Talk:Baldwin Hills/Crenshaw, Los Angeles

Merger discussion

I propose that Baldwin Hills, Los Angeles and Crenshaw, Los Angeles be merged into Baldwin Hills/Crenshaw, Los Angeles. This is considered one neighborhood within the South Los Angeles region by the Los Angeles Times, which is the only WP:Reliable source we have for the naming of neighborhoods, and the Times's compilation of statistics for this and other districts would be invaluable for Wikipedia readers wishing to compare this neighborhood with any other in L.A. GeorgeLouis (talk) 06:14, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose. While the L.A. Times may conflate the Crenshaw District and Baldwin Hills, the former has low-income areas whereas nobody who has lived there or visited would agree that Baldwin Hills is "low income": it has long been regarded as one of the most affluent, predominantly African American neighborhoods in the US. Many would take offense (not me: I grew up in the Jungle on the Baldwin flats and haven't lived in the area for decades) at the dismissal of all neighborhoods "south of the 10 Freeway" as "low-income" just because the residents are predominantly people of color. Culver City and Westchester are also south of the 10, but because they're predominantly white no one would consider them "low-income". Yet the homes in neither area can, on average, match those in Baldwin Hills for spaciousness, landscaping, infrastructure age, amenities (such as swimming pools, multiple-car garages, panoramic views), etc. Sure, the folks of Baldwin Hills (and Baldwin Vista and View Park and Windsor Hills and Ladera Heights and, for that matter, Leimert Park) still share churches, barber shops, Angelus Funeral Home, the L.A. Sentinel on Thursdays (when you can find a working newsstand), Philip's Barbeque outlets, politics (why? Google the answer to the notorious joke, "What do you call a black doctor?") and public schools; but sadly folks in the Hills young enough to have school-age kids no longer send them to Audubon or Foshay Middle Schools, nor to Crenshaw or Dorsey High Schools; nor do they shop in the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza (okay, they might swing by Sears in a hardware emergency!); and only shop in the African Village during holidays to buy ethnic cards and gifts. The Times just got it wrong cuz the 2010 Census demographers were too clueless to update tracts/sub-divisions -- and Times editors see no reason to venture thither. PlayCuz (talk) 08:21, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

That's an interesting, well-thought-out comment, which I respect, but I ask PlayCuz if he or she also opposes the creation of the Baldwin_Hills/Crenshaw,_Los_Angeles article itself? Also, I am not sure what is meant by "dismissal of all neighborhoods 'south of the 10 Freeway' as 'low-income' just because the residents are predominantly people of color." Wikipedia can't simply ignore the existence of low-income areas and concentrate on the upper-income suburban residential areas like Sherman Oaks and Porter Ranch. As a matter of fact, one of my projects right now is to make sure that WP has complete and thorough articles about previously neglected South L.A. areas, as witness the recently expanded article on the Athens neighborhood. Now that PlayCuz has called my attention to the problem, I agree that the lede for this present article should be completely rewritten to stress the wide variety of living conditions in Baldwin Hills/Crenshaw and I will attempt to do so. As a contribution to the discussion, though, I call everybody's attention to a similar attitude on the part of upscale, hilly, tree-shrouded Westside Village homeowners to being included in the flatland Palms Neighborhood Council because of, well, frankly, racism coupled with fear of falling property values. There are other examples of estrangement between hill-dwellers and neighboring flatlanders all over Los Angeles, if not the nation. Thanks to PlayCuz for the trenchant comments. GeorgeLouis (talk) 13:43, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I would agree with PlayCuz, and I would imagine that of course he (or she) doesn't "oppose the creation of the [article] itself". In some ways, sure it makes sense to merge the areas together, but it wouldn't really give you an accurate picture of the distinct features of each area. The feel in and around Crenshaw Boulevard is substantially different than the feel in and around the Baldwin Hills. Sure, there's some overlap, but not enough really to merge them together, in my opinion. The LA Times should separate them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.169.101.193 (talk) 03:21, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate the changes made to the article since this exchange began (although I'm puzzled/saddened by the deletion of such landmarks as the Holiday Bowl, Crenshaw Sign and the Plaza). Of course low-income areas should be identified and covered in Wikipedia -- and not given short shrift relative to affluent areas. My point about Baldwin Hills/Crenshaw is, however, that the term is obsolete except in the reliable sources we are obliged to rely on, like the L.A. Times -- and that's a genuine dilemma. Neighborhoods are dynamic. Baldwin Hills is properly "lumped" with other affluent black, hillside neighborhoods like View Park, Windsor Hills and Ladera Heights. "Crenshaw" then has two meanings: to those who live south of the 10 Freeway (actually, I'd say south of Washington Blvd, because Johnie Cochran Middle School and Arlington Heights Elementary are clearly home schools for many Crenshaw families, whereas from Washington northward you encounter genteel, mixed-race Lafayette Square -- not part of Crenshaw) and between Arlington on the east and LaBrea on the west, Crenshaw is a district of several neighborhoods on the flatlands, which vary significantly in socio-economic class from the very poor, gang-incrusted Jungle (er, I mean "Baldwin Village"), to lower middle-class Jefferson Park, to ageing but solidly middle-class Leimert Park, to gentrifying West Adams. South of Slauson on either side of Crenshaw I've never thought of as part of Crenshaw -- yet some do, and consider everything Crenshaw down to the Inglewood border. But to folks living north of the 10 and west of LaCienega, "Crenshaw" is just a euphemism for "the City of L.A.'s main African American community". I don't dispute either definition, since context determines which is appropriate: as I said before, the Uppitys in Baldwin Hills and the poor directly beneath them in the Jungle all vote solidly Democratic, yet tend to be more socially conservative than white L.A. Dems. Politically, culturally and racially they are a single, distinct demographic. But the socio-economic criterion is the outlier reality which divides Crenshaw's hillsiders from its (increasingly Hispanic) flatlanders -- and that's a crucial, defining part of the district too. The best solution would be to just describe the two different uses of "Crenshaw". Our problem is finding RS which allow us to do so. PlayCuz (talk) 05:08, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

No, we don't seek out reliable sources for our own purposes. The reliable sources direct what we do. If we want to write essays about Crenshaw, or any other subject, we pay a few bucks and erect our own websites. For better or worse, the L.A. Times invested a lot of thought and research into its definition of neighborhoods, and it matters little what you or I think; what matters is what the reliable sources say. If L.A. Magazine or the Los Angeles Sentinel want to define or refine any given neighborhood in any given way, then they, too, become reliable sources, but I have yet to see them draw any boundaries that we can use. As for lumping the "black" hillside areas together, remember that some are county and some are city and there are many Asians now living there. Another thought: The important thing is to improve the articles and to make them accurate, no matter what title they carry at the top. GeorgeLouis (talk) 07:54, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

So you expect the L.A. Times (or any other mainstream medium) to confess what everybody knows: "Crenshaw" is used as a convenient codeword for "Black L.A." -- so they have a practical disincentive for using it in any other way, reality notwithstanding? Or that its writers don't seem familiar enough with the area to know that Baldwin Hills and Crenshaw are socio-economically distinct? My point here was that the definitions in this article reflecting the "reliable sources" you're using are not accurate in this particular case -- and are therefore being used to distort the reality of a community they don't know and don't care enough about to learn. As for View Park, Windsor Hills and Ladera Heights being in the County while Baldwin Hills is in the city -- that's a "fact" only on the map; they are 4 neighborhoods consisting of residents of the substantially same profile essentially living in a single community. Asians have not yet moved into any of those neighborhoods in the numbers they lived on the Crenshaw flatlands of Jefferson Park and Leimert Park when I attended the nearby schools with their kids. At a recent reunion, lots of the black alumni were still living in the area -- none of the Asians are. Sorry my feedback, as someone who lived in the community for decades and frequently visits relatives and friends who live there, isn't useful here. I'll shut up now and you can make the article say what you like -- I still object to the merger of the Baldwin Hills and Crenshaw articles, howsoever much you and the L.A. Times insist otherwise. PlayCuz (talk) 08:35, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

>>>>> I agree with PlayCuz. She is much more eloquent than I. Please be mindful that the LA Times doesn't have any idea about the different neighborhoods where black people live in Los Angeles. In their mind, anywhere there is black people is "South LA". Given the unique-ness of Baldwin Hills, you should definitely NOT merge Baldwin Hills with Crenshaw.

I oppose. Mr George I noticed is using the L.A. Times as a source to draw neighborhoods, but George isn't aware apparently that their maps aren't entirety accurate as everyone knows. Baldwin Hills has always been its own separate neighborhood. I also noticed that George has inaccurately set boundaries through SFV neighborhoods as well. For example, Sherman Oaks. In 2009, the City council extended the boundary from Burbank Blvd to Oxnard street boarded by the 405 freeway and Hazeltine. He instead reverted back to old boundaries. Also Van Nuys doesn't extend west of the 405, its Lake Balboa since 2007. Or the L.A times mistaking the Greater Toluca Lake Neighborhood Council for the actual Toluca Lake boundaries. West Toluca Lake, Toluca Terrence, and Toluca Woods are not part of the actual Toluca Lake. They are legally their own neighborhoods. Maybe if we stop trying to be divisive by putting down neighborhoods like Van Nuys, putting emphasis on its poverty and high school drop-out rates in the introduction paragraphs, we will be able to see this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.207.24.155 (talk) 02:59, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

It would be better to spend time finding WP:Reliable sources than to fulminate. All I had to do was open my Thomas Guide to find sources that both Crenshaw and Baldwin Hills are listed as neighborhoods there, and it took me less than an hour to add such sources to their respective articles, and to remove the tag suggesting a possible way to improve the encyclopedia. Any complaints about what the Los Angeles Times does should be taken up with the paid editors there, not the unpaid editors here. Yours, GeorgeLouis (talk) 10:13, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

It would be better to recall that article content is to reflect consensus, and that the consensus expressed here has not been against the L.A. Times, but against the attempt to belittle the value of other input. Having been first told on this page that we fail to grasp how documentation on Wikipedia works, then that we have been too lazy to document properly -- may we next expect to be told that we are too savage to take well-meaning advice from on high? Attempting to control how people are allowed to communicate is attempting to control people. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. PlayCuz (talk) 09:44, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Je regrette si j'ai insulté n'importe quelle personne. Votre ami, GeorgeLouis (talk) 06:31, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Recent unexplained changes

I just wonder why these recent changes were made: https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Baldwin_Hills%2FCrenshaw%2C_Los_Angeles&type=revision&diff=674114716&oldid=673250320. There was no explanation in any of the Edit summaries. Rather than summarily revert them, I would prefer that the other editor explain here. Thank you. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 22:15, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

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Editorials/letters to the editor on public school-charter school conflict

• Kaplan, Erin Aubry (2023-01-02). "Op-Ed: It's a crucial charter-conventional school clash: Baldwin Hills Elementary wants its campus back". Los Angeles Times.
• "Letters to the Editor: Charter school view on the Baldwin Hills Elementary co-location saga". Los Angeles Times. 2023-01-11.

WhisperToMe (talk) 17:49, 30 April 2023 (UTC)