City of Carson

Although the City of Carson has a long and colorful history, which dates back to the actual founding of California, it is a very young community in terms of its age as an independent city.

Carson was incorporated as a city in 1968. Compare that to Carson’s neighbor to the east, Long Beach, which incorporated almost a century earlier, in 1888, or to its neighbor to the west, Torrance, which became a city in 1921. With a long and colorful past behind them, the City Fathers coined a motto for their new town: “Future Unlimited”.

One of the city’s first accomplishments was the construction of the Carson Mall (now renamed the South Bay Pavilion at Carson) in 1972. Other notable high points include the growth of Cal-State University Dominguez Hills (and the building of Olympic Velodrome which brought the 1984 games to Carson), the opening of the Carson Civic Center (including the Carson City Hall, a post office, sheriff station, a large Carson Community Center, and a nearby Hilton hotel), the Carson Regional Library, and the creation of a series of fine neighborhood parks.  The newest addition, the Home Depot National Training Center, opened in 2003.

The new Carson Town Center, for instance (which opened in 1996), was built on land formerly used by the Golden Eagle refinery, while the proposed new L.A. MetroMall will be built upon a former landfill next to the 405 freeway.

The City of Carson is in Southern California, about 16 miles south of downtown Los Angeles, in the region known as the South Bay. Carson is bordered by the city of Long Beach on the east, and the city of Torrance on the west. The Los Angeles harbor is a few miles to the south of Carson; California’s famous coastline and beaches are about 6 miles to the west of Carson.

For school information, go to http://ci.carson.ca.us/content/department/school.asp