El Centro, California "El Centro"
El Centro .
El Centro, California City of El Centro Imperial County Courthouse in El Centro Imperial County Courthouse in El Centro Official seal of El Centro, California Location in Imperial County and the state of California Location in Imperial County and the state of California El Centro, California is positioned in California El Centro, California - El Centro, California El Centro is a town/city in and governmental center of county of Imperial County, California, the biggest city in the Imperial Valley, east anchor of the Southern California Border Region, and the core urban region and principal town/city of the El Centro urbane region which encompasses all of Imperial County.
El Centro is also the biggest American town/city to lie entirely below sea level ( 42 feet or 13 meters).
The city, positioned in the far southeastern corner of California, is near the primary Southern California town/city of San Diego and the Mexican town/city of Mexicali.
Barker purchased the territory on which El Centro was eventually assembled for about $40 per acre ($100 per hectare) and invested $100,000 ($2.7 million in 2017 dollars) in improvements.
As one historian of valley life[who?] put it, "in only five months El Centro went from a barley field to a city...". It is home to retail, transportation, wholesale, and agricultural industries.
4.1 El Centro amid the late-2000s recession Spanish explorer Melchor Diaz was one of the first Europeans to visit the region around El Centro and Imperial Valley in 1540.
The explorer Juan Bautista de Anza also explored the region in 1776 (an elementary school in El Centro now bears his name).
Originally part of San Diego County, the Imperial Valley was settled by farmers once water from the Colorado River was diverted via canals to irrigate the desert valley floor. In 1906, the territory on which El Centro was later assembled was purchased by W.
By 1907 Imperial County was incorporated into California and by then much of the valley was successfully irrigated. Barker, a friend of the landowner. The first postal service in El Centro opened in 1905. The City of El Centro was incorporated on April 16, 1908.
One reason for this rapid expansion was El Centro's becoming the governmental center of county of Imperial County. By the mid-1940s, El Centro had turn into the second biggest city in the Imperial Valley, with a populace of about 11,000 citizens .
El Centro had also turn into the locale of the Imperial Irrigation District (IID) administrative offices. Agriculture has been an meaningful industry inside El Centro since the 1940s, because of its strategic locale near rail lines and Highways 80 and 99 more than 35 growers and shippers still operate in El Centro.
However, by the early 1980s the two biggest employment sectors in El Centro were government and wholesale/retail trade, reflecting El Centro's emerging part as a county-wide administrative and commercial center. Imperial Valley Mall opened on the southeast side of the town/city in 2005.
The Salton Sea lies 30 miles (48 km) north of El Centro, but water sport enthusiasts head to the Colorado River, 50 miles (80 km) to the east near Yuma, Arizona.
The El Centro Naval Air Facility 10 miles (16 km) to the west is home to the annual Blue Angels flight maneuvering event.
Stark Field is home of a minor league baseball team El Centro Imperials of the Arizona Summer League.
Mexico (the border town/city of Mexicali, Baja California) is 10 miles (16 km) away, which offers big town/city amenities like exhibitions, a zoo and a sports/convention center.
According to the United States Enumeration Bureau, the town/city has a total region of 11.1 square miles (29 km2), of which over 99% is land.
El Centro is positioned in the Imperial Valley (considered locally as synonymous with Imperial County).
The town/city is 50 feet (15 m) below sea level and the biggest city in the United States below sea level.
El Centro has a desert climate and is the southernmost desert town/city below sea level in the continental United States.
El Centro has over 350 days of sunlight and under 3 inches (76 mm) of precipitation annually.
Climate data for El Centro 2 SSW, California (1981 2010) extremes 1932 present Aerial photo of part of the farmlands, desert, and mountain peaks of Imperial County, Salton Sea, California (2008) As of 2009 the employment of El Centro inhabitants is dominated by the small-town government, California state government, and federal government.
The El Centro region has many farming plots, where carrots, lettuce, and other crops are produced, and therefore the El Centro economy is subject to cyclic variations like other farming areas.
Between November and March in winter periods, El Centro-area farmers harvest lettuce for $8 10 per hour.
During March the harvest moves to the north and is no longer in El Centro; in previous eras farmers migrated, while in the first decade of the 21st century many collect unemployment benefits amid the summer. El Centro is surrounded by thousands of acres of farmland that has transformed the desert into one of the most productive farming regions in California with an annual crop manufacturing of over $1 billion.
Being the commercial center of Imperial County, fifty percent of the jobs in the El Centro come from the service and retail sector. A recent expansion in the interest of Imperial County as a recording location, has spurred expansion in servicing this industry. Due to its desert surrounding and adjacency to Los Angeles, California, movies are sometimes filmed in the sand dunes outside the agricultural portions of the Imperial County.
El Centro amid the late-2000s recession According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of April 30, 2009 the El Centro region had a 25.0% unemployment rate, the highest for a Metropolitan Area in the country. By August of that year, El Centro's unemployment rate was 27.5%, three times the overall United States unemployment rate of 9.7%.
While El Centro has a cyclic farming economy, there is still a fixed "baseline" unemployment at 12%.
Timothy Kelly, the head of the Imperial Valley Economic Development Corporation, estimated that between 40,000 and 60,000 inhabitants of Mexicali work in El Centro.
The Economist added that there are likely many El Centro inhabitants who work in Mexicali and collect unemployment benefits in El Centro; Ruben Duran, the town/city manager of El Centro, said that if the Mexicali jobs were factored into the employment rate, El Centro would have a normal employment rate.
Kelly stated that unemployment fraud does not account for all of the issues with the El Centro area; he said that many inhabitants have a lack of education and a lack of English language proficiency, so some of them cannot find jobs.
5 on Forbes.com's list of "The Top 10 Places in America Where Homes are Losing their Value Fastest" with 31.4% of homeowners owing more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. A nationwide report on the effects of the "Great recession" of 2008/09 has found El Centro and the Imperial Valley in the top 5 poorest medium-sized metros/cities in the U.S.
El Centro, seen from the International Space Station, lies just north of Calexico and Mexicali and the Mexico-US border The 2010 United States Enumeration reported that El Centro had a populace of 42,598.
The ethnic makeup of El Centro was 25,376 (59.6%) White, 1,081 (2.5%) African American, 554 (1.3%) Native American, 965 (2.3%) Asian, 34 (0.1%) Pacific Islander, 12,356 (29.0%) from other competitions, and 2,232 (5.2%) from two or more competitions.
The populace was spread out with 12,671 citizens (29.7%) under the age of 18, 4,803 citizens (11.3%) aged 18 to 24, 10,661 citizens (25.0%) aged 25 to 44, 9,907 citizens (23.3%) aged 45 to 64, and 4,556 citizens (10.7%) who were 65 years of age or older.
21,429 citizens (50.3% of the population) lived in owner-occupied housing units and 20,353 citizens (47.8%) lived in rental housing units.
In the city, the populace was spread out with 33.6% under the age of 18, 9.7% from 18 to 24, 28.9% from 25 to 44, 18.5% from 45 to 64, and 9.3% who were 65 years of age or older.
In 2009 the Latinos in El Centro mainly consisted of dual people and permanent resident card (green card) holders.
Illegal immigrants tended to go through Imperial County freshwater staying in Imperial County. Within its boundary, there are three school districts Mc - Cabe Union Elementary School District, El Centro School District and The Central Union High School District. El Centro has 11 elementary schools, four middle/junior high schools and three high schools: Hedrick Elementary School (named after Margaret Hedrick, a woman who had been teaching and working in schools for 55 years, 35 of them in the El Centro School District). The Central Union High School District includes two four-year elected high schools (Central Union and Southwest) and one alternative education school (Desert Oasis).
Opportunities to attend college are available through Imperial Valley College, a small-town 2-year college, and an extension of San Diego State University positioned in Calexico, CA.
There are three primary highways that serve El Centro.
State Route 86 and State Route 111 alongside each other as they go north to Brawley before running along the west and east shores of the Salton Sea, in the order given, on their way to the Coachella Valley area.
Going south from El Centro, State Route 86 terminates at State Route 111, which runs to Calexico and Mexicali, Mexico.
Imperial Valley Transit is the major provider of mass transit in the Imperial Valley.
Through a partnership between Imperial County Transportation Commission (ICTC), the Yuma County Intergovernmental Public Transportation Authority (YCIPTA), and the Quechan Indian Tribe, Yuma County Area Transit Turquoise Route 10 buses stop at El Centro locations and joins it to Winterhaven, California and Yuma, Arizona.
Greyhound Lines provides intercity bus service to El Centro.
Imperial County Airport is positioned in close-by Imperial.
Naval Air Facility El Centro is a U.S.
El Centro is directed by a council/manager form of government.
In the state legislature, El Centro is in the 40th Senate District, represented by Democrat Ben Hueso, and the 56th Assembly District, represented by Democrat Eduardo Garcia. Federally, El Centro is in California's 51st congressional district, represented by Democrat Juan Vargas. Notable citizens from El Centro or who lived in El Centro for an extensive reconstructionof time.
"California Cities by Incorporation Date".
"El Centro City Council".
City of El Centro.
"El Centro".
"History of the City of El Centro".
City of El Centro.
"Imperial Valley, California 1940 05 19 04:36 UTC (local 05/18) Magnitude 7.1".
"El Centro Chamber of Commerce".
"Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2015".
"2010 Enumeration Interactive Population Search: CA El Centro city".
"El Centro Chamber of Commerce Education".
"El Centro Elementary School District".
El Centro El Centro Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau El Centro Earthquake 1940 Articles Relating to El Centro
Categories:
El Centro, California - Cities in Imperial County, California - El Centro urbane region - County seats in California - Communities in the Lower Colorado River Valley - Imperial Valley - Incorporated metros/cities and suburbs in California - Populated places in the Colorado Desert - People from El Centro, California - Populated places established in 1908 - 1908 establishments in California
|