South Pasadena is a city in the San Gabriel Valley of Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, it had a population of 26,943, up from 25,619 at the 2010 census.
History
thumb|[[Eulalia Pérez de Guillén Mariné#Flores Adobe – South Pasadena|Adobe Flores (1936) is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.]]
The original inhabitants of the area were members of the Native American Hahamog-na tribe, a branch of the Tongva Nation (part of the Shoshone language group) that occupied the Los Angeles Basin.
In February 1888, members of the southern portion of Pasadena attempted to gain more control over their own property and a vote for incorporation was made. South Pasadena's first mayor was Donald McIntyre Graham. On March 2, 1888, the city of South Pasadena was incorporated with a population slightly over 500 residents, becoming the sixth municipality in Los Angeles County. It was chartered with roughly the same area as the current South Pasadena, about . With the completion of the Pacific Electric Short Line, putting the entire city within easy walking distance of the red car stations, South Pasadena also became one of the first suburbs of Los Angeles. Before the 1950s, South Pasadena was one of the sundown towns in United States that excluded non-White residents and workers in some form or another. In the mid-1970s, the city built a 2-foot-high wall to block off Via del Rey, a road that connected to Los Angeles. The measure was intended to control traffic and noise but was also perceived by some neighbors as an attempt to exclude working class Latinos from the wealthier, more white suburb.
Interstate 710 extension
South Pasadena and other groups opposed the 710 Freeway Long Beach Freeway (I-710) extension from Alhambra's Valley Blvd. to the Foothill Freeway (I-210) in Pasadena at California Blvd. The proposed route would have run through the center of the city, as well as through neighborhoods in El Sereno and Pasadena. However, this incompletion cuts off a north–south route from the San Gabriel Mountains in the north to Long Beach in the south, as well as connecting the 710 to the 110, 134, and 210 freeways.
On July 19, 1999, United States District Court Judge Dean Pregerson issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting Caltrans from proceeding with the 710 Freeway Project. The financial support for the fight against a major highway project through the city has come mostly from the residents themselves, who pay legal bills incurred by the city in the freeway fight from their general fund (no special taxes are used), making the fight an ongoing local election issue. South Pasadena has been cited five times on the National Trust for Historic Preservation's list of "Most Endangered Places".
Litigation over the 710 extension has run for over 50 years. The City of South Pasadena has filed a federal lawsuit citing failure to protect clean air, the environment and historic properties, and until the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) completes a comprehensive new environmental study, this will bring additional delays to the 40-year-old project. Caltrans (the California Department of Transportation) proposed a compromise route of boring a tunnel beneath the city. Having purchased hundreds of properties along the proposed right-of-way in the 1960s, Caltrans proposed selling these in order to partially finance the tunnel. The Southern California real estate boom of the early 2000s caused those properties in South Pasadena alone to appreciate to a combined value of over $300 million. State Senator Carol Liu sponsored a bill to compel Caltrans to sell the properties no longer needed for the project. SB-416 also prohibits funds from the sale of surplus properties in the SR 10 corridor from being used to advance or construct any proposed North State Route 710 tunnel. State Assemblyman Chris Holden co-sponsored the bill and remarked after it was signed into law, "…the surface route of the 710 Freeway is not going to happen and everyone knows that and so these properties should then be put back into the community". Caltrans, however, maintains that the freeway extension/connections are needed for the overall benefit of the Southern California public and continues to fight for its completion.
In May 2017, the MTA board voted unanimously to withdraw its support for the 710 tunnel proposal, and to reallocate all funding previously earmarked for it to surface street and other improvements, effectively killing the project for the foreseeable future. Subsequently, Assemblyman Chris Holden, along with State Senator Anthony Portantino, proposed similar bills effectively deleting the uncompleted portion from the Highway grid. Both bills were passed and signed by governor Gavin Newsom and the deletion took effect on January 1, 2024.
Geography
South Pasadena is located at the western end of the San Gabriel Valley, north of El Sereno, east of the Arroyo Seco, a tributary of the Los Angeles River, and south of the separate city of Pasadena, California. Adjacent cities are Los Angeles to the west and south, Pasadena to the north, San Marino to the east, and Alhambra to the southeast. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city's total area of , is virtually all land. South Pasadena is home to a small natural spring, known as Garfias spring, which has been channelized into the Arroyo Seco.