Chapter 18: Hawaii

Hawaii is the 50th state of the United States. Is considered to be near the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The Hawaiian Island chain is the visible portion of a series of massive volcanoes. Like stated in the book, the ocean floor that is supporting the massive volcanoes is about 4000-5000 meters below sea level. Because of its oceanic location, the climate of the islands are impacted. The ocean fills the winds with moisture that brushes the island's mountains. With that, Hawaii faces its highs during September or October while in Santa Clarita, you can face the extreme weathers around July or August. While in September or October it starts to cool down. Also stated in the textbook, they stated that being coupled with environmental variation and generally temperate climate, the Hawaiian Island's isolation has fostered vastly diverse plants and bird communities.

The thing about the isolation of the island is that in the past, Hawaii there have been several thousand plants that are native in the Hawaiian islands and about 66 unique birds were found on the island. With the isolation, more than 1/3 of the birds are extinct. The rest of them are listed as rare or endangered species.

With its beautiful and consistent weather, Hawaii attracts many tourist and has become a very popular vacation spot. They have a lot to offer and the many different islands offer many different things to do!

(Information were from;)
(Regional Landscapes of the United States and Canada Page: 360-362,368)
(pictures were from:)
(http://www.retroist.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/hawaii.jpg)
(http://siaphoto.com/wallpapers/kaanapali_beach_maui_hawaii-1400x1050.jpg)

Chapter 16: The North Pacific Coast

The North Pacific Coast is very wet. The greatest average annual precipitation on the continent could be found there. They average above 75 inches of precipitation which can be considered as a common thing up north. They also state that the average precipitation on the western slope of Olympic Mountains in northwestern Washington and the coastal short of British Columbia doubles that. All of these information were from page 326 of the text book.

Also being part of the North Pacific Coast, Seattle has been the largest city in that area since the boom era. It was founded as a logging center, but once it achieved being linked with the northern U.S. transcontinental railroads, it achieved regional dominance. Seattle has been the home of big major companies such as Amazon.com, Nordstrom, Starbucks, and Boeing. Many other companies are still based there.

Chapter 15: California

Since many of us already knows how California is, I am going to talk about the diversity of the state of California. Just like how I talked about in the blog for chapter 14, Santa Clarita is a diverse city, but it is only fitting that it is diverse because Santa Clarita is in a very diverse state.

Since California is close to Central and South America and Asia, SoCal is also the major destination for migrants who are entering the United States from the mentioned parts of the world.

On the chart below, shows the population for the Greater part of Los Angeles.

Largest - Mexican Metropolitan Area outside Mexico.
2nd Largest- Chinese Metropolitan Area outside China.
2nd Largest- Japanese Metropolitan Area outside Japan.
Largest - Korean Metropolitan Area outside Korea.
Largest - Filipino Metropolitan Area outside Philippines.
Largest - Vietnamese Metropolitan Area outside Vietnam.

The Los Angeles cityscape reflects its ethnic diversity. Places such as Little Tokyo has been part of the city for so long. Also, Monterey Park in the San Gabriel Valley is 50 % Asian.

(Information gathered from:)
(Regional Landscapes of the United States and Canada Page 312)

Chapter 14: The Southwest Border Area: Tricultural Development

Most Americans take pride in the concept of an "American melting pot." American melting pot can be considered to be a fusion of different ethnicity, culture, and nationalities. Everybody brings in their own culture into the mix and they turn it into something a bit different. I guess you can say that they are very diverse. In Santa Clarita, when I first moved out here back in 1996, I used to hear all the time that this a place that contains a lot of rich white old people. I did not understand that at first because as a kid I did not really pay attention to any of that except my school work. As time progresses, I did see that taking place, but at the same time, Santa Clarita Valley became bigger when it comes to population wise. As time kept going, I realized how diverse Santa Clarita is. Their ethnic diversity has become even bigger than it used to be. You have all kinds of people working and living in Santa Clarita. It has everything you can ask for when it comes to diversity. The cool part about this is that people here are willing to share and teach other people about their own culture. Everybody can view how other culture lives.

(Information came from:)
(Regional Landscapes of the United States and Canada Text Book Pages: 276-278)
(Picture came from:)
(http://www.santa-clarita.com/index.aspx?page=448)

Chapter 13: Empty Interiors

In the West, they present mountain ranges that contains a dramatic change in elevation. Measuring from base to peak, they sweep up at about 3000 feet or more. But what I wanted to talk about in this section was the wild life. In the Empty interior, they mention in the book that the Empty Interior supports a diversified, growing, and sometimes controversial wildlife population. They contained wild animals such as the bison, the North American elk, the pronghorn antelope, white-tailed deer, and wild turkey. All of these wild animals are actually continuing to grow in population.

Here in Santa Clarita, it contains many mountains. Throughout these mountains, several different wild animals exist. In the mountains near or around Santa Clarita, people might be able to locate animals such as the mountain lions, bobcats, coyotes, and even black bears. In http://www.santaclaritaguide.com/Wildlife.html, they stated that generally if you see a deer, you are most likely to be in mountain lion territory, but that doesn't necessarily mean that if the deers are not present, they lions aren't either.

Chapter 12: The Great Plains and Prairies

In the great plains, hails can occur. Hails can measure up from 2 inches in diameter to up to the size of a baseball. Even hail can devastate the crops. "The warm moist air from the south and the cool, dry air from the north are uninterrupted as they cross the treeless, level land. With these kinds of air meet with full force, extreme weathers can occur." The warm and cold air mixing can be from a thunderstorm. They can develop a tornado also. Tornadoes are very violent and can cause severe damage. It is another violent result of the Great Plains storm system. That is the reason why the Great Plains is also known to be called "Tornado Alley."

In Santa Clarita, we might experience severe rain storms, but for the most part, we don't experience the hold and cold air mixing together that can form violent rain storms or even tornadoes. Like stated in the other section of the blog, Santa Clarita barely even get snow down here. If anything we experience a short amount of hail.

(Information gathered from:)
Regional Landscapes of the United States and Canada Page 237-239)

Chapter 11: Agricultural Core

(The pictures above shows just some of the few that Santa Clarita grew in its city back before modernization)





From an article from the Los Angeles Times Newspaper, Jonathan Gaw stated that the Palafox Family was lured into the Santa Clarita Valley because of the vegetable fields. That was about 15 years ago where the Santa Clarita Valley was away from modernization. Back when town homes, office buildings, and even the massive shopping mall we now currently have did not exist, fields of many different types of agriculture existed. Unfortunately, as Santa Clarita decided to be modernized, the fields of onions, radishes, carrots, and parsleys started to disappear. It started forcing the farms to migrate to the west to Ventura county and north towards Bakersfield.

(Pictures were taken from:)
(http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view?back=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3Dpictures%2Bof%2Bcarrots%252C%2Bonions%252C%2Bparsleys%26ei%3Dutf-8%26y%3DSearch%26fr%3Dyfp-t-701&w=1024&h=768&imgurl=images.flowers.vg%2F1024x768%2Fonion.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.flowers.vg%2Fflowers%2Fonion.htm&size=139KB&name=bulb+onion+onion...&p=pictures+of+carrots%2C+onions%2C+parsleys&oid=cde60f2128caf47d721b594a73d3cb9b&fr2=&spell_query=pictures+of+carrots%2C+onions%2C+parsley&no=6&tt=35700&sigr=1179sqfcj&sigi=114nfkvug&sigb=13nbactr0&.crumb=8R85YJbdXny)
(Information was taken from:)
(http://articles.latimes.com/1993-03-21/local/me-13556_1_santa-clarita-valley)

Chapter 10: The Southern Coastlands: On the Subtropical Margin

Down in the southern coastlands, they are easily deceived by the typical mild winters. Like stated in the book, they may attempt to produce their crops all year round, but unfortunately some inevitable circumstances creeps up on them unexpectedly. Those mid-winter frost comes through the southern lands like Florida and considerable crop damage happens and financially gives them hardship. Those kinds of unforeseeable circumstances cannot be prevented, but at the same time, with the type of mild winter Florida has, it is hard to make a prediction. In Santa Clarita, it is a 4 season year. It is easier to predict what the outcome of the weather can be.

Another disaster that the southern coastland experiences are the hurricanes. Hurricanes are large cyclonic tropical storms that are generated by intense solar heating over large bodies of warm water. Like stated in the book, "The earth's rotation and spheroidal shape mean that air flowing toward the hurricane's center establishes the storm's broad, counterclockwise rotational pattern. The deeper the pressure pocket, the faster the wind flows and the more destructive the storm's potential(textbook).

Examples and different categories of the hurricanes:

Apr 11 2011
The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale is utilized to determine the relative strengths of hurricanes that may impact the United States coast. Since the 1990s, only wind speed has been used to categorize hurricanes.

Category One Hurricane

* Maximum Sustained Wind Speed: 74-95 miles per hour
* Damage Category: Minimal
* Approximate Pressure: Above 980 mb
* Approximate Storm Surge: 3-5 feet
* Examples: Hurricane Lili (2002) in Louisiana; Hurricane Gaston (2004) in South Carolina

Category Two Hurricane

* Maximum Sustained Wind Speed: 96-110 miles per hour
* Damage Category: Moderate
* Approximate Pressure: 979-965 mb
* Approximate Storm Surge: 6-8 feet
* Example: Hurricane Isabel (2003) in North Carolina

Category Three Hurricane

* Maximum Sustained Wind Speed: 111-130 miles per hour
* Damage Category: Extensive
* Approximate Pressure: 964-945 mb
* Approximate Storm Surge: 9-12 feet
* Examples: Hurricane Katrina (2005) in Louisiana; Hurricane Jeanne (2004) in Florida; Hurricane Ivan (2004) in Alabama

Category Four Hurricane

* Maximum Sustained Wind Speed: 131-155 miles per hour
* Damage Category: Extreme
* Approximate Pressure: 944-920 mb
* Approximate Storm Surge: 13-18 feet
* Example: Hurricane Charley (2004) in Florida; Hurricane Iniki (1992) in Hawaii; the Galveston Hurricane (1900) in Texas

Category Five Hurricane

* Maximum Sustained Wind Speed: Above 155 miles per hour
* Damage Category: Catastrophic
* Approximate Pressure: Below 920 mb
* Approximate Storm Surge: More than 18 feet
* Examples: Only three Category 5 hurricanes have struck the United States since records began: The Labor Day Hurricane (1935) in the Florida Keyes, Hurricane Camille (1969) near the mouth of the Mississippi River, and Hurricane Andrew (1992) in Florida



(Information obtained from)
(Regional Landscapes of the United States and Canada textbook page 196-197)
(Hurricane categories: http://geography.about.com/od/lists/a/hurrcategories.htm)

Chapter 9: The Changing South

In the south back in the days, the south was impacted by slavery. Nowadays, the south can be seen as being changed and that many African Americans reside in the south. Just like the south changing, Santa Clarita has experience a great of change. As I talk to many of my customers at work, they tell me that a lot of the Valencia and Saugus area used to be plantations and agricultures. As the years progress, many of the plantation has been taken down and built road and many buildings to modernize the area. In today's society, the city of Santa Clarita is preparing for the future and is modernizing by making more houses for people to move to. A lot of people who lives up north or south but commutes to work can easy live in the new houses being built. The plus side about Santa Clarita is that everybody has their or sets of beliefs. This area is very diverse compared to how it was earlier.

(The picture was taken from:)
(http://aquafornia.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/santa-clarita-from-the-end-of-ermine-2-22009.jpg)

Chapter 8: Appalachia and the Ozarks

The nearest mountain range in Santa Clarita is Santa Susana Mountain. It is a transverse range of mountains in Southern California. It is located north of Los Angeles. It comes from east to west which separates the San Fernando Valley and Simi Valley on its south, from Santa Clara River Valley to the north, and Santa Clarita Valley to the northeast. In the winter time, the mountains is typically wet with cold temperatures. But in the summer time, the temperature gets really hot and is really prone to wild fire. A video below shows the fire that happened there.



In Santa Clarita, because of its dry summer seasons, we are prone to having wild fire. Sometimes people accidentally throw cigarette on the ground and it catches fire, and some do it on purpose, but living here in Santa Clarita for fifteen years, I have encountered several of them


(The picture and information were taken from:)
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Santa_Susana_Mts.jpg)
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW8NHmdtY-s)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Susana_Mountains)

Chapter 7: The Bypassed East- Perplexing Future

Like some of the blogs that I have read, this chapter focuses on the eastern side of the country. So in this case I will be talking about the perplexing future of Santa Clarita. From the textbook, it stated: "Information technology and innovative approaches to education: multinational corporations, and entrepreneurial successes; greater personal mobility and leisure time..." Santa Clarita has been focusing on modernizing the city. When I was first entered high school in 2002, there were the 4 high school, but now there is Golden Valley which opened up in 2004. They are also focusing on building more houses and developing more routes around the city. The development of Newhall Ranch which they are expecting or hoping to finish up in 2012 is expected to try and bring in about 70,000 more people and create around 20,000 new jobs. So right now, Santa Clarita is investing money in modernizing and making new houses to bring in more jobs and people into the city.


(Information were taken from these resources)
(United States and Canada textbook)
(http://www.santaclaritaguide.com/)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clarita,_California)

Chapter 5: Manufacturing

Santa Clarita is not really known for its manufacturing. When people ask me where I live, I tend to say Santa Clarita. When you ask other people where they are from people say a city and you somewhat know what that place is or what they are known for. When I tell them I am from Santa Clarita some say that they don't know where that is and some say that "Oh that is where Six Flags is!" Besides Cal Arts and Six Flags Magic Mountain, Santa Clarita is known to be the place where you pass through the 14 North freeway to go to Lancaster/Palmdale area or Bakersfield area if you pass through the 5 North. For this section of the blog, I will just talk a little about Los Angeles since it is in that county.

Los Angeles is known to be the largest manufacturing center in the west side of the country. They are driven by things such as international trade, entertainment, fashion, and tourism. At one point, they were the home of a few major financial institutions. One of the major plus sides in Los Angeles is that they are a major freight railroad transportation center. Huge volume of supplies are going in and out of the country's port that it makes it convenient for everyone. The picture above of this section of the blog is The Financial District of Downtown Los Angeles. The picture below shows the port of Los Angeles and Long Beach.





(The picture and information was taken from:)
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/L.A_Financial_district.JPG)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_County,_California)
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/LA-port%2BLong-Beach1.jpg)

Chapter 4: Megalopolis

A megalopolis is a large or densely populated city. Santa Clarita is a heavy populated city. The city contains 168,008 people in 2006. The break down in percentage in different statistics for the people who lives in Santa Clarita are:

White persons, percent, 2000 (a) 79.5%
Black persons, percent, 2000 (a) 2.1%
American Indian and Alaska Native persons, percent, 2000 (a) 0.6%
Asian persons, percent, 2000 (a) 5.2%
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, percent, 2000 (a) 0.1%
Persons of Hispanic or Latino origin, percent, 2000 (b) 20.5%

I wouldn't consider Santa Clarita to be an Megalopolis because even though it is the 4th largest city in the Los Angeles County, it is still not big enough on its own. For a place to be seen as an megalopolis, three characteristics must be met: " high population density, major urban centers growing toward one another, and a large demand for primary goods that are brought in from other regions." Maybe the whole Los Angeles County might be enough to start a megalopolis, but Santa Clarita itself is not big enough.

(Information were taken from these resources)
(http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06/0669088.html)
(http://www.countriesquest.com/north_america/usa/geography/regions_of_the_united_states/regional_breakdowns/megalopolis.htm)

Chapter 3: Foundation

The gentleman featured above is the founder of Newhall. As you know, Newhall is one of the subsections that makes up Santa Clarita. I currently reside here. It is definitely an interesting story how Mr. Newhall founded it. Henry Mayo Newhall, who came from Saugus, Massachusetts, was interested in investing his money in railroad rails. These investment purpose was to find a way to connect San Francisco to other cities. As business boomed, Henry and his partners sold their company to the Southern Pacific Railroad. Now, Henry turned his eyes on real estate. He was able to acquire land by purchasing them at a very cheap price. The area we now know as Newhall Ranch was purchased by Newhall for 2 dollars/acre. Eventually, Henry sold his portion of his land. Once the land became a city, the city was named after him, "Newhall." The area of Saugus was named after his hometown of Saugus, Massachusetts. By 1987, all the small subsections in this city became known as Santa Clarita.




(Pictures and information are from:)
(http://www.santaclarita.com/images/general/Henry_Mayo_Newhall.jpg)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clarita,_California)

Chapter 2: Climate in Santa Clarita

In this chapter, the book touches up a section in climate. Stated in the book, climate is: "the aggregate of day-to-day weather conditions, a characterization of weather conditions prevailing across many years." Here in Santa Clarita, I guess you can say that I have the best location because you get to experience all the 4 different seasons of the year.

The four seasons are and their typical months are:

Spring: April, May, June
Summer: July, August, September
Fall: October, November, December
Winter: January, February, March

These months are pretty accurate, but sometimes they either get delayed or come around a month early.

In the spring, you would typically have a weather of a light breeze and around 70-85 degrees. Summer averages in the mid 90's and can reach up around 105+ degrees. It gets pretty hot here but the plus side is it makes it a great time to go swimming everyday anytime! Fall weather is perfect to bring out the light jackets out. With the win picking up, the weather tends to be around 60-70 degrees. It can get colder than that but usually that is the typical average. Winter time here gets pretty chilly. Usually the typical weather around this time is from 40-60 degrees. I have personally felt colder and had experience snow here twice. Both times has been in 2011. Below is a clip from youtube.com from a guy who videoed snow in Santa Clarita.

Places such as the Aquatic Center and Hurricane Harbor are great attractions to go to to hang out in the scorching weather in the summer.




(Pictures and videos were received from:)
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PewykHUSjdU)
(http://www.incrediblecoasters.com/sfhhentrance4.JPG)
(http://santaclaritacitybriefs.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/wide.jpg)

Chapter 1: Introduction

Santa Clarita also known as Santa Clarita Valley or SCV is known to be the fourth largest in the Los Angeles County. This city contains several communities. These communities are Canyon Country, Saugus, Valencia, and Newhall. With having the Golden State Interstate 5 and the Antelope Valley SR-14 freeway as the principle boundaries, they contain a very unique shaped appearance on the map.

(The location of Santa Clarita in California and its unique triangular shape)

Santa Clarita contain different attractions. Attractions such as Six Flags Magic Mountain and the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) are just some of the few that Santa Clarita has to offer. In January 1, 2010, the Department of Finance had put out an estimate that Santa Clarita around 177,641 people.

Being compared to cities with at least 100,000 inhabitants, Santa Clarita ranked to be 6th safest city in the United States.

CENSUS OF 2000:

PEOPLE- 151,088
HOUSEHOLDS- 50,787
FAMILIES- 38,242

POPULATION DENSITY- 3,159.1 MILES SQUARED

Until today in present time, Santa Clarita is becoming or urbanized. I say this because Santa Clarita continues develop and modernize the city. Back in the early days, Old Town Newhall used to be a land filled with agriculture. As time pass by, Santa Clarita slowly formed to become what it is today.

(information and pictures are from:)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Newhall-1919.jpg)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clarita,_California)
(http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06/0669088.html)