Is My Old City a Modern City?

After reading and learning about the History of Modern Architecture as a product of Industrialization, now I can identify what type of process in history some cities and neighborhoods had gone through. Still, this new knowledge brings me many questions: What is the architectural style of city where I live? Is my old city a modern city?

The City of Los Angeles is one of the largest and most expanded metropolis in the USA. It is a city composed of many neighborhoods that overlap their limits by history, culture, and diversity. I live in the City of Claremont, one of the oldest neighborhoods in Los Angeles County, about 30 miles away from the City of LA.

It is imperative that I review the architectural history and development of the city, particularly and because in its beginnings, progress was delay for almost a century. In a few paragraphs three hundred years of history go as follow:

Late 1,700-The Spanish Mission of San Gabriel was founded (1,771); it extended the land production across the San Bernardino Mountains foothills where the Serrano Indians lived. Note that it was just 7 years before the United States declaration of independence from England. It was a simple community that was been built in adobe and tejas (clay bricks and tiles) while the Industrial Revolution was been born and the construction of the Iron Bridge at Coalbrookdale, Shropshire, England was taking place.

Late 1800’s- With the introduction of the Santa Fe Railroad (1,887), that this small community was named Claremont. Even today, I can identify the then modernization of the city plan as a typical grid-railroad community, 12 north-south avenues named with renowned universities’ names, 100 feet wide, etcetera. The city real estate boom would...

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...l planned parks and trails.

It is a sensible and accessible community that allows people to manage their lives and to attain must public services (not so great in public transportation, but that’s a Southern Californian issue). It has a great modern Development Plan that embraces citywide preservation and sustainability programs.

Claremont, the city where I live had been modernized several times. House owners and people in general that lives in Claremont has many reasons to be proud of it; including me, I can relate to its history and feel connected to it.

1 Source: http://www.ci.claremont.ca.us/ps.cityprofile.cfm?ID=1705

2 Neutra also worked for a while with F.L. Wright, but moved to Southern California in 1925 His integration of nature and human design was coined by him as biorealism or "the inherent and inseparable relationship between man and nature.”