A few small independent cities--Redondo Beach, Gardena, Hawthorne, and Inglewood--were founded and survived the land boom period of the 1880's. Redondo Beach was actually the first city to be incorporated, in 1887. The whole area became agricultural.
The Beach cities, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, and Redondo Beach, were tourist locations with early hotels, piers, and amusement parks. Redondo Beach was at the end of the Big Red Car line which extended from Venice. These cities have retained this tourist focus while also being desirable places to live because of the climate and ocean air.
El Segundo, though on the ocean, grew up as a company town for Standard Oil ("the second" plant). Even today it has relatively few housing units and is concentrating on development as an office employment center to capitalize on its location abutting Los Angeles International Airport.
The Peninsula began development in the 1920's with the City of Palos Verdes Estates and parts of what are now Rancho Palos Verdes as planned residential communities with limited commercial areas. The same pattern extended over the remainder of the area as the other three cities incorporated (two in 1957 and one in 1973) in order to take control of land use from Los Angeles County. The Peninsula is somewhat isolated from the rest of the subregion and maintains high income residential neighborhoods and "semi-rural" areas. The eastern portion of the City of Rancho Palos Verdes meets San Pedro, part of the City of Los Angeles, and the harbor.
The core of the subregion--Gardena, Hawthorne, Inglewood, and Torrance--developed throughout the first forty years of the 20th Century but really boomed after World War II. The aircraft industry had begun in the area as early as 1915 in Inglewood. (The first air meet was held at Dominguez Field in 1910.) Oil was discovered in the Los Angeles area in the 1920s and 1930s and refineries and storage facilities were established in the Wilmington area of Los Angeles, and in Carson, Torrance, and El Segundo. Rapid growth in the area was fueled by the conversion of wartime industries into aerospace and related industries. Massive amounts of tract housing were built in the 1950s and 1960s.
The cities of Lawndale, Rolling Hills, and Rolling Hills Estates did not incorporate until the 1950s, followed by Lomita in 1964 and Carson in 1968, during the spate of incorporations generally based on the "Lakewood Plan" of contracting for county services. Rancho Palos Verdes was the last to incorporate, in 1973.
The area diversified during the 1970s and after with cities like Carson, Torrance, Hawthorne, Gardena, Inglewood, and Redondo Beach developing industrial, office, recreational, and retail centers to serve the growing number of residents. Lawndale and Lomita and the Peninsula cities primarily provided housing for these uses.
An organization called the South Bay Mayors' Association was born some twenty-five years ago to provide a forum for the mayors to discuss items of subregional interest. The organization soon expanded to take in the other council members and became the South Bay Cities Association (SBCA). It has remained a voluntary organization with council representatives and alternates selected by each city council in the South Bay. The group has by-laws and for many years held dinner meetings to hear speakers on current issues. Some informal endorsements of positions were made. Fifteen cities are members and Los Angeles County and City have participated. The participating cities are Carson, El Segundo, Gardena, Hawthorne, Hermosa Beach, Inglewood, Lawndale, Lomita, Los Angeles, Manhattan Beach, Palos Verdes Estates, Rancho Palos Verdes, Redondo Beach, Rolling Hills, Rolling Hills Estates, and Torrance.
In 1974, a Joint Powers Agreement (JPA) was established from the same membership to do a $500,000 South Bay Corridor Study. A Steering Committee heads this effort and the JPA is currently extended to 1998.
In 1992 the SBCA agreed to serve as the subregional body to participate in the SCAG RCP process. Funds were provided to hire a consultant team and the project began in the spring of 1993. The SBCA began meeting during the evening and devoted its members' time to in-depth discussions of regional and subregional issues. In 1994, the South Bay Cities Association formally became a Council of Governments by establishing a legal Joint Powers Agreement (JPA).