Westwood

View of Westwood as seen from a drone

Westwood is a designated community area on the west side of Greenfield, California. It is located west of Downtown Greenfield.

History

Back in the early 20th century Greenfield saw a massive boom in industrial expansion and therefore needed to expand further west of the city. This was urgent because a ton of residents were displaced in order to build a port right next to Barons Bar. In the 1900s this brand new residential/industrial area would be Westwood. The neighbourhood was mostly made up of regular single-family homes or duplexes and other things alike, with wall-to-wall commercial buildings along the grand avenue's. Multiple factory buildings were placed along the canal and towards the port which made a direct acces to the railroads leading in and out of Greenfield. The current passenger railroad was relaid onto a small elevation held up by concrete walls which goes right through the neighbourhood with a train station being built on one of the main avenue's. And multiple bridges were constructed that connected Westwood and Ashfield west which made transporting goods easier with cargo-vehicles. Westwood and it's neighbouring districts generated alot of income for the city.

Rolling into the 1930s and 1940s, many factories were constructed and or updated for more for more workers and better production rates. And on the very outskirts of town a few houses were built making Westwood a fairly decently sized neighbourhood.

The golden age of the 1950s made Westwood not an expensive, but an affordable, productive and stable neighbourhood. Big companies settled here, people built a few newer houses on elderly houses and the main roads were alive with family-owned businesses', the recent major port expansion and development was the reason for Westwood to become thriving in those days.

But as car-depency became a trend, the new Interstate-5 would cut right through Westwood, Barons Bar and other poor or racially diverse neighbourhoods. This caused many long-time residents to be displaced and a few buildings that were demolished. This increased traffic because the factories had better transport via trucks and stores could have more people passing by with a car. However, this made living conditions and land value to decrease and crime was slowly crawling it's way up once the mid-60s hit. So smaller businesses' closed their doors because sometimes those robberies would cost a lot of money to fix, and Westwood is slowly plummeting into a not so nice neighbourhood.

By the late 1960s and early 1970s, big companies would go bankrupt or move out of Greenfield for a place with a more thriving economy and investments. This caused residents to become unemployed and would financially make it harder to keep up. Which resulted in houses being abandoned and or forclosed, which some of them were targeted by arsonists and vandals. Crime was rampant and lead to the birth of the long-time gangs we know of today, those were the Westside Brothers and the Gunslingers, which were feared by loads of people in the area.

Around this time is when the avenue's were only mere shadows of it's former grand roads lined with stores. Consisting of empty lots strewn with garbage, boarded up wall to wall retail as the only original buildings left standing. And rotting midcentury stripmalls closing one by one slowly. The streets were in terrible condition and the people lived in old, outdated houses that most of the inhabitants living in it had no money to maintain it. Homelesness and garbage was a big problem, some people even left beaten up car wrecks on the side of the roads. And yet the city did nothing about it and Westwood became one big ghetto. Ramona at the time was lucky to be saved by a development company.

Westwood in the 1980s and 1990s is one of the most popular, memorable periods of that area. Through rap-culture people were able to show their dire situation to make the dying neighbourhoods a better place. Gangs took advantage of the growing Crack Epidemic which resulted in gruesome killings throughout the period, with often shootouts forming on the streets every month. Westwood suffered multiple minor protests to fight against racism, which the most chaotic one was fueled by the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles in 1992. It wasn't as bloody and fiery as LA, but several cars, businesses' were torched and or vandalised. People fought with each other which caused the police to form roadblocks in certain parts of the neighbourhood. The riots were quickly apprehended and stopped after two days of unrest.

As the 21st century comes. Westwood recovered slightly from it's former decayed and abandoned place it was in previous times, there are more stores than usual, the streets are a tad bit nicer and crime after the 2000s has decreased to a relatively low level. Though it's still dangerous and remains the most crime-ridden district of Greenfield as of today, it did not fully heal since there are still decaying buildings, gang presence and homelesness, though in comparison that decreased in recent times.

Transit

Rail

-Info on regional rail

Subway

-Info on Subway

Highway

Interstate 5 runs to the west of Westwood. There are two main avenues that run through the district.