![]() ![]() ![]() The movie about how it all came to be has been widely anticipated by hip-hop fans - and many locals.Įbony Jackson, 33, said the movie would allow residents to reflect on how far the city has come. When it was released in 1988, N.W.A’s album “Straight Outta Compton” put the city on the map and transformed the group’s members - including Ice Cube, Eazy-E and Dr. Still, residents routinely fill City Council meetings to complain about large potholes and discarded furniture littering the sidewalks. For the last three fiscal years, the city has managed to balance its annual budget and this year had a $850,000 surplus, said City Manager Johnny Ford. The city recently rehired 200 City Hall employees and reduced its deficit to $36 million. In 2011, in the face of a $43-million deficit, Compton laid off hundreds of workers and amassed hundreds of thousands of dollars in late fees when it couldn’t pay its policing contract with the Sheriff’s Department on time.īut the economic situation is improving, officials say. Today, the unemployment rate is 12.7% - 32% higher than it was in 2000, according to the California Employment Development Department. The median income in 2013 was $42, 953, down from an adjusted median income of $46,376 in 1990, according to a Los Angeles Times analysis of census and other data. Last year, there were 17 killings, down from a peak of 87 in 1991.īut in other areas, Compton continues to lag. Brown said the decline was accomplished without extra spending on law enforcement. In the first half of 2015, Compton experienced a 5% decrease in overall crime even as the city of Los Angeles experienced a 12.7% jump, said L.A. The crime, especially the gang killings, that gave Compton its dubious fame so many years ago, has receded significantly. (There’s no movie theater in the city, though, so one has to go straight out of Compton to watch “Straight Outta Compton.”) ![]() “Welcome to the Compton of today and the strides that are being made to return Compton to the beautiful, thriving suburban city it once was.”Ĭity officials also point to a Walmart Supercenter, which will replace the aging Compton Swap Meet, where N.W.A and other artists hawked their albums when major record stores would not sell them. “There’s more to the City of Compton than its worldwide reputation as the ‘home of gangsta rap,’” the website tells visitors. Transit Center, a 10,000-square-foot office and retail center, which welcomes rail and bus commuters to town with a 12-foot-tall “Compton” sign. The filmmakers joined in the boosterism, including in the film’s closing credits a link to The website highlights recent economic development in the city of about 100,000 residents: the Gateway Towne Center, opened in 2007, which features Target, Home Depot and other stores that residents once had to leave town to visit, as well as the Martin Luther King Jr. In the run-up to the movie’s opening, Brown has been promoting the Twitter hashtag #visionforcompton to focus on positive changes in the city. “But when we look at the statistics and the feel of the city and we talk to people who live here, it’s a different city from 25 years ago.” “People think of Compton as a very dangerous place,” said Mayor Aja Brown. Although leaders have celebrated the movie, which highlights Compton’s role as the birthplace of West Coast gangsta rap, they are also campaigning to make sure viewers don’t confuse the place portrayed in the movie with the Compton of today. ![]()
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