Before "Surfurbia": The Development of the South Bay Beach Cities through the 1930s

Few landscapes have been more trivialized for global consumption than the southern California beach. "Baywatch," "Beach Blanket Bingo," and Rayner Banham's coinage of the term "Surfurbia" are among the myriad examples of culture products that depict the shore as a homogeneous fun space lacking historical and cultural complexity. However, the South Bay communities from El Segundo to Torrance (essentially the cities that Banham called "Surfurbia") have long histories, examination of which reveals the richness and complexity of their geographies. The different cities emerged under the influence of a variety of developmental forces so that, despite the monolithic image of "Surfurbia," the rise of the South Bay is in fact many separate, incompatible stories.