SAN FERNANDO STATS

December 7, 2006

The U-S- Census Bureau has released its first-ever breakout on the San Fernando Valley, plus Burbank and Glendale.   The region boats 1.74 million people, more than every US city except New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston.  KPCC’s Rachael Myrow reports.

Congressman Brad Sherman of the 27th District is so excited about this data, he’s posted an Excel spreadsheet on his website.

Sherman: Well, it’s about as exciting as any statistical table could ever be. 

Spoken like the Certified Public Accountant he is. The numbers – from 2005 - suggest the Valley suffers from some of the same problems and boasts some of the same strengths as that area on the south side of the hill.  The median home price was nearly $525-thousand dollars. English only was spoken in only 40 percent of Valley Homes. Congressman Sherman.

Sherman: Obviously, we have a lot of Latinos in the San Fernando Valley, but you’d be surprised to see how many South Asians, how many Russians, how many people from East Asia are also in the Valley as well. So we’re very diverse.  We kind of know we’re very diverse.  Whether anybody in downtown Los Angeles or Beverly Hills knows how diverse the Valley is, I don’t know. But now they’ve got the statistics. 

Sherman is lobbying for even more specificity in the next census four years from now. He wants East and West Valley reports, for intra-Valley comparisons.