I spent my early childhood in this district, and so I'm very familiar with it. And there is a strong difference between the northern part, (East Los Angeles and Commerce) and the southern part. The southern part is pretty ghetto, almost entirely residential. But the northern part has a new light rail line, a casino, and many businesses. In fact, East Los Angeles is in the early stages of gentrification. Also, East Los Angeles is unincorporated, the rest of the districts are all cities.
I've always thought that Los Angeles should just annex East Los Angeles.
with the exception of East LA which was always hispanic, the communities of SG, HP, BG, Bell, etc were all majority white as late as the 1970 census. If you look at this link you will find that there was a massive change in those area between 1970 and 1980:
http://www.aztlan.net/maps/1970.jpghttp://www.aztlan.net/maps/1980.jpg
