road sign designating this route as the Christopher Columbus Transcontinental Highway. State Route 2 (Santa Monica Boulevard) begins in Santa Monica, barely grazing State Route 1 at Lincoln Boulevard, and continues northeast across Los Angeles County, through the Angeles National Forest, crossing the San Gabriel Mountains as the Angeles Crest Highway, ending in Wrightwood. Santa Monica is also the western (Pacific) terminus of historic U.S. Route 66. Close to the eastern boundary of Santa Monica, Sepulveda Boulevard reaches from Long Beach at the south, to the northern end of the San Fernando Valley. Just east of Santa Monica is Interstate 405, the "San Diego Freeway", a major north-south route in Los Angeles County and Orange County, California.

The City of Santa Monica has purchased the first ZeroTruck all-electric medium-duty truck. The vehicle will be equipped with a Scelzi utility body, it is based on the Isuzu N series chassis, a UQM PowerPhase 100 advanced electric motor and is the only US built electric truck offered for sale in the United States in 2009.^[18]

Bus[link]

The city of Santa Monica runs its own bus service, the Big Blue Bus, which also serves much of West Los Angeles and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). A Big Blue Bus was featured prominently in the action movie Speed.

The city of Santa Monica is also served by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority's bus lines. Metro also complements Big Blue service, as when Big Blue routes are not operational overnight, Metro buses make many Big Blue Bus stops, in addition to MTA stops. It currently has no rail service but Metro is working on bringing light rail to Santa Monica in the form of the Exposition Line. Since the mid-1980s, various proposals have been made to extend the Purple Line subway to Santa Monica under Wilshire Boulevard. However, to this day, no plans to complete the "subway to the sea" are imminent, owing to the difficulty of funding the estimated $5 billion project. In the past, Santa Monica had rail service operated by the Pacific Electric Railway, until it was dismantled in the 1960s.

Airport and ports[link]

The city owns and operates a general aviation airport, Santa Monica Airport, which has been the site of several important aviation achievements. Commercial flights are available for residents at Los Angeles International Airport, a few miles south of Santa Monica.

Like other cities in Los Angeles County, Santa Monica is dependent upon the Port of Long Beach and the Port of Los Angeles for international ship cargo. In the 1890s, Santa Monica was once in competition with Wilmington, California, and San Pedro for recognition as the "Port of Los Angeles" (see History of Santa Monica, California).

Medical services[link]

Two major hospitals are within the Santa Monica city limits, UCLA Santa Monica Hospital and St. John's Hospital. There are four fire stations providing medical and fire response within the city staffed with 6 Paramedic Engines, 1 Truck company, 1 Hazardous Materials team and 1 Urban Search & Rescue team. Santa Monica Fire Department has its own Dispatch Center. Ambulance transportation is provided by AmeriCare Ambulance Services.^[19]

The Los Angeles County Department of Health Services operates the Simms/Mann Health and Wellness Center in Santa Monica.^[20] The Department's West Area Health Office is in the Simms/Mann Center.^[21]

Government and infrastructure[link]

The Santa Monica City Council, a Council-Manager form of government, with seven Council members elected at-large, is the current governing body of the city. Mayor Ken Genser died on January 9, 2010, and Pam O'Connor assumed the title of temporary mayor.^[22] Bobby Shriver then became official mayor May 25, 2010. Mayor Shriver did not seek reelection and on December 7, 2011, Richard Bloom was elected mayor.^[23] In the state legislature Santa Monica is located in the 23rd California State Senate District, represented by Democrat Fran Pavley, and in the 41st California State Assembly district District, represented by Democrat Julia Brownley. Federally, Santa Monica is located in California's 30th congressional district, which has a Cook PVI of D +20^[24] and is represented by Democrat Henry Waxman.

Economy[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2009)

Headquarters of Activision

Santa Monica is home to the headquarters of many notable businesses, including Universal Music Group, Lions Gate Films,^[25] the RAND Corporation, Beachbody, Macerich, COR Capital LLC^[26], Entravision Communications, Demand Media, Anworth Mortgage, search engine company Business.com, and film / television production company and record label The Playtone Company, headed by actor Tom Hanks and producer Gary Goetzman. Major companies with branch offices in Santa Monica include: Microsoft, Yahoo!, MTV and Edmunds.com. The Design Center California for Volkswagen, formerly located in Simi Valley, moved to the former site of the Museum Of Flying at the Santa Monica Airport in 2006. Volkswagen's only styling studio in North America has been responsible for many notable automotive designs, including The New Beetle and The Audi Road Jet concept seen at the Detroit Car Show. The offices for the Comedy Central show South Park are located in Santa Monica. Supermarine, now Atlantic Aviation^[27] , is at the Santa Monica Airport. National Public Radio member station KCRW is located at the Santa Monica College campus.

A number of game development studios are based in Santa Monica, making it a major location for the industry. These include:

• Activision Blizzard
• Naughty Dog (Creators of Crash Bandicoot (1996–1999), Jak & Daxter and Uncharted franchises)^[28]
• SCE Studios Santa Monica
• Studio Santa Monica (An in-house studio of SCE and creators of God of War)
• Riot Games, the creators of League of Legends.

Fatburger's headquarters are in Santa Monica.^[29] TOMS Shoes has its headquarters in Santa Monica.^[30]

Former Santa Monica businesses include Douglas Aircraft (now merged with Boeing), MySpace (now headquartered in Beverly Hills),^{[citation needed]} and Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer.^[31] In December 1996, GeoCities was headquartered on the third floor of 1918 Main Street in Santa Monica.^[32]

Top employers[link]

According to the City's 2010 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report,^[33] the top employers in the city are:

Crime[link]

In 2006, crime in Santa Monica affected 4.41% of the population, slightly lower than the national average crime rate that year of 4.48%.^[34] The majority of this was property crime, which affected 3.74% of Santa Monica's population in 2006; this was higher than the rates for Los Angeles County (2.76%) and California (3.17%),^[35] but lower than the national average (3.91%). These per-capita crime rates are computed based on Santa Monica's full-time population of about 85,000. However, the Santa Monica Police Department has suggested the actual per-capita crime rate is much lower, as tourists, workers, and beachgoers can increase the city's daytime population to between 250,000 and 450,000 people.^[36]

Violent crimes affected 0.67% of the population in Santa Monica in 2006, in line with Los Angeles County (0.65%), but higher than the averages for California (0.53%) and the nation (0.55%).^[34][35]

Hate crime has typically been minimal in Santa Monica, with only one reported incident in 2007. However, the city experienced a spike of anti-Islamic hate crime in 2001, following the attacks of September 11. Hate crime levels returned to their minimal 2000 levels by 2002.^[37]

In 2006, Santa Monica voters passed "Measure Y" with a 65% majority,^[38] which moved the issuance of citations for marijuana smoking to the bottom of the police priority list. A 2009 study by the Santa Monica Daily Press showed that since the law took effect in 2007, the Santa Monica Police had "not issued any citations for offenses involving the adult, personal use of marijuana inside private residences."^[39]

In June 2011, the infamous Boston gangster Whitey Bulger was arrested in Santa Monica after being a fugitive for 16 years. He had been living in the area for 15 years.

Gang activity[link]

The Pico Neighborhood of Santa Monica (South of the 10 FWY) experiences some gang activity. The city estimates that there are about 50 gang members based in Santa Monica, although some community organizers dispute this claim.^[40] Gang activity has been prevalent for decades in the Pico neighborhood.

In October 1998, alleged Culver City 13 gang member Omar Sevilla, 21, of Culver City was killed.^[41] A couple of hours after the shooting of Sevilla, German tourist Horst Fietze was killed.^[42] Several days later Juan Martin Campos, age 23, a Santa Monica City employer and former gang member was shot and killed. Police believe this was a retaliatory killing in response to the death of Omar Sevilla.^[43] Less than twenty-four hours later, Javier Cruz was wounded in a drive-by shooting outside his home on 17th and Michigan.^[44][45]