Allen David Heskin After the Battle is Won, Political Contradictions in Santa Monica, UCLA Lecture and unpublished ms. Fall, 1983. 1983, 1982, 1981, 1980, 1979, 1977. 1970s
"Santa Monica is a rather nondescript but pleasant little coastal city of about 90,000 people on the edge of Los Angeles. It has its lower-income neighborhoods, but the terms ghetto and barrio do not have real meaning in the city. If the term "middle class" has meaing to you, then Santa Monica is a middle class town. It is not a city with a rich history of political movements or widespread neighborhood struggles. While there have been moments of protest, the city's politics were, until 1979, typical of many small towns whose goverment is controlled by business and real estate interests with an electoral base in the home-owning population. This was true even though 80% of the town's population rented their homes. Within this background, the emergence of "progressive" politics in Santa Monica is surprising."