How Many Cities Are in L.A. County?

hi if you're like us you're dumb we barely figured out how to turn on the camera we know there's a lot of you here in los angeles like us so we thought we'd learn you a little about this city we call home used to call home someday hope to call home or never want to hear about again those bastards they know what they did from two dumb people to uses today we're gonna learn you all about the 88 cities of a los angeles county los angeles is the name of the city most of us here live in but the larger county of los angeles is actually made up of 88 unique cities with los angeles being just one of them all people who live in los angeles also live in los angeles but not all people who live in los angeles also live in los angeles to fully understand we have to start at the beginning the la area has been inhabited by the tongva or quiche for the last two thousand years with the shoemash sharing the land in the northwest some archaeological evidence even points as far back as ten thousand years there were villages all over that went by many names the largest of which being yang na located on today's downtown los angeles others had more familiar names like kawenga umaliwu and tapanga most of which are now covered by freeways or the houses of very very rich people but their destruction started long before that the first contact with whitey was made in 1542 by juan rodriguez cabrillo but a mere 200 years later in 1769 the first spanish outpost in the area was established by gaspar de portola and in 1771 the san gabriel mission opened to announce that the spanish era was in full columbio that meant no more villages or freedom if you didn't speak spanish and the downtown area got the snappy new name of al pueblo de nuestra senora de los angeles de porcion gula with all the surrounding land being divided into ranches doled out to be the houses of very very rich people such as rancho los feliz rancho san pedro and rancho los encinos but the spanish era ended in 1821 when mexico kicked spain to the curb and now everyone in la spoke still spanish but but a different spanish with less lisp the new rulers kept the rancho tradition going and even decommissioned the missions to have even more land to dole out not to the native people it was taken from but instead to their own personal friends and family most of whom were you guessed it very very rich people these became places like rancho los cerritos rancho los palos verdes and rancho boca to santa monica but that didn't last long when america expanded west and kicked mexico to the curb in 1848 and nobody ever spoke spanish in los angeles again spanish and native names got shortened or erased completely but many stuck around with new american names added into the mix as all the ranchos and land grants were turned into cities that one by one got annexed and folded into the new mega city that was forming known simply as los angeles places like hollywood eagle rock sautel and venice all used to be their own cities but are now just communities of the city of los angeles within the county of los angeles today la county is made up of incorporated and unincorporated areas the difference between the two is that the unincorporated areas are not cities they rely on municipal services provided by the county and do not have their own governments instead they are governed by a five-person council known as the l.a county board of supervisors there's about 125 of these areas most of whom like living in the municipal shadows like a municipal nosferatu like castaic and agua dulce but some have been fighting for city status for years like east los angeles unincorporated areas make up 65 of la county but only hold about 1 million of the counties 10 million residents so screw them we're not here to talk about them mostly forests anyway we're here to talk about the 88 cities of los angeles while all part of valley county as well each of these cities has their own mayor city council and local government and can make their own rules this is why fireworks are illegal in long beach but legal in lawndale and there are card rooms in gardena but not in beverly hills some of these cities are completely self-reliant and provide all or most of their own private services to their citizens with their own libraries police and health departments these are called independent cities but most are what are called contract cities who buy contracts with the county to be covered by county provided services like animal control building inspection and the sheriff's department whichever departments they don't have the resources to provide on their own [Music] dorothy parker said that la was 72 suburbs in search of a city she was wrong it's 88. and if that old bitty can get it wrong then so can you and that's why i've come up with a handy acronym to help you remember which parts of town are the 88 cities and also the order in which they are incorporated limp simp scroll waka of ball bish biz gems same what it's a little one people are gonna thank me for this i just think they're gonna have a hard time remembering well i should pay closer attention i came up with a better idea i shall challenge a computer to see who can list the 88 cities of los angeles in chronological order the fastest seeing me destroy this computer in a match of the wits will be so impressive and traumatic for all of you that the very memory of it will embed this information in your brains forever all right tell me [Music] well i guess anybody could have a demo to your character yours was dumber let's just show them all the cities in the year that they were incorporated and let them remember it on their own oh and we can set it to our favorite songs about la we don't have the rights to those and we can set it to our favorite covers of our favorite songs about l.a [Music] uh [Music] hmm [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so [Music] um [Music] you know there's actually an official song of los angeles and when you know it it's about all the different cities that make up la county is that why you're making me sick so smelly old radio yes i thought it might make a good song for this whole montage because there's no way anybody owns the rights to this it's called 76 cities by steve and paul cowell from 1965 when there used to only be 76 cities here listen come honestly really smells just listen god made the world and then he looked around to find him a county and this is what he found a land of sea and mountain and desert wilderness and he made an earthly paradise he called los angeles 76 cities plenty room for more seven million people open is the door angels weird unfortunately nonetheless or we come from the county they call los why would you do this to me on video [Music] [Music] from [Music] on the west side to the east the sun is shining overlay we love it [Music] [Music] so [Music] look at these [Music] 6th street [Applause] [Applause] so hello hello we love it [Music] so those are the 88 cities of los angeles county i'm never leaving my house again we hope you've enjoyed learning a little bit more about the city you live in used to live in hope to someday live in or hate but for some reason are still watching subscribe to us for some more videos like these or a video isn't your thing we also do a podcast on los angeles history called l.a meekly that you can subscribe to anywhere podcasts are found or you can go to our website allymeekleypodcast.com thanks for watching [Music] i could make this catchy you

Channel: LA Meekly

Views: 5,064

Keywords: los angeles, history, la, 88 cities, county

Id: jH1CxZrPN74

Length: 16min 3sec (963 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 08 2022