Anaheim

City, Orange County

© McCormack's Guides

 

Zip Codes: 92801, 92802, 92803, 92804, 92805, 92806, 92807, 92808, 92809, 92812, 92814, 92815, 92816, 92817, 92825, 92850, 92899

Second-most populous city in Orange County, 346,823 residents. If you're in the market for new or old suburbia, a good place to shop. www.mccormacks.com

Famous for its amusements, foremost Disneyland, and its new theme park, California Adventure. At the height of summer, they employ about 20,000, a good source of jobs for the locals.

Some people call the town “Disneyheim,” and Disneyland aptly symbolizes the town: middle America but in many parts tilting upscale.

Click for regional or detailed map

To avoid confusion: Anaheim and Anaheim Hills. Many of the new homes are in Anaheim Hills, a section about eight miles long and two miles wide on the northeast side of Anaheim. Some people and Realtors talk about Anaheim Hills as if it were a separate community. It's a neighborhood of the City of Anaheim.

Anaheim is the home of the Angels (baseball) and Anaheim Ducks (hockey). The baseball stadium is known as “The Big A.” The Ducks play in what used to be called Arrowhead Pond but, name rights sold, is now Honda Center. The place also hosts conventions and stages shows. Anaheim’s convention center, recently renovated and expanded, is the largest in California.

Many hotels, which pay annually up to $75 million in taxes, a nice bundle that helps fund city services. www.mccormacks.com

One gripe from the residents: the Angels recently changed their name from the Anaheim Angels to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. The city government sued but lost.

Anaheim started its suburban era, 1950, with 14,556 residents, In the 1950s, it added 89,628 residents and the 1960s, 62,224. The following decade it increased its population by 52,786 and in the 1980s, by 47,212. In the last decade, the city added 61,608 residents and between 2000 and 2006, about 76, 000 residents.

All in all a good mix of modern housing, in the suburban style, from plain to upscale. Anaheim has also done a good job of restoring three of its oldest neighborhoods near its downtown.

The state in 2008 counted 101,791 housing units: 43,712 single detached, 9,064 single attached, 44,630 multiples and 4,385 mobile homes. The 2000 census divided housing units 50-50 between owners and renters.

Still building, especially in its east hills. Among projects coming on line, Mountain Park, about 2,500 units, near Gypsum Canyon Road and Highway 241. www.mccormacks.com

Also infilling lots around town and arguing, as customary, about housing, whether too much or too little and, near Disneyland, whether entertainment-retail-commercial should be given preference over apartments. Thousands of apartments and condos going into the downtown and near Disneyland.

Median age of Anaheim residents is 30, which indicates many young families. About 34 percent of residents are under 21 years. (2000 census)

Anaheim children are educated by the Centralia, Magnolia, Orange, Placentia and Savanna school districts but mainly by the Anaheim Elementary and Anaheim Union High School districts. Scores range all over but on statewide comparisons many land in the 50th to 80th percentile.

After the schools got crowded, residents in 2002 passed two bonds totaling $243 million to build and renovate schools in the Anaheim Elementary and High School districts.

The high school district had hoped to improve 22 campuses. But rising costs and, according to an independent audit, poor management limited the renovations to eight schools. www.mccormacks.com

Anaheim elementary district, still short of money, runs year-round schedules at many of its schools and at some schools runs two grades in the same classroom. The district is building schools, changing attendance boundaries, and hopes within a few years to return to traditional schedules.

Anaheim Hills, the fastest growing section of the city, is served by the Orange district, which in recent years has opened several elementary schools. This section is being developed under master plans, which anticipate the need for schools and build them as the homes come in. But check. See Choosing a School.

Ten homicides each in 2005 and 2004, nine in 2003 and 17 in 2002. The counts for the previous years are 8, 11, 16, 18, 15, 14, 25, 24, 33, 35, 25, 20, 27 and 19. Many of the city's neighborhoods are quite peaceful; a few troublesome. Neighborhood police stations. Police chief in 2006 revamped operations to cut response times and is asking city council for more cops. Crime.

Anaheim residentially can be divided broadly into four neighborhoods: Anaheim Hills, the downtown-old town, the housing around the downtown, and Disneyland-Stadium-Pond on the southeast side. The last three sections are situated on flat lands.

• Anaheim Hills. East of the Santa Ana River and Highway 55, Anaheim rises into hills and mesas, many of them steep and terraced. Afternoon scene: schools kids with full back packs trudging up the hills or pushing bicycles and probably wishing they lived in the flatlands. Here is where you’ll find the recent new (last 30 years) and the brand new developed according master plans. www.mccormacks.com

Drive Santa Ana Canyon Road and Nohl Ranch Road. Pink stucco, terra cotta roofs, many homes two-story, utility lines buried, three-car garages. Townhouse complexes come with recreation centers and pools. Some executive homes, built following popular custom designs, a few homes that are palatial. Some neighborhoods have security gates. The majority of the housing falls into the category of upper-middle class.

A large public golf course sits in the middle of this section, and over the course run power lines. In 2004, the golf course opened a public clubhouse with a ballroom that can handle 300.

A modern mall is located off Santa Ana Canyon Road: Costco, Target, Marshalls, Mervyns. One of the largest Home Depots in the nation. Movies. City has opened a police substation and a community center and in 2007 will open a public gym. Also to open in 2007, a branch library.

• Downtown. Recognizable by its grid streets. Its heart is about Anaheim Boulevard and Lincoln Avenue, near city hall and the main library.

Bungalows, cottages, garages out back, utility lines above ground and down the rear of the homes. Some modern housing on the north. On a few streets, security doors decorate occasional homes — concerns about crime. Some homes shoot up the scale. A mix. At the prompting of residents, the city created a historic district around Pearson Park, an effort to preserve older buildings and call attention to city's past. Handsome streets, well maintained. www.mccormacks.com

Banks, shops, government buildings, many jobs. Conveniences of downtown life. Restaurants, community center, well-stocked library, ice rink. Condos and apartments are being built in and around the downtown, along with more shops, restaurants and offices.

• Beyond downtown: east and west of the old town, miles of single-home tracts interspersed with apartment strips or clusters. Much of the housing was built in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, one- and two-story, three and four bedrooms. A typical tract has a wall around it or a concrete strip to keep out arterial traffic; you enter the tract at four or six points and slow to residential pace. Many cul-de-sacs. Flatland schools tend to have large playing fields (that are also used as neighborhood parks).

Appearances and quality and housing size will vary from tract to tract. Anaheim has done a lot of infilling, blending older tracts with new. Just about all the housing falls into the category of middle-class nice — well-maintained, graffiti rare or nonexistent, homes painted, etc.

Except for office and miscellaneous buildings in the downtown and hotels near Disneyland, very little in Anaheim rises above two story (but condo towers are coming). Shopping strips can be found throughout the flatlands.

• Disneyland-Stadium, etc. The Platinum Triangle. A little orientation. Disneyland, the Stadium and the Pond are situated in the southeast corner of Anaheim, about two miles south of downtown Anaheim and about five miles from  Anaheim Hills. Disneyland is about two miles west of the Stadium-Pond. www.mccormacks.com

Although older housing and mobile-home parks can be found near Disneyland and the stadium, for the most part this neighborhood has gone for hotels, restaurants and shops that serve the millions who visit Anaheim every year. The convention center is located across the street from Disneyland.

This area is entering a new phase. The city, Disneyland and private firms have agreed upon plans for more restaurants, shops, hotels, time shares and housing (up to 9,500 units, some in high rises) that will give the neighborhood a quite different look. Construction has started in several sections. One big goal is to create an “urban village” where residents shop locally and cut back on use of the car.

But if car is want you want, the freeways are there: three of them, Interstate 5 and Highways 22 and 57, coming together at spaghetti bowl interchange about a mile south of the stadium. The neighborhood is also served by several wide arterials (Katella the most notable) and by a Metrolink station near the stadium.

All in all, an unusual neighborhood: loads of amusements, including nightclubs, convenient shopping, restaurants galore and more coming. Many local jobs. Two regional malls and UC Irvine Medical Center closeby.

If Orange County didn’t have Anaheim, it would have to invent the equivalent or suffer. Older, traditional regions tend to produce dynamic cities: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco. These cities usually have large populations and reputations that prompt business and residents to look to them for leadership. Suburban counties often lack this tradition of leadership and the economic clout that commands attention. www.mccormacks.com

In many instances — Orange County is an excellent example — the population is divided among small and medium-sized cities that usually just want to mind their own affairs. For the good of the county, one or two cities have to take the lead on regional matters. In Orange County, Anaheim has played that role, to the benefit of county residents.

Anaheim and Santa Ana and to some extent Irvine argue genially over which city is the true “downtown” of Orange County. All have successfully pursued stores, offices, commercial and research buildings and restaurants. And entertainment. Disneyland has made Anaheim world famous. But away from their business areas, all are very much suburban communities, mile upon mile of homes.

Cultural center, museum, movies, theater, performing arts center, nightclubs, activities. Good sports town; many activities for the kids. Many of the new tracts are coming with pools and recreation centers. Public skating at the Pond when not used by the Ducks. Anaheim has built parks all around the town. A second golf course is located on the west side. Skate parks. River trail popular with hikers and joggers. Contest every December to decide the best decorated house. Halloween parade.

Because of Disneyland and other kiddie amusements, Anaheim is accurately described as a family town. But it does have a sophisticated side — jazz clubs, dance clubs and clubs popular with gays. And in the industrial zone, it has at least one strip club, which sued the city to stay open, and won. One benefit of the convention center: it occasionally presents events of general interest — auto show.

• Santiago Community College has opened a small center in Anaheim Hills. Courses offered include math, English, Spanish, business and political science. Another community college opened a second campus in a converted hospital near Euclid Avenue and Highway 91. www.mccormacks.com

• High-school district runs an academic academy, Oxford, grades 7-12. It attracts many of the top students in the district. One of four school in the county that crack the 600 mark on the math SAT.

• About 75 trains a day rumble between Imperial Highway and Weir Canyon Road on the north side, near Yorba Linda. Both communities are trying to muffle the noise.

• Tiger Woods, who attended Western High School in Anaheim, has opened a learning center in town. For information, search on Tiger Woods Learning Center

• Boeing, which employs 3,700 in Anaheim, announced in 2006 that it is moving operations to Huntington Beach; transition to take four years. Study to decide future of 103 acres, located near Placentia and Highway 91.

• Commute. Four freeways, buses, metrolink (commute rail) with two stations in town. Many wide arterials. Thousands of local jobs. All this sounds like makings of a fast commute and for those who work locally the commute will be short and endurable. But if you have to travel long distances on the freeways at peak hours, your patience and stamina may be sorely tested. Note: some highways charge tolls. See Commute. www.mccormacks.com

Chamber of commerce (714) 758-0222. Visitors and convention bureau (714) 765-8888.

City web site: www.anaheim.net