Demographics

On Sunday night at West Hollywood's last lesbian bar, Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" blared over the speakers. Dozens of women stood outside the Palms on Santa Monica Boulevard, hugging old friends and escaping from the heat inside the crowded bar. They congratulated one couple on their recent engagement then cheered as an older woman pulled up on a loud motorcycle. It was a wake for the Palms and for a way of life in West Hollywood. Gay men have always well outnumbered lesbians in West Hollywood, but until recently, the city managed to maintain a small but vibrant lesbian social scene.

Salt Lake City: the gay parenting capital of the United States? Unexpected as it may sound, a new study finds that the Utah capital and its outskirts have the nation's highest percentage of gay or lesbian couples raising children. Among couples of the same sex in the Salt Lake City area, more than 1 in 4 are rearing children, the analysis of census data reveals. That fact may seem at odds with perceptions that San Francisco and New York are the centers of gay and lesbian life.

They said, "Go west," but many Californians are going north and east. For the fourth year in a row, more residents left the Golden State than moved here from other states, according to a report released Wednesday by the California Department of Finance. The outflow -- last seen during the economic and social struggles of the 1990s -- started when it became too expensive for most people to buy homes in the state, and has kept going throughout the bust with the loss of so many jobs.

Voters in Los Angeles will cast their ballots for a new mayor, city attorney, controller, and three new council members Tuesday. Hopefully, the winners will prove themselves capable of steering the city and its 3.7 million residents toward a better future. I thought it might be interesting to consider the issues facing the incoming leadership by taking a look at some selected demographic information for the recently redrawn city council districts. Clearly, youth poverty is problem.

South Coast Repertory recently held a special evening for Orange County's gay community. The Costa Mesa theater offered "Hay Fever," by gay playwright Noel Coward, followed by a Champagne reception with director William Ludel. The event was advertised in a publication that circulates in the gay community, and it drew a larger-than-usual crowd at the 500-seat theater.

A brick wall separated Julio Perez's childhood home from Disneyland, where his father worked in the laundry room. On that side was the Anaheim that America knew, the quintessential Orange County suburb where expanses of orange groves gave way to rows of 1950s tract homes and a signature theme park. On his side was the neighborhood where Perez, 30, spent his 1980s childhood: a dense, vibrant, heavily Latino island where parks filled with soccer players and families grilled carne asada.

Salt Lake City: the gay parenting capital of the United States? Unexpected as it may sound, a new study finds that the Utah capital and its outskirts have the nation's highest percentage of gay or lesbian couples raising children. Among couples of the same sex in the Salt Lake City area, more than 1 in 4 are rearing children, the analysis of census data reveals. That fact may seem at odds with perceptions that San Francisco and New York are the centers of gay and lesbian life.

Although more than 50% of Alhambra public school students are Asian-American, less than one-fifth of the school district's staff is of Asian descent, a new study shows. A district report issued last week shows that about 18% of the 3,814 Alhambra Unified School District employees are Asian-American, compared to more than half of the system's 20,729 students. The Asian-American percentage populations of Alhambra and San Gabriel, where most of students live, are 37% and 31.9% respectively.

Researchers from UCLA and the Times analyzed state education data on student demographics, course-taking, SAT scores and dropout rates for high schools, grouping them according to ethnic makeup to determine how the schools differed. Among the findings: The number of schools with high numbers of blacks and Latinos is rising; dropout rates are down overall; students of all ethnic groups, especially blacks, are taking college prep courses in increasing numbers.

Re "An 'Irrelevant' Library Leaves City Unserved," Aug. 25: Attention, Santa Ana! Wake up and serve your population. A measly $12.51 in library spending per resident and a 10% stock of Spanish books in a overwhelmingly Spanish-speaking city is pathetic. City Councilman Jose Solorio's comments ("I would question whether it is the city's duty to provide materials that mirror the demographics of the city") make me cringe in disgust. I worked for a year in Japan and lived in a Tokyo suburb where the handful of international residents could choose from thousands of books and magazines in English, Chinese, Korean, French and German.

In 1986, lawmakers decided the problem of illegal immigration had to be dealt with. More than 3 million people were living in the United States after crossing the border illegally or overstaying their visas. A new law signed by President Ronald Reagan gave legal status and a path to citizenship to most of those unauthorized residents - helping many secure a slice of the American dream but also giving fuel to critics who sought to turn "amnesty" into a pejorative. Less than 30 years later, the number of immigrants living in the country illegally is thought to have nearly quadrupled, and the freighted baggage of amnesty looms over new efforts to reform the nation's immigration laws.

Tuesday's election marks the first time voters in the newly drawn 9th and 13th City Council districts will cast their ballots. I thought it would be interesting to look at the demographics of the two. In the 13th, which stretches from Hollywood to Silver Lake and Echo Park and down through Koreatown, 12 candidates are vying for a chance to represent a district that is 55% Latino, 22% non-Hispanic white, 18% Asian/Pacific Islander and 3% percent African...

Los Angeles reached a benchmark half a century ago when the City Council's first African American was appointed to represent the area then known as South Central. Gilbert Lindsay, a former cotton field worker and city janitor, was chosen in 1963 to fill a vacant seat in the 9th Council District, which covered part of South Los Angeles. The appointment helped make "The Great 9th," as Lindsay took to calling it, a hub of black political clout. Two generations later, with the seat open and the March 5 election approaching, the area that gave birth to historic South Central Avenue and the city's black middle-class culture has a far different political landscape.

In Washington, politicians are trying to reform America's immigration system, again. Both President Obama and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) are proposing "paths to citizenship" for an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants. Other proposals abound, including finishing the border fence, creating a better E-Verify system for employers and passing the last Congress' Dream Act. All of these ideas, however, fundamentally misunderstand immigration in America: Future immigration is probably going to be governed not by U.S. domestic policy choices but by global demographics.

After he retires as chancellor of UC Berkeley in June, Robert J. Birgeneau will head up a national effort to study and help public universities in an era of reduced tax support, new technology and changing student demographics. Birgeneau, a physicist, is to lead the American Academy of Arts and Sciences' new initiative that will propose ways for the federal government, private industry and foundations to better aid state institutions, along with developing reforms the schools could undertake.

Past restaurant marketing campaigns have usually featured sexy patrons having a good time with friends or their adorable young families. But according to new research, maybe it's time food-service companies started focusing more on silver foxes. Historically, baby-boomer consumers and older customers have been less likely than younger peers to visit dining establishments. But that's changed since the recession, according to the NPD Group research firm. In the last five years, graying patrons have grabbed an increasing share of restaurant traffic, with more visits to every segment of the restaurant industry than before the downturn.

A new research center that will provide demographic information for cities, the county and other public agencies opens its doors today. The center, at Cal State Fullerton, will provide the governments with population projections and other forms of data that had been tabulated by the county before its 1994 bankruptcy, which forced officials to close the office. Cal State Fullerton will provide the data for about $275,000, far less than the $800,000 it cost for the county to handle the service.

In the four months following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the population of the New Orleans metropolitan area became substantially whiter, older and less poor, and it shrank to less than half its size, according to statistics released today by the Census Bureau. The figures were drawn from estimates of the hurricane-affected areas along the Gulf Coast as of Jan. 1, and cover 117 counties initially designated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency for individual or public assistance.

Eight years ago, after former California Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg was knocked out of the L.A. mayor's race in the primary, urban critic Joel Kotkin and political consultant Arnie Steinberg bravely predicted that the chances of a Jew ever being elected to the mayoralty had been greatly diminished. They agreed that the demographic writing was on the wall. The "growing dominance of Los Angeles by Latino politicians and public employee unions" and the diminishing Jewish percentage of the Los Angeles electorate were "limiting the options for Jewish politicians.

Downtown Los Angeles' Grand Central Market is undergoing a major overhaul intended to catapult the landmark community marketplace into a new food retail age. The nearly 100-year-old market on Broadway near 3rd Street houses more than 40 food stalls, which will be updated to reflect a changing downtown and the next generation of vendors while staying true to its legacy, planners say. Owner Adele Yellin, president of the real estate development...