THE ORANGE COUNTY MONIKER.

By William Baxter on August 23, 2009..


 

      What do The Register Newspaper, the John Wayne Airport, Segerstrom Hall, The Flyers Baseball Team, and OCTA all have in common? All of these carry "Orange County" as their Geographical Moniker.


 1) The Orange County Register.

2) John Wayne-Orange County Airport (displayed as Orange County on Airport Monitors)

3) Segerstrom Hall--Orange County Performing Arts Center.

4) The Orange County Flyers.

5) Orange County Transit Authority (OCTA).


 

The Urban Center of the Orange County Region is Anaheim, CA. Newspapers, Commerical Airports, and Metro Transit Systems serve Regions, and mostof them carry the moniker of The Urban Center of the various reasons. In The O.C. however, Orange County is uded instead of Anaheim for the most part. The Anaheim Ducks NHL Team currently carries Anaheim as its moniker, most everything else in O.C. goes by Orange County. Why is that. Well, unlike most of the Urban Centers  in America are also County Seats. Anaheim is the Urban-Economic Center of Orange County, CA; but it is not the County Seat. The County Seat of Orange County is Santa Ana, which at the moment, has a slightly larger population than Anaheim has.


 

            Anaheim was the largest city in Orange County from about 1960 to 1990. Since then Santa Ana has become the largest city in Orange County by population, but it has no economic impact on the surrounding OC Community that Anaheim has. Also, because of an Anti Skyline Ordinance Walt Disney had passed with the city just before he died in 1966, The City of Anaheim and everything in it is completely sprawled out, with no "Central Skyline"  which didn't leave much room for residential development. Anaheim's population of roughly 346,000 people is not very big when the city is the urban center of 3,000,000 people. But, what is completly sprawled out all over Anaheim, and not up, is the center of Orange County's growth and economy, and that's mostly because of the Disneyland Resort. Anaheim is the economic heart of Orange County where Santa Ana is the Administrative Center of The O.C. Either of these two cities, by themselves or together, represent Orange County.


 

            All of Orange County, with its two major cities (both larger than Pittsburgh, PA.) and has been set aside by The O.M.B. as a "Metropolitan Division" of The Southland Metro Area. Los Angeles is the other Metro Division of The Southland. The O.M.B.'s designation as of Y2K is Santa Ana-Anaheim-Irvine. Also, there are a lot of things which puts The O.C. on that map that ar neither in Anaheim nor Santa Ana. First off, there are three major college communities in Orange County.


 

1) The City of Irvine hosts the University of California - Irvine (UCI), and the city has a population of 209, 000. Irvine has the largest Downtown District in Orange County. Rght across MacArthur Blvd. from Downtown is the John Wayne-Orange County Airport. The Airport is unincorporated by any city in O.C. as it is completely owned by the County of Orange. Since the airport and its property are owned by the county, and mail addressed to the airport goes through the County Seat Post Office. Since Irvine is the closest O.C City, it has become the Business and Resort Hub for the John Wayne-Orange County Airport.


 

2) The City of Orange hosts Chapman University. Also, Old Town Orange is the "Antique Center" of California.


 

3) The City of Fullerton hosts several colleges, the most famous one is California State University-Fullerton (CSUF). CSUF has hosted a lot of National Championship Teams in College Baseball, and currently, it is the home of the Orange County Flyers. During The Flyers first couple of seasons (2005-2006) the team was called the Fullerton Flyers.


 

Besides the two major big cities and the three college communities, there are other cities in Orange County which have things that puts The O.C. on the map.


 

1) Huntington Beach, California is "Surf City U.S.A. In otherwords, it is the Surfing Capitol of America, and it has a population of 202,000. There are four cities in Orange County altogether. Huntington Beach is the only one of the four which is still regarded as a "Suburb" by The O.M.B.


 

2) Buena Park hosts the ever famous Knott's Berry Farm Resort and E-zone.


 

3) Yorba Linda is the Birthplace of Former U.S. President, Richard M. Nixon. Right next to his Birthplace is the Nixon Presidential Library.


 

4) Then there is Mission San Juan Capistrano which has a lot of historic and folklore fame.


 

All in all, The Register, the John Wayne Airport, the local transit system, and so forth; carry "Orange County" as their Moniker be cause the entire County of Orange as a whole needs a major newspaper, a commercial airport, and a bus transportaion system, not just the cities of Anaheim and Santa Ana. From what we have observed here, all of Orange County, with all of its Major Cities and Suburbs is all ONE DOMINAT COMMUNITY. This is whay "Orange County" is the most appropriate geographical moniker for this particular Metro Area in Southern California.