Southeast Los Angeles County Economic Adjustment Stategy
November 1, 1996 / By Daniel Flaming, Mark Drayse and Michael Beltramo-Beltramo and Associates / Economic Roundtable
This report studies the impact of defense restructuring in Southeast Los Angeles County (SELAC) and makes recommendations for economic development. Southeast Los Angeles has been the manufacturing core of the Los Angeles region since the 1920s. The subregion suffered the collapse of heavy manufacturing industries such as automobiles, steel, and tires in the 1970s and early 1980s, and is now enduring severe job loss in the restructuring defense sector. Southeast Los Angeles faces immense challenges in overcoming the effects of industrial decline and creating high-quality jobs for its residents. Aerospace firms in the SELAC subregion employed 54,900 workers in 1992, or 35 percent of total county employment in aerospace. Communities in Southeast Los Angeles County have been especially hard-hit by the decline of aerospace and durable manufacturing industries, due to the relatively high concentration of employment in defense-linked industries.