The Last Commercial Orange Grove

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Back in the 1920’s agriculture played a dominant role in the San Fernando Valley region.  At one point 75,000 acres of Valley land between towns and subdivisions was used for farming, which included 750,000 citrus trees.

By the 1990’s the Valley’s working citrus industry dwindled to just one, the Bothwell Ranch.  It is located in Tarzana at the corner of Oakdale Ave and Collier St, just a half mile south of Ventura Blvd.

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Now it is up for sale.  The asking price is $13.9 million.  Collier International and Coldwell Banker is billing the property as “an incredibly rare infill development opportunity”.  Marketing materials include a site plan that would split the 14 acres into 26 half acre lots for development into 2-4 million dollar single family homes.  How sad.  Click below to read the article about it.

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The good news is that not too far away is the last historic orange grove of San Fernando Valley owned and protected by CSUN.  The area includes 400 orange trees, a pond, bistro, and observatory.  The orange grove has thousands of fresh, free oranges waiting to be picked by you!  Anyone from anywhere can pick oranges at any time from the orange grove.  Have fun, and make sure to feed the red-eared slider turtles in the pond too!

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Fireworks 2019!

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July 4th is just around the corner, which means there will be fireworks again!

Use the app to view cities in LA, Orange, Ventura, Riverside, and San Bernardino County that allow the sale and discharge of fireworks.  Included are days and times when fireworks will be sold and when you can light them up, as well as links to city websites and telephone numbers.  Data was collected from municipal codes, websites, and/or contacting each city.  Some cities allow sales to start today AND allow you to discharge them today as well!  Check it out!

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Calculating Slope Using Python

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The standard slope tool in ArcGIS Desktop only examines a 3×3 cell neighborhood (and does not include the center cell) to determine slope for each cell.  However, using Python you can create a method for calculating slope along a flow direction grid specific to your needs.  Check out this article about using Python to calculate a fire “flow direction” based on a DEM and fire lines.

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Spatial@UCSB This Thursday

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Just a reminder that Spatial@UCSB will be happening this Thursday, June 6.  This year’s theme is Spatial Data for Smarter Cities.

Where: Corwin Pavilion, UCSB – 494 UCEN Rd, Isla Vista, CA
When: Thursday June 6th, 11:00 to 2:30 pm

Agenda:

11:00 Plenary Session:

  • Kurt Shellhause (Kasraie Consulting, CIRGIS) – Think Inside the Box, Outside the Box, and about what could Destroy our Box
  • Mahnoosh Alizadeh (Electrical and Computer Engineering, UCSB) –
    Opportunities and Challenges of Transportation Elecrication in Smart Cities
  • Konstadinos Goulias (Dept. of Geography, UCSB) – Activity-Travel GeoSimulation for Smart City Planning, Design, and Operations
  • Werner Kuhn (Dept. of Geography, UCSB) – Moderator

12:30 – 2:30 Lunch and Poster Exhibit

Registration has been extended to the end of Tuesday, June 4th. Please contact Karen to RSVP: kdoehner@spatial.ucsb.edu or (805) 893-8224.

Native Land Interactive Map

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If you are interested in the Indigenous histories of North America and beyond you may enjoy exploring Native Land, an ongoing interactive mapping project that attempts to outline ancestral Indigenous territories. Here, you will find a colorful map multi-layered with depictions of where different Indigenous peoples historically lived. You can browse the map itself or search for a particular postal code to see whose territories that location falls within, and clicking on a given territory shows the names of the native people(s) and cession treaties associated with that place with links to sources included. Check it out!