SUBSTANCE ABUSE TREATMENT PROGRAM IN Los Angeles

Los Angeles

Los Angeles is a city and the seat of Los Angeles County in southern California. It is the second most populous city and metropolitan area, after New York City, in the United States. The city sprawls across a broad coastal plain situated between mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Los Angeles stretches across 472 square miles. The city’s population was 3,898,747 as of the 2020 census. Los Angeles has been classified an “alpha world city,” and its metropolitan area has a gross metropolitan product of over $1.0 trillion, making it the third-largest economic metropolitan area in the world, after New York and Tokyo.

For many centuries, the area was occupied by some 5,000 to 10,000 Tongva (Gabrielino) and Chumash Native Americans who lived in scores of villages and led a relatively stable existence by hunting, fishing, gathering, and trading. Europeans entered their world in 1542 when a Spanish sea expedition headed by Captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo sailed into Santa Monica Bay. On September 4, 1781, a group of settlers consisting of 14 families numbering 44 individuals of Native American, African, and European heritage journeyed more than one thousand miles across the desert from present-day northern Mexico and established a farming community, naming it “El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula” — translated as “The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of Porciúncula.” It became part of the First Mexican Empire in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence. In 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4, 1850, five months before California achieved statehood.

The discovery of oil in the 1890s brought rapid growth to the city. The city was further expanded with the completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, which delivers water from Eastern California. Los Angeles had a strong economic base in farming, oil, tourism, real estate, and movies. Its motion picture industry made the city into the entertainment capital of the world, a designation it holds to this day.

Los Angeles has a diverse economy with a broad range of industries. Strong sectors include international trade, manufacturing, tourism, and entertainment, bolstered by the Port of Los Angeles, the busiest port for container shipping in the United States. As of 2018, Los Angeles is home to Fortune 500 companies including AECOM, CBRE Group, and Reliance Steel and Aluminum Co. Other companies headquartered in Los Angeles and the surrounding metropolitan area include The Aerospace Corporation, DreamWorks Animation, Farmers Insurance Group, Hulu, Panda Express, SpaceX, The Walt Disney Company, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros., Warner Music Group, and Trader Joe’s.

According to data from the United States Census Bureau, Los Angeles’s population is 47.2% Hispanic or Latino, 28.3% non-Hispanic White, 8.5% Black, and 12.0% Asian. Well over 200 languages are spoken in Los Angeles, and 56.8% of city residents aged five and older speak a language other than English at home. The median household income is $81,939 and the median age is 37.2 years. Ethnic enclaves like Chinatown, Historic Filipinotown, Koreatown, Little Armenia, Little Ethiopia, Little Tokyo, Little Bangladesh, and Thai Town provide examples of the polyglot character of Los Angeles.

Los Angeles is a charter city. The elected government consists of the Los Angeles City Council and the mayor, operating under a mayor–council government. There are 15 city council districts. Mayor Karen Bass is the 43rd Mayor of Los Angeles and the first woman and second African American to be elected as the city’s chief executive. Bass assumed office on December 12, 2022, succeeding Eric Garcetti. The city has many departments and appointed officers, including the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD), the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA), the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT), and the Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL).

Los Angeles is home to 308 higher learning institutions — the largest number of colleges within the city limits of any U.S. city. These include the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of Southern California (USC). UCLA is a public research university founded in 1919, located in the Westwood Village area on a 419-acre campus. The University of Southern California is a private research university founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, making it the oldest private research university in California, with an enrollment of more than 47,000 students.

Important landmarks in Los Angeles include the Hollywood Sign, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Capitol Records Building, the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, Dolby Theatre, Griffith Observatory, Getty Center, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Venice Canal Historic District and boardwalk, Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles City Hall, Hollywood Bowl, Watts Towers, Crypto.com Arena, Dodger Stadium, and Olvera Street.

In January 2025, a series of devastating wildfires caused by severe winds swept through Southern California, with the Pacific Palisades fire causing widespread destruction in Los Angeles’s northwestern community of Pacific Palisades, with many calling it the most destructive wildfire in the history of the city.

City of Los Angeles