The Inland Empire (IE) is a metropolitan area and region inland of and adjacent to coastal

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban ...

, centering around the cities of San Bernardino and Riverside, and bordering

Los Angeles County Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, and sometimes abbreviated as L.A. County, is the most populous county in the United States and in the U.S. state of California, with 9,861,224 residents estimated as of 2022. It is th ...

to the west. It includes the cities of western Riverside County and southwestern

San Bernardino County San Bernardino County (), officially the County of San Bernardino, is a county located in the southern portion of the U.S. state of California, and is located within the Inland Empire area. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, the population was 2,18 ...

, and is considered to include the desert communities of the

Coachella Coachella may refer to: * Coachella, California * Coachella Canal, in California * Coachella (festival), an annual music and arts festival in California * "Coachella – Woodstock in My Mind "Coachella – Woodstock In My Mind" is a song by Ame ...

and Victor Valleys, respectively on the other sides of the San Gorgonio Pass and

San Bernardino Mountains The San Bernardino Mountains are a high and rugged mountain range in Southern California in the United States. Situated north and northeast of San Bernardino and spanning two California counties, the range tops out at at San Gorgonio Mountain ...

from the

Santa Ana River The Santa Ana River is the largest river entirely within Southern California in the United States. It rises in the San Bernardino Mountains and flows for most of its length through San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, before cutting throug ...

watershed that forms the bulk of the Inland Empire; a much broader definition includes all of Riverside and San Bernardino counties. The combined land area of the counties of the Inland Empire is larger than ten U.S. states—

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; ...

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

Vermont Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the ...

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the nor ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York (state), New York; on the ea ...

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacen ...

and

Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area and the seventh-least populous, with slightly fewer than 1.1 million residents as of 2020, but i ...

—and slightly smaller than the combined area of the five smallest U.S. states (New Hampshire through Rhode Island). The U.S. Census Bureau–defined Riverside–San Bernardino–Ontario metropolitan area, which comprises Riverside County and San Bernardino County,

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the ...

, covers more than and had a population of about 4.6 million in 2020. Most of the area's population is in southwestern San Bernardino County and northwestern Riverside County. At the end of the 19th century, the Inland Empire was a major center of agriculture, including citrus, dairy, and winemaking. Agriculture declined through the 20th century, and since the 1970s a rapidly growing population, fed by families migrating in search of affordable housing, has led to more residential, industrial, and commercial development.

Etymology

Map of the USA highlighting the Inland Empire

The term "Inland Empire" is documented to have been used by the ''Riverside Enterprise'' newspaper (now '' The Press-Enterprise'') as early as April 1914. Developers in the area likely introduced the term to promote the region and to highlight the area's unique features. The "Inland" part of the name is derived from the region's location, generally about inland from

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wor ...

and the Pacific Ocean. Originally, this area was called the Orange Empire due to the acres of citrus groves that once extended from

Pasadena Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district. Its ...

to Redlands during the first half of the twentieth century. The boundaries of the Inland Empire are nebulous, but the region is generally defined as the cities of western Riverside County and southwestern San Bernardino County, adjacent to the

Los Angeles metropolitan area Greater Los Angeles is the second-largest urban area, metropolitan region in the United States with a population of 18.5 million in 2021, encompassing five counties in Southern California extending from Ventura County in the west to San Ber ...

. A broader definition includes

Palm Springs Palm Springs (Cahuilla: ''Séc-he'') is a desert resort city in Riverside County, California, United States, within the Colorado Desert's Coachella Valley. The city covers approximately , making it the largest city in Riverside County by lan ...

and the surrounding desert communities, and a much widerspread definition includes all of San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

History

What is now known as the Inland Empire was inhabited for thousands of years, prior to the late eighteenth century, by the

Tongva The Tongva ( ) are an Indigenous people of California from the Los Angeles Basin and the Southern Channel Islands, an area covering approximately . Some descendants of the people prefer Kizh as an endonym that, they argue, is more historica ...

, Serrano, and

Cahuilla The Cahuilla , also known as ʔívil̃uqaletem or Ivilyuqaletem, are a Native American people of the various tribes of the Cahuilla Nation, living in the inland areas of southern California.Spanish colonization and the subsequent Mexican era the area was sparsely populated at the land grant Ranchos, considering it unsuitable for missions. The first American settlers, a group of

Mormon Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into seve ...

pioneers, arrived over the Cajon Pass in 1851. Although the Mormons left a scant six years later, recalled to

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the capital and most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in Utah. With a population of 200,133 in 2020, th ...

Brigham Young Brigham Young (; June 1, 1801August 29, 1877) was an American religious leader and politician. He was the second President of the Church (LDS Church), president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), from 1847 until his ...

during the church's Utah War with the U.S. government, other settlers soon followed. The entire landmass of

was subdivided according to the San Bernardino Meridian, which was first plotted as part of the Public Land Survey System in November 1852, by Col. Henry Washington. Base Line Road, a major thoroughfare, today runs from

Highland Highlands or uplands are areas of high elevation such as a mountainous region, elevated mountainous plateau or high hills. Generally speaking, upland (or uplands) refers to ranges of hills, typically from up to while highland (or highlands) is ...

to San Dimas, intermittently along the absolute baseline coordinates plotted by Col. Washington.

was first formed out of parts of

on April 26, 1853. While the partition once included what is today most of Riverside County, the region is not as monolithic as it may sound. Rivalries between Colton, Redlands, Riverside and San Bernardino over the location of the

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or civil parish. The term is in use in Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, Taiwan, and the United States. The equivalent term shire town is used in the US ...

in the 1890s caused each of them to form their own civic communities, each with their own newspapers. On August 14, 1893, the state Senate allowed Riverside County to form out of land previously in San Bernardino and San Diego counties, after rejecting a bill for

Pomona Pomona may refer to: Places Argentina * Pomona, Río Negro Australia * Pomona, Queensland, Australia, a town in the Shire of Noosa * Pomona, New South Wales, Australia Belize * Pomona, Belize, a municipality in Stann Creek District Mexico ...

to split from L.A. County and become the seat of what would have been called San Antonio County. ARLINGTON HEIGHTS CITRUS GROVES, circa 1903

The arrival of rail and the importation of navel and

Valencia Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. The wider urban area al ...

orange trees in the 1870s touched off explosive growth, with the area quickly becoming a major center for

citrus production Citrus production encompasses the production of citrus fruit, which are the highest-value fruit crop in terms of international trade. There are two main markets for citrus fruit: * The fresh fruit market * The processed citrus fruits market ( ...

. This agricultural boom continued with the arrival of water from the

Colorado River The Colorado River ( es, Río Colorado) is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The river drains an expansive, arid watershed that encompasses parts of seven U.S. s ...

and the rapid growth of Los Angeles in the early twentieth century, with

dairy farming Dairy farming is a class of agriculture for long-term production of milk, which is processed (either on the farm or at a dairy plant, either of which may be called a dairy) for eventual sale of a dairy product. Dairy farming has a history th ...

becoming another staple industry. In 1926, Route 66 (now known as Foothill Boulevard and Interstate 215) came through the northern parts of the area, bringing a stream of tourists and

migrants Migrant may refer to: Human migration *Human migration *Emigration, leaving one's resident country with the intent to settle elsewhere *Immigration, movement into a country with the intent to settle * Economic migrant, someone who emigrates from o ...

to the region. Still, the region endured as the key part of the Southern California "citrus belt" until the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, when a new generation of real-estate developers bulldozed acres of agricultural land to build suburbs. The precursor to the

San Bernardino Freeway Interstate 10 (I-10) is a transcontinental Interstate Highway in the United States, stretching from Santa Monica, California to Jacksonville, Florida. The segment of I-10 in California runs east from Santa Monica through Los Angeles, San Bernar ...

, the Ramona Expressway, was built in 1944, and further development of the freeway system in the area facilitated the expansion of suburbs and human migration throughout the Inland Empire and Southern California. The region experienced significant economic and population growth through most of the latter half of the twentieth century. In the early 1990s, the loss of the region's military bases and reduction of nearby defense industries due to the end of the Cold War led to a local economic downturn. The region as a whole had partially recovered from this downturn by the start of the twenty-first century through the development of warehousing, shipping, logistics and retail industries, primarily centered around Ontario. However, these industries were heavily affected by the

Great Recession The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At ...

Geography

Physical geography

Physical boundaries between Los Angeles and the Inland Empire from west to east are the San Jose Hills splitting the

San Gabriel Valley The San Gabriel Valley ( es, Valle de San Gabriel) is one of the principal valleys of Southern California, lying immediately to the east of the eastern city limits of the city of Los Angeles, and occupying the vast majority of the eastern part ...

from the Pomona Valley, leading to the urban populations centered in the San Bernardino Valley. From the south to north, the Santa Ana Mountains physically divide Orange County from Riverside County. The Santa Rosa Mountains, as well as the Southern California portion of the

Sonoran Desert The Sonoran Desert ( es, Desierto de Sonora) is a desert in North America and ecoregion that covers the northwestern Mexican states of Sonora, Baja California, and Baja California Sur, as well as part of the southwestern United States (in Arizon ...

, physically divide Riverside County from San Diego County. Some definitions for the IE include the Chino Valley,

Coachella Valley , map_image = Wpdms shdrlfi020l coachella valley.jpg , map_caption = Coachella Valley , location = California, United States , coordinates = , width = , boundaries = Salton Sea (southeast), Santa Rosa Mountains (southwest), San Jacin ...

, Cucamonga Valley, Menifee Valley, Murrieta Valley, Perris Valley, San Jacinto Valley, Temecula Valley, and Victor Valley. Elevations range from at the top of the San Gorgonio Mountain to at the

Salton Sea The Salton Sea is a shallow, landlocked, highly saline body of water in Riverside and Imperial counties at the southern end of the U.S. state of California. It lies on the San Andreas Fault within the Salton Trough that stretches to the Gu ...

. The San Bernardino mountains are home to the

San Bernardino National Forest The San Bernardino National Forest is a United States National Forest in Southern California encompassing of which are federal. The forest is made up of two main divisions, the eastern portion of the San Gabriel Mountains and the San Berna ...

and the resort communities of Big Bear Lake,

Lake Arrowhead Lake Arrowhead or Arrowhead Lake may refer to: United States Bodies of water * Arrowhead Lake (Idaho) * Lake Arrowhead Reservoir, California * Lake Arrowhead, Georgia * Lake Arrowhead (Maine) Communities * Arrowhead Lake, Cumberland County, New J ...

, and

Running Springs Running Springs is a census-designated place (CDP) in San Bernardino County, California, United States. The population was 5,268 at the 2020 census, up from 4,862 at the 2010 census. Running Springs is situated 17 miles west of the city of Big Bear ...

. The

extends from Mt. San Gorgonio for nearly through San Bernardino, Riverside, and Orange counties before it eventually spills into the Pacific Ocean at

Newport Beach Newport Beach is a coastal city in South Orange County, California. Newport Beach is known for swimming and sandy beaches. Newport Harbor once supported maritime industries however today, it is used mostly for recreation. Balboa Island draws v ...

and Huntington Beach. While temperatures are generally cool to cold in the mountains, it can get hot in the valleys. In the desert resort of

, near Joshua Tree National Park, summer temperatures can reach well over .

Political geography

Unlike most metropolitan areas that have grown up around a central city, the Inland Empire has no one main focus city. Major cities in the region include Riverside, San Bernardino,

Rancho Cucamonga Rancho Cucamonga was a Mexican land grant in present-day San Bernardino County, California, given in 1839 to the dedicated soldier, smuggler and politician Tiburcio Tapia by Mexican governor Juan Bautista Alvarado. The grant formed parts of pres ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

, and Corona. Suburban sprawl spreads out to form a connection with the Los Angeles metropolitan area. Further development is steadily, if not heavily, encroaching past the mountains into the outlying desert areas. The Inland Empire borders both Los Angeles and Orange counties. Freeways in Southern California are heavily used, but this comprehensive freeway system has made travel between the Inland Empire and these two counties generally direct, especially to and from Los Angeles County. The Inland Empire has also been referred to as ''the 909'', after one of the region's most used

area code A telephone numbering plan is a type of numbering scheme used in telecommunication to assign telephone numbers to subscriber telephones or other telephony endpoints. Telephone numbers are the addresses of participants in a telephone network, re ...

s. In 2004, because of growing demand for telephone numbers, most of western Riverside County was granted a second area code, 951, which is overlayed with the 909 area code (they have the same physical boundaries and new telephone subscribers likely receive a 951 area code telephone number). The

region of

, Palm Desert, and Indio is located much farther east in Riverside County (the distance between the city of San Bernardino and Palm Springs is approximately 50 miles) and is part of the much larger 760 area code. This area is sometimes considered a sub-region of the Inland Empire or its own separate region. This is to help differentiate it from the urbanized area containing the cities of San Bernardino and Riverside. SoCal megaregion

The RPA definition includes the Inland Empire ( San Bernardino– Riverside) in the Southern California Megaregion, alongside

Anaheim Anaheim ( ) is a city in northern Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States Census, the city had a population of 346,824, making it the most populous city in Orange County, the 10th-mos ...

Bakersfield Bakersfield is a city in Kern County, California, United States. It is the county seat and largest city of Kern County. The city covers about near the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley and the Central Valley (California), Central Valley r ...

, Huntington Beach, Long Beach,

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United States ...

, the geographically separate

Las Vegas Valley The Las Vegas Valley is a major metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada, and the second largest in the Southwestern United States. The state's largest urban agglomeration, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Statistical Area i ...

, as well as the

Tijuana Tijuana ( ,"Tijuana"
(US) and < ...

area in Mexico. Orange County and

San Diego County San Diego County (), officially the County of San Diego, is a county in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,298,634, making it California's second-most populous county and the f ...

are completely encompassed within the megaregion.

Boundaries and definitions

There is no universally accepted definition for the boundaries of the Inland Empire region. Some sources such as the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...

'' have referred to Riverside County and

as the Inland Empire, mirroring the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario metropolitan area. Some residents of certain areas, such as

Twentynine Palms Twentynine Palms (also known as 29 Palms) is a city in San Bernardino County, California. Twentynine Palms serves as one of the entry points to Joshua Tree National Park. History Twentynine Palms was named for the palm trees found there in ...

or the

and Temecula valleys, may consider themselves separate from the IE. The California Travel and Tourism Commission (CTTC), a not-for-profit, nongovernmental entity that promotes tourism in California, divides the state into several regions for its own purposes. The CTTC defines the Inland Empire as being bounded by

and Orange County on the west and

on the south, stretching as far north as the Victor Valley area and as far east as Idyllwild in the San Jacinto Mountains. The state of California's official website links to the CTTC's map with the description "Map of the Inland Empire region". Other sources, including Kevin Starr, former state librarian of California, include the eastern Los Angeles County cities of the Pomona Valley, such as

Claremont Claremont may refer to: Places Australia *Claremont, Ipswich, a heritage-listed house in Queensland * Claremont, Tasmania, a suburb of Hobart * Claremont, Western Australia, a suburb of Perth ** Claremont Football Club, West Australian Footba ...

, La Verne, San Dimas, and Diamond Bar. Other sources also include cities in Los Angeles County within the boundaries.

Economy

Inexpensive land prices (compared with Los Angeles and Orange counties), a large supply of vacant land, and a

transport network A transport network, or transportation network, is a network or graph in geographic space, describing an infrastructure that permits and constrains movement or flow. Examples include but are not limited to road networks, railways, air routes ...

where many highways and railroads intersect have made the Inland Empire a major shipping hub. Some of the nation's largest

manufacturing Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a ...

companies have chosen the Inland Empire for their distribution facilities including

Toyota is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...

Motor Corporation's North American Parts and Logistics Distribution (NAPLD) center in

and APL Logistics in

. In 2007,

Whirlpool Corporation The Whirlpool Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational manufacturer and marketer of home appliances, headquartered in Benton Charter Township, Michigan, United States. The Fortune 500 company has annual revenue of ap ...

leased a distribution center in Perris that is larger than 31 football fields but, more recently, 5,000,000 sqft warehouses are common. These centers operate as part of the system that transports finished goods and materials from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to destinations to the north and east such as

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish language, Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the List of United States cities by population, 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the U.S. state, state of Neva ...

, Phoenix, and

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the United ...

. More than 80 percent of the state's imported cargo is shipped through the Los Angeles/Inland Empire Corridor. During the late 2010s and early 2020s,

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...

, the largest private employer in the region, has rapidly expanded its facilities and warehouses there, responding to explosive growth in online retailing and shipping and increasing traffic and air pollution. Like most industrial areas, the Inland Empire is vulnerable to the effects of economic recessions. For example, during the global economic downturn of 2008–2009, industrial vacancies doubled from 6.2 percent in 2007 to 12.4 percent to 2008. In San Bernardino and Redlands, vacancies reached 22 percent. The Inland Empire area is one of the least educated areas of the state with the lowest average in annual wages in the country. A 2006 study of salaries in 51 metropolitan areas of the country ranked the Inland Empire second to last, with an average annual wage of $36,924. Nonetheless, inexpensive land prices and innovative institutional support networks have attracted some small businesses and technology startups into the area. While urbanization continues to cut into agricultural lands, the Inland Empire still produces substantial crops. Although of irrigated land was lost between 2002 and 2004, agriculture still brought in more than $1.6 billion in revenues to the two-county region in 2006. Being a MSA, aggregate GDP figures are reported by the

Bureau of Economic Analysis The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) of the United States Department of Commerce is a U.S. government agency that provides official macroeconomic and industry statistics, most notably reports about the gross domestic product (GDP) of the United ...

annually. The Inland Empire ranks 25th in the nation with a 2011 GDP of $109.8 billion, roughly a third of San Francisco–Oakland–Berkeley, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area despite their close population numbers. Per capita GDP was $25,993.34 in 2011, nearly half among the nation's top 50

Gross Metropolitan Product Gross metropolitan product (GMP) is a monetary measure of the value of all final goods and services produced within a metropolitan statistical area during a specified period (''e.g.'', a quarter, a year). GMP estimates are commonly used to compare ...

. Due to the housing crisis, the GDP fell from $114.8 billion in 2007, despite a heavy influx of residents. The unemployment rate in the Inland Empire has been consistently over the national average since 2007. 10.4 percent of Inland residents were unemployed as of August 2013, compared with the national rate of 7.3 percent. Due to the high unemployment and housing foreclosure rates, a higher percentage of Inland residents rely on public assistance. According to the Press-Enterprise, "twelve percent of Riverside County and 17 percent of San Bernardino County residents used food stamps in January 2012", as compared with "11 percent of those living in Los Angeles County, 8 percent of San Diego County residents and 7 percent of Orange County residents".

Housing

Since the 1950s, the area has changed from a rural to a suburban environment. The region now comprises numerous cities known as bedroom communities that are suburban cities to Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Diego. Affordable home ownership is the primary motivation behind the growth in these Inland Empire cities as homes in the region are generally less expensive than comparable homes in

and Orange counties, but the pricing gap continues to shrink each year due to migration and increasing population. The steady rise in population and the demand for housing has led to a dramatic increase in the building of single-family homes on parcels of or more, as opposed to the construction of high-density development such as multi-story apartment or

condominium A condominium (or condo for short) is an ownership structure whereby a building is divided into several units that are each separately owned, surrounded by common areas that are jointly owned. The term can be applied to the building or complex ...

buildings. This low-density development has caused sprawl in the Inland Empire. Additionally, land that was used for agriculture is now being sold by owners for conversion to shopping centers, industrial warehouses, and more. Due to the lack of one central city in the Inland Empire, and the smaller geographical footprint that suburban cities tend to have, this continuous development has become seemingly unplanned suburban sprawl as local interest and zoning laws may quickly change from one city to the next city. The Inland Empire was declared the nation's worst example of sprawl according to a study by Smart Growth America in 2002. During the housing bubble collapse of the late 2000s,

foreclosure Foreclosure is a legal process in which a lender attempts to recover the balance of a loan from a borrower who has stopped making payments to the lender by forcing the sale of the asset used as the collateral for the loan. Formally, a mort ...

s rose by 3,500 percent. In 2010, the area ranked fourth in the nation in the number of foreclosures, with one filing for every 133 households. The problem of abandoned homes became so great that the city of Perris initiated a program to paint the brown lawns of abandoned homes green as a way to reduce the appearance of blight. In 2019, the "bedroom community" nature of the Inland Empire led to a plan to increase the construction of new housing in coastal cities (known as "job centers") preferentially versus building more housing in the Inland Empire areas. Meghan Sahli-Wells, mayor of Culver City, said that she supported the coastal plan because of the urgent nature of climate change. However, the plan was described as "toothless". The attractiveness of Inland Empire cities for warehousing and logistics has resulted in warehouses being built incrementally closer and closer to residential areas. With air pollution from diesel-powered transport trucks being a serious and cumulative concern for human health, an effort was made to impose a 1,000-foot buffer zone (separation distance between residential and commercial land uses) for new construction. However, this effort was not successful, due to local municipal officials giving priority to maximizing the construction of both housing and warehouse facilities, with the goal of maximizing employment as well as property-tax revenue from both the residential and the commercial/industrial sectors.

Retail

Retailing in the area has increased to try to keep abreast with the growing suburban population. The region is home to several large shopping malls, including the Promenade Shops at Dos Lagos and the Crossings in Corona; Ontario Mills in

; Promenade Mall in Temecula; Galleria at Tyler, Riverside Plaza, and Canyon Crossings in Riverside; The Shoppes at Chino Hills in Chino Hills; Moreno Valley Mall in Moreno Valley; Victoria Gardens in

and the Inland Center mall in San Bernardino. In fiscal year 2006, retail sales in San Bernardino County grew by 11.9 percent to $31.2 billion, while sales in Riverside County were up 11.3 percent to $29.6 billion.

Environmental quality

The result of this ongoing development has resulted in greater homeownership for the region. Although the region saw an uptick in jobs over the past decade, it is not a heavy employment center, and many residents commute to Los Angeles and Orange counties for their work. With a lack of substantial public transportation in the Greater Los Angeles Area, this has led to

traffic congestion Traffic congestion is a condition in transport that is characterized by slower speeds, longer trip times, and increased vehicular queueing. Traffic congestion on urban road networks has increased substantially since the 1950s. When traffic d ...

and degradation in

air quality Air pollution is the contamination of air due to the presence of substances in the atmosphere that are harmful to the health of humans and other living beings, or cause damage to the climate or to materials. There are many different types ...

for the Inland Empire. The solution to these problems is not simple. The presence of so many city governments within the Inland Empire, which often have different 'visions' for their own municipalities, means that two cities in the region rarely agree on a solution; just as common, they may have unequal means for implementing one even if they were to agree. Having no region-wide governmental planning organization may undermine any solution that could be proposed. Lastly, the fast pace at which development occurs versus the limited ability of government to respond to changes means that it could easily take years, if not decades, for a viable solution (such as new roads, transit systems, or pollution controls) to go into effect.

Air pollution

Air pollution, or suspended particulate matter locally generated from the increased number of automobiles in the area, from point sources such as factories, dust carried into the air by construction activity, and the contribution of similar pollutants from the Los Angeles area has regularly caused the Inland Empire to be at, or near, the bottom of many air quality ratings. In 2004, the

EPA The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent executive agency of the United States federal government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it be ...

rated the San Bernardino- Riverside area as having the worst

particulate Particulates – also known as atmospheric aerosol particles, atmospheric particulate matter, particulate matter (PM) or suspended particulate matter (SPM) – are microscopic particles of solid or liquid matter suspended in the air. The t ...

air pollution in the United States Air pollution is the introduction of chemicals, particulate matter, or biological materials into the atmosphere, causing harm or discomfort to humans or other living organisms, or damaging ecosystems. Air pollution can cause health problems in ...

Water pollution

Water pollution Water pollution (or aquatic pollution) is the contamination of water bodies, usually as a result of human activities, so that it negatively affects its uses. Water bodies include lakes, rivers, oceans, aquifers, reservoirs and groundwater. Wate ...

has also been found in the

and Cajon wash, and pollutants from the

March Air Reserve Base March Air Reserve Base (March ARB), previously known as March Air Force Base (March AFB) is located in Riverside County, California between the cities of Riverside, Moreno Valley, and Perris. It is the home to the Air Force Reserve Command' ...

and Stringfellow Acid Pits have contaminated

groundwater Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and soil pore spaces and in the fractures of rock formations. About 30 percent of all readily available freshwater in the world is groundwater. A unit of rock or an unconsolidat ...

in parts of Riverside County. In 1997,

perchlorate A perchlorate is a chemical compound containing the perchlorate ion, . The majority of perchlorates are commercially produced salts. They are mainly used as oxidizers for pyrotechnic devices and to control static electricity in food packaging. ...

, a chemical used to produce explosives, was discovered to be seeping into the groundwater under

Rialto The Rialto is a central area of Venice, Italy, in the '' sestiere'' of San Polo. It is, and has been for many centuries, the financial and commercial heart of the city. Rialto is known for its prominent markets as well as for the monumental Rial ...

in a plume that continues to grow. In 2007, the Rialto city council petitioned the

United States Environmental Protection Agency The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent executive agency of the United States federal government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it ...

(EPA) for

Superfund Superfund is a United States federal environmental remediation program established by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). The program is administered by the Environmental Protection Agen ...

status to clean up the origin site. The sites comprising

, Norton Air Force Base and the Stringfellow Acid Pits have already been classified as EPA Superfund toxic waste sites.

Transportation

I-10m 215 Interchange traffic, San Bernardino, CA

Traffic congestion Traffic congestion is a condition in transport that is characterized by slower speeds, longer trip times, and increased vehicular queueing. Traffic congestion on urban road networks has increased substantially since the 1950s. When traffic d ...

is a major issue in the Inland Empire. Many of the existing freeways were completed in the late 1970s with the exception of the segment of the Foothill Freeway, State Route 210 (SR 210) between San Dimas and San Bernardino, which was completed in July 2007. New freeways or highway "fix-ups" are either in progress or being planned, such as the construction of

Mid County Parkway The Mid County Parkway is a proposed highway in Riverside County, California, United States which would link San Jacinto in the east and Perris in the west in response to high levels on congestion on existing routes. The corridor was identifie ...

between Perris and San Jacinto or the addition of toll lanes on I-15 through heavily urbanized portions of Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Other problems exist, however, including the imbalance between housing and job availability. The Inland Empire population grew as a result of affordable housing, at least relative to the rest of Southern California, but most of the higher paying jobs are located in Los Angeles, San Diego and Orange counties. Thus, many workers must commute daily from the Inland Empire to their jobs in these counties—sometimes up to two hours each direction—and even longer if by public transportation. As the population increases, the problem is most certainly going to get worse. ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...

'' magazine ranked the area first in its 2007 list of most unhealthy commutes in the United States, beating out every other metropolitan area in the country, as Inland area drivers breathe the unhealthiest air and have the highest rate of fatal auto accidents per capita. According to a 1999 report by the Surface Transportation Policy Project, the Inland Empire leads in fatal crashes caused by

road rage Road rage is aggressive or angry behavior exhibited by motorists. These behaviors include rude and verbal insults, yelling, physical threats or dangerous driving methods targeted at other drivers, pedestrians or cyclists in an effort to intimi ...

. The theft of copper, brass and other metals from highway and road fixtures has also led to decreased public safety on IE roads and freeways. Gas siphoning has also been noted as a problem for vehicles left unattended in the region.

Public transportation

The Inland Empire does not have a particularly extensive or robust

public transportation Public transport (also known as public transportation, public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) is a system of transport for passengers by group travel systems available for use by the general public unlike private transport, typical ...

system. Due to the large physical size and sprawl of the region, the primary means of transportation in the region is the automobile. Less than five percent of the IE's 1,249,224 working-age residents use public transportation to get to work. Omnitrans is the largest bus agency in San Bernardino County, while the Riverside Transit Agency (RTA) is the largest in Riverside County. Currently, some of Omnitrans' bus routes run on headways of an hour or more, and some routes stop service in the early evening or may not run on weekends.

SunLine Transit Agency SunLine Transit Agency, a transit operator in Riverside County, California (with over 3.5 million passengers a year), is a transit agency providing bus service in the Palm Springs Area, with service extending into San Bernardino Transit Center dur ...

provides bus service in the

while the Victor Valley Transit Authority (VVTA) provides transit service in the High Desert, including to Barstow after the transit systems in the latter was merged into VVTA in 2015. Other operators in the region include Pass Transit serving the Banning Pass area, Needles Area Transit serving the city of Needles, Mountain Transit serving the communities in the San Bernardino Mountains including Lake Arrowhead, Big Bear, Running Springs, and Crestline, and the

MBTA The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (abbreviated MBTA and known colloquially as "the T") is the public agency responsible for operating most public transportation services in Greater Boston, Massachusetts. The MBTA transit network in ...

serving the Morongo Basin and Yucca Valley portions of San Bernardino County. Although transit usage and infrastructure remains weak, several projects have moved forward and opened in the 2010s to improve transit accessibility in the region. Major projects include the Perris Valley portion of the Metrolink 91/Perris Valley Line, the San Bernardino Transit Center, and the Omnitrans sbX Green Line, which connects the cities of Loma Linda and San Bernardino, two universities, and the Loma Linda VA Hospital to the San Bernardino Transit Center. In addition to sbX, there are other express services available to public transportation users in the region. RTA operates a BRT-lite system in the RapidLink Gold Line, which runs from UCR to the Corona Transit Center. Due to the physical size of the Inland Empire, transit connections between the nodes of the region are primarily served by freeway express services. Transit operators of the IE provide service between major destinations and transit centers around Southern California including the

San Bernardino Transit Center The San Bernardino Transit Center (Metrolink designation San Bernardino–Downtown) is an intermodal transit center in downtown San Bernardino, California, United States. It is owned and operated by Omnitrans, the area's public transportation ...

, the

Montclair Transcenter Montclair Transcenter is an intermodal transit center located at 5091 Richton Street in Montclair, California. It is located between Central and Monte Vista Avenues on Richton Street just north of the Montclair Plaza shopping center. The TransC ...

Disneyland Disneyland is a theme park in Anaheim, California. Opened in 1955, it was the first theme park opened by The Walt Disney Company and the only one designed and constructed under the direct supervision of Walt Disney. Disney initially envisi ...

, and Oceanside. The region is also part of the five-county Southern California Regional Rail Authority (SCRRA) " Metrolink" commuter rail system. Of the seven lines that Metrolink operates, four of them directly serve the Inland Empire: * San Bernardino Line: provides daily service from San Bernardino to Los Angeles (busiest route of the system) * 91/Perris Valley Line: provides weekday service from Perris to Los Angeles and weekend service between Riverside and Los Angeles * Riverside Line: provides weekday commuter service from downtown Riverside to Los Angeles * Inland Empire-Orange County Line: provides daily service from San Bernardino to Oceanside in San Diego County

Future projects

Although a robust transit network has been lacking in the region for decades, steps are being made toward developing one in the future. The councils of governments and transportation commissions in both IE counties have identified and are working on future expansions of transit to better serve the region. These include the sbX West Valley Connector,

Arrow An arrow is a fin-stabilized projectile launched by a bow. A typical arrow usually consists of a long, stiff, straight shaft with a weighty (and usually sharp and pointed) arrowhead attached to the front end, multiple fin-like stabilizers ...

, the extension of the Gold Line to Montclair, and daily train service to the Coachella Valley. Additional routes have also been studied including extending the Metrolink's Perris Valley Line to San Jacinto and Temecula, a passenger rail spur along I-15 to Lake Elsinore, BRT routes throughout the respective service areas of Omnitrans and RTA, and an aerial tram from Highland to Big Bear. The Inland Empire is the chosen route for connecting California High-Speed Rail service to San Diego. While a final alignment has yet to be finalized, concepts include stops at the Ontario International Airport, in Riverside, San Bernardino, Corona, and Temecula or Murrieta. These would occur as part of Phase II, however, which currently remains unfunded.

Airports

Several airports are located in the Inland Empire.

San Bernardino International Airport San Bernardino International Airport (, initialism: SBIA) is a public airport two miles (3 km) southeast of the city center of San Bernardino, California, in San Bernardino County, California, United States. The airport covers and has one ...

Ontario International Airport Ontario International Airport is an international airport two miles east of downtown Ontario, in San Bernardino County, California, United States, about east of downtown Los Angeles and west of downtown San Bernardino. It is owned and oper ...

and Palm Springs International Airport are commercial airports in their respective cities. A local joint powers agency has redeveloped the decommissioned Norton Air Force Base into

. There are also several general aviation airports in the region.

Active transportation

The region is making some progress in developing dedicated bicycle commuter and recreation trails. The largest of these, the Santa Ana River bicycle path, currently connects Corona to Huntington Beach, and is eventually projected to stretch for 84 miles all the way to Redlands when completed. A shorter trail exists along the former path of the

Pacific Electric Railway The Pacific Electric Railway Company, nicknamed the Red Cars, was a privately owned mass transit system in Southern California consisting of electrically powered streetcars, interurban cars, and buses and was the largest electric railway system ...

from Claremont to Rialto. A number of communities have also built trails along the levees and maintenance roads of other waterways in the region, including the CV Link, which is under construction in the Coachella Valley area of the region. Other plans also exist to provide feeder trails to meet the main backbones such as the PE Trail and provide a network of connectivity to nonmotorized users throughout the region.

Demographics

The population of the

Greater Los Angeles area Greater Los Angeles is the second-largest metropolitan region in the United States with a population of 18.5 million in 2021, encompassing five counties in Southern California extending from Ventura County in the west to San Bernardino ...

(which includes the Inland Empire) is about 18 million people according to the 2010 United States Census, and is the second largest metropolitan region in the country. The

Metropolitan Statistical Area In the United States, a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is a geographical region with a relatively high population density at its core and close economic ties throughout the area. Such regions are neither legally Incorporated town, incorporate ...

population of the Inland Empire (Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area) itself is more than 4.2 million people and is the 13th largest metropolitan area in the United States. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, it is the fastest growing area in the state. Between 1990 and 2000, Riverside and San Bernardino counties added 700,000 to their population totals, an increase of 26 percent. Between 2000 and 2010 Inland Empire's population expanded by 970,000 or 30 percent, and between 2010 and 2020 it expanded by a further 375,000 or another 9 percent to reach 4.6 million. According to census bureau's 2005–2007 estimates 61.8 percent of the population was

White White is the lightness, lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully diffuse reflection, reflect and scattering, scatter all the ...

(40.4 percent White Non-Hispanic), 7.5 percent

Black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white ha ...

, 5.7 percent Asian and 25.0 percent of other or mixed race. 43.9 percent were Hispanic of any race. 21.9 percent of the population was foreign born. The

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency, under the Department of Health and Human Services, and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georg ...

reports that in 2006, 33.1 percent of people in the Greater San Bernardino Area were overweight, and 30.8 percent were obese. ''

'' magazine ranks the area as the fourth fattest in the country. A substantial majority of residents (76.6 percent), last comparatively surveyed in 2001, rated their respective counties as good places to live. Over 81 percent of Riverside County residents indicated that their county is a very good or fairly good place to live, while about 72 percent of residents in San Bernardino County felt the same way. Survey respondents cited "nice living area", "good climate", and "affordable housing" as the top positive factors in assessing their respective communities. Smog was by far the most important negative factor affecting respondents' ratings in both counties, while traffic was the second highest concern in Riverside County and crime the second highest concern among San Bernardino County residents. Since the 1970s and onwards, large numbers of

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

, Latino and some Asian-American residents from the Los Angeles-Orange County and San Diego metro areas moved to the Inland Empire region. Large Black communities can be found around San Bernardino ( Fontana and

) and Riverside ( Moreno Valley and Perris), where Blacks and Latinos became majorities in and around those cities. This is also true in the Mojave Desert and

portions.

Politics

While the region as a whole had traditionally leaned more Republican than the rest of California, newer residents are less likely to identify with the Republican party than longer-term residents (36 percent to 42 percent), and the total number of residents identifying with the Democrats (34 percent) slightly edged over the number identifying with the Republican party (33 percent). In the 2008 presidential election, Democratic candidate

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...

carried both Riverside and San Bernardino counties, becoming only the second Democrat to carry both counties since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. In

2012 File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gather ...

, Obama repeated this feat and again carried both counties, and the two Inland Empire counties have stayed in the Democratic column in presidential elections since. Nonetheless, the area continues to be far friendlier to Republicans than

or the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Gov ...

Non-Hispanic Whites Non-Hispanic whites or Non-Latino whites are Americans who are classified as "white", and are not of Hispanic (also known as "Latino") heritage. The United States Census Bureau defines ''white'' to include European Americans, Middle Eastern Am ...

and non-Hispanic Blacks have the highest participation rates for nearly every type of political activity, while Latinos and Asian Americans lag significantly behind those groups in terms of volunteerism and organizational membership. The 2006 immigration protests have significantly boosted political participation among Latinos.

Religion

Many faiths and denominations are found and represented in the area. The

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

parishes in the region belong to the church's Diocese of San Bernardino.

Mormons Mormons are a Religious denomination, religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the mov ...

and Seventh-day Adventists have communities in the towns of

Loma Linda Loma Linda (Spanish for "Beautiful Hill") is a city in San Bernardino County, California, United States, that was incorporated in 1970. The population was 24,791 at the 2020 census, up from 23,261 at the 2010 census. The central area of the c ...

and Redlands near San Bernardino. Mormons also have congregations in the High Desert region. Seventh-day Adventists operate

Loma Linda University Loma Linda University (LLU) is a private Seventh-day Adventist health sciences university in Loma Linda, California. , the university comprises eight schools and a Faculty of Graduate Studies. It is a part of the Seventh-day Adventist educat ...

. The Inland Empire has a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

community, and additionally a

Jewish American American Jews or Jewish Americans are American citizens who are Jewish, whether by religion, ethnicity, culture, or nationality. Today the Jewish community in the United States consists primarily of Ashkenazi Jews, who descend from diaspora J ...

community is in and around the Sun City neighborhood of

Menifee Menifee (May 4, 1996 – June 13, 2019) was an American Thoroughbred racehorse that competed in the Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing in 1999. His rivalry with Triple Crown contender Charismatic was compared at times with the rivalry betw ...

. According to the United Jewish Citizens of the Desert, the

has an estimated 20,000 American Jews, one of California's largest Jewish communities, as a result of being a major retirement destination. There are also some fast-growing Muslim communities with around 30,000 American Muslims in 2019, mostly concentrated around the UCR campus in Riverside, Irvine and central Corona. All locations have well-established Islamic Centers gathering faith members for weekly Juma prayers as well as other Islamic holidays.

Crime

While the

crime index Crime statistics refer to systematic, quantitative results about crime, as opposed to crime news or anecdotes. Notably, crime statistics can be the result of two rather different processes: * scientific research, such as criminological studies, vi ...

in Riverside and Ontario trends slightly over the state average, San Bernardino has a crime index consistently near or over twice that of the national average. Reflecting nationwide trends,

violent crime A violent crime, violent felony, crime of violence or crime of a violent nature is a crime in which an offender or perpetrator uses or threatens to use harmful force upon a victim. This entails both crimes in which the violent act is the object ...

in the region overall declined or remained consistent in 2009, despite the recession. In the city of Riverside, 10 homicides occurred in 2005, down from 24 in 2003, its highest total since 2003. All but three cases resulted in arrests. In San Bernardino, by contrast, 58 killings occurred in 2005, but only a third of cases in San Bernardino led to arrests, due to a lack of witness cooperation in that city. Latino gangs have been active in the region since the area's citrus days while a continual migration of numerous African American gangs from the inner city of South LA have flowed into the region since the Watts Riots and

1992 Los Angeles Riots The 1992 Los Angeles riots, sometimes called the 1992 Los Angeles uprising and the Los Angeles Race Riots, were a series of riots and civil disturbances that occurred in Los Angeles County, California, in April and May 1992. Unrest began in S ...

. The increased diversity in the region between 1990 and 2000 is also associated with a 20 percent increase in hate crime in the same period, mostly ascribed to increased gang activity. According to data from the FBI's

Uniform Crime Reporting The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program compiles official data on crime in the United States, published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). UCR is "a nationwide, cooperative statistical effort of nearly 18,000 city, university and c ...

program, taken together, Riverside and San Bernardino counties showed a total of 51,237 crimes reported to county police/sheriffs (but not to city or other agencies) in 2006; this combined total exceeded the totals for all other California counties – considered individually – except for

Sacramento ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...

. The region has also been noted as a center of

methamphetamine Methamphetamine (contracted from ) is a potent central nervous system (CNS) stimulant that is mainly used as a recreational drug and less commonly as a second-line treatment for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and obesity. Meth ...

drug production. The Riverside and San Bernardino county sheriffs' departments busted 635 meth labs in 2000; law enforcement has driven most of the meth production industry to Mexico since 2007, but many of the homes discovered to have been used as meth labs before 2006 have since been sold on the market before California law required rigorous decontamination, leading to a legacy of health hazards for unsuspecting renters and home-buyers in the area. In 2016 federal crime statistics stated that San Bernardino was ranked the most dangerous city in

Education

There is a trend of lower educational attainment in the IE, which starts early. Only 37 percent of 3- and 4-year-olds in the region are enrolled in

pre-school A preschool, also known as nursery school, pre-primary school, or play school or creche, is an educational establishment or learning space offering early childhood education to children before they begin compulsory education at primary schoo ...

, with only one school in the region for every 343 children, as compared with 48 percent enrollment in

. Thirty-five percent of the IE's ninth graders do not graduate from high school, and only 37 percent of its college age residents enroll in a

post-secondary education Tertiary education, also referred to as third-level, third-stage or post-secondary education, is the educational level following the completion of secondary education. The World Bank, for example, defines tertiary education as including univers ...

program of some sort. Only 24 percent of the IE's adult residents have attained a college degree or better. Twenty-five percent do not possess a high school diploma. According to past CSUSB President Al Karnig, "We have a very low college attendance rate that is scantly above half of what the average is in other states. We have only have about 20 percent college graduates in the Inland Empire while the average in other states is 38 percent." 21 inland area high schools rank in the top 100 in California for producing dropouts. Of Inland Empire residents 25 years and over in 2004, 44.4 percent of Asians had bachelor's or higher degrees, and nearly 70 percent had at least attended college. 21.3 percent of Blacks had a bachelor's degree or higher, and 65.2 percent had either a community degree or had attended college. 22.8 percent of Whites had a bachelor's degree or higher, and 60.8 percent had attended college. Of Hispanics, 6.9 percent had a bachelor's or higher degree, and 30.2 percent attended college. Among students transferring from Inland community colleges to private schools in 2004–05, the most frequent choice was the University of Phoenix.

Employment

While the Inland Empire led the state in job-growth with 275,000 new jobs between 1990 and 2000, most are in comparatively low-tech fields. San Bernardino and Riverside counties are primarily host to

service Service may refer to: Activities * Administrative service, a required part of the workload of university faculty * Civil service, the body of employees of a government * Community service, volunteer service for the benefit of a community or a pu ...

and

- or

warehousing A warehouse is a building for storing goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial parks on the outskirts of cities, ...

-oriented industries.

Food Food is any substance consumed by an organism for nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or fungal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is ...

and administrative services employ the most people in the Inland Empire, while for the state of California, the top industries are in administrative services and professional,

scientific Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence ...

and hi-tech-oriented fields. 79.8% of the IE's job growth from 1990 to 2003 was in service-sector jobs. Low-wage industries are abundant in the IE, and the area's high-tech and professional industries pay less than in other regions of California. As many as one-third of working adults commute out of the region to find work, the highest proportion of any area in the country. Adding to gridlock, fewer than 5% of the IE's 1,249,224 working-age residents use

to get to work each day. 14.5% carpool, while 79.7% typically drive alone to work in their cars. In 2007, the region had an unemployment rate of 6.1%, while overall jobless claims in California were at 5.4% and 4.4% nationally. In 2008, unemployment in the area increased to 9.5%, at a time when the state average was 8.2% and the national average approximately 6.5%. Unemployment reached an all-time high of 15% in 2010, second in the nation only to Detroit among metropolitan areas with populations over 1 million.

Culture

The Inland Empire sits adjacent to the

. Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear are just some of the lakes located in the mountains. Lake Arrowhead becomes very popular in the summertime, while Big Bear becomes popular in the winter for skiing and snowboarding activities. Various locations in the Inland Empire provide venues for cultural performances and entertainment. The Victoria Gardens Cultural Center, which is owned and operated by the City of Rancho Cucamonga, opened in the Fall of 2006 providing theatre, concerts and family entertainment to the region. The San Manuel Amphitheater in San Bernardino's Devore neighborhood is the nation's largest outdoor amphitheater. San Bernardino's "Route 66 Rendezvous (the largest classical carshow in the US)", an annual street fair and

classic car A classic car is an older car, typically 25 years or older, though definitions vary.While other languages, such as German and Dutch, may refer to classic cars as "oldtimers", this usage is unknown in English, where "old-timer" refers to an elder ...

show, draws a half-million people from around the world. The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway in Palm Springs is a popular attraction, rising to more than 8500 feet.

Music

Established bands from the IE include Alien Ant Farm,

Hepcat Hepcat(s) may refer to: *Hepcat, a term in jazz and beatnik subculture; see Hipster (1940s subculture) * Hepcat (band), a ska band *''Hepcats ''Hepcats'' is a comic book series self-published in the 1990s by cartoonist Martin Wagner. It dea ...

The Bellrays The Bellrays (also capitalized as The BellRays) is an American rock group that combines garage rock and punk with soul music, founded in Riverside, California in 1990 by vocalist Lisa Kekaula and guitarist Bob Vennum. They have been with sever ...

, and the Voodoo Glow Skulls, from Riverside, and

Cracker Cracker, crackers or The Crackers may refer to: Animals * ''Hamadryas'' (butterfly), or crackers, a genus of brush-footed butterflies * '' Sparodon'', a monotypic genus whose species is sometimes known as "Cracker" Arts and entertainment Films ...

from Redlands, and The Mountain Goats from Chino.

House music House is a music genre characterized by a repetitive four-on-the-floor beat and a typical tempo of 120 beats per minute. It was created by DJs and music producers from Chicago's underground club culture in the late 1970s, as DJs began altering ...

artist DJ Lynnwood got his start at the age of ten spinning records at KUOR-FM in Redlands. girafa is another local electronic artist from Corona. Local hip-hop artists such as Miah Lanski, Suga Free, Saint Dog,

40 Glocc Lawrence Carl Demetrious White,(born 16 December 1979) better known by his stage name 40 Glocc, is an American rapper. Early life White was born in Greenville, Texas. At the age of 10, he moved with his mother to various locations in California ...

, Young Noble from the

Outlawz Outlawz (formerly known as Outlaw Immortalz) are an American hip hop group founded by rapper Tupac Shakur in late 1995 after Shakur's release from prison. Collectively, they were best known for their association with Shakur. Most of the group m ...

J.J. Fad J.J. Fad is an American female rap group from Rialto, California. The name was an acronym of the original group members' given names (Juana, Juanita, Fatima, Anna, and Dana), but when the line-up changed the tradition developed that it stood for ...

, Raje, Noa James, Xydewayz8, The Faze, Lil Xan and

A Lighter Shade of Brown A Lighter Shade of Brown (LSOB) was an American hip hop duo from Riverside, California best known for their 1990 hit single "On a Sunday Afternoon", a success in the U.S., written by songwriters and musicians David Dunson and Micah Carson. Hi ...

have brought about attention to the growing Hip hop community in and around the region. The Jerkin' street dance culture originated from the Inland Empire-based hip-hop groups New Boyz and Audio Push. A number of artists associated with the

Palm Desert Scene The Palm Desert Scene is a group of related bands and musicians from Palm Desert, California. Their hard rock sound – sometimes described as desert rock – contains elements of heavy metal, psychedelia, blues, punk, alternative, grung ...

forged the genre of desert rock as well as playing a large role in the genre of

stoner rock Stoner rock, also known as stoner metal or stoner doom, is a rock music fusion genre that combines elements of doom metal with psychedelic rock and acid rock. The genre emerged during the early 1990s and was pioneered foremost by Kyuss and Sleep ...

. A Danish record label, Musikministeriet, recently opened up an office in Redlands in hopes of further cultivating the IE music scene.

Frank Zappa Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American musician, composer, and bandleader. His work is characterized by nonconformity, free-form improvisation, sound experiments, musical virtuosity and satire of A ...

performed in Upland on Foothill Boulevard during the early 1960s where he played shows on a makeshift stage for college crowds. Zappa also purchased Pal Recording Studio on Archibald Avenue in Rancho Cucamonga where the Surfaris had recorded the surf music classic " Wipe Out". He dubbed it Studio Z and began making recordings that eventually led to the founding of Zappa's group

The Mothers of Invention The Mothers of Invention (also known as The Mothers) was an American rock band from California. Formed in 1964, their work is marked by the use of sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Originally an R&B band ...

. Until his death in December 2012, singer Ray Collins of the Mothers of Invention lived in the area. Zappa mentions the Inland Empire in the song "Billy the Mountain". From the late 80s until the late 90s, many up-and-coming musical acts, such as Rage Against the Machine,

Blink-182 Blink-182 (stylized as blink-182) is an American rock band formed in Poway, California in 1992. Their current lineup consists of bassist/vocalist Mark Hoppus, guitarist/vocalist Tom DeLonge, and drummer Travis Barker. Though their sound has ...

and

No Doubt No Doubt is an American rock band from Anaheim, California, formed in 1986. For most of their career, the band has consisted of vocalist Gwen Stefani, guitarist Tom Dumont, bassist Tony Kanal, and drummer Adrian Young. Since the mid-1990s, t ...

cut their teeth playing venues in Riverside. These historic venues (Spanky's Cafe and the De Anza Theatre) have since been closed and converted to other purposes. The Barn at UCR was closed as a music venue for 10 years but beginning in October 2008 KUCR Radio 88.3 FM, ASPB The Associated Student Program Board with funding from UCR Housing began having a free concert series once a week during the school quarter. Emerging music venues in the IE include the Showcase Theatre in Corona (recently closed), Red Planet Records in Riverside, the Vault in Redlands, the Buffalo Inn and The Wire (now closed) in Upland, the Twins Club in Rancho Cucamonga, the Press Restaurant in Claremont, the Glass House in Pomona, Back To The Grind Coffee Shop in Riverside, Liam's Irish Pub in Colton, and CommonGround Soundstage in Riverside.

Performing arts

Orchestras in the IE include the Redlands Symphony, which performs at the University of Redlands, the Riverside County Philharmonic, which performs at the Riverside Municipal Auditorium, the San Bernardino Symphony, which performs at the California Theatre, and the Victor Valley Symphony, which performs at Victor Valley College. Theatrical Arts International is housed at the California Theatre as well. With the largest subscriber base in the Inland Empire, Theatrical Arts International presents the largest caliber tours available including such blockbusters as ''Cats'', ''Hairspray'', ''Mamma Mia'', and ''Miss Saigon.'' There are many other large theater programs in the community. The Riverside Fox Theater, also known as the Fox Performing Arts Center, was built in 1929, and is a Spanish Colonial Revival style building in the heart of downtown Riverside, California. The theater is the centerpiece of Riverside's Arts & Culture initiative and underwent a major renovation and restoration to become a regional performing arts facility. Renovation was completed in the Fall 2009, with a grand-reopening in January 2010. At Chaffey High School in Ontario, they have a very large theater program that puts on shows in the fall and in the spring on one of the largest high school stages in the Inland Empire. The Inland Empire Harmony Carousel Chorus provides music in Barbershop Quartet productions.

Sports

The Inland Empire is the largest metropolitan area in the United States without a major professional sports team. However, it is part of the Greater Los Angeles area which includes teams in

and Orange counties. The area is home to numerous minor league baseball, basketball, and ice hockey teams. The Inland Empire team with the most championships is the

Inland Empire 66ers The Inland Empire 66ers of San Bernardino are a Minor League Baseball team of the California League and the Single-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels. The 66ers are based in San Bernardino, California, and play at San Manuel Stadium. Franchi ...

of San Bernardino, who won their most recent championship in 2013. The Auto Club Speedway, located in Fontana, opened in 1997. It contains an oval, a road course, and a dragstrip for auto racing. The Speedway is located approximately from the former Ontario Motor Speedway site. The Riverside International Raceway, another defunct motorsport venue, was located about east of Riverside. In college sports, the Inland Empire features five four-year institutions that represent all three

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges and ...

divisions, as well as the NAIA.

Media

Newspapers

The Inland Empire is served by four major local newspapers: * Th
InlandEmpirePress.com
provides online only reporting for the Riverside County & San Bernardino Valley region. * The '' San Bernardino County Sun'', which serves primarily the San Bernardino Valley region. * The '' Inland Valley Daily Bulletin'', which serves the southwestern

and eastern

cities of Claremont, La Verne, Pomona, San Dimas, Upland, Rancho Cucamonga, Ontario, Montclair, Chino and Chino Hills. * The Riverside-based ''

Press-Enterprise ''The Press-Enterprise'' is a paid daily newspaper published by Digital First Media that serves the Inland Empire in Southern California. Headquartered in downtown Riverside, California, it is the primary newspaper for Riverside County, wit ...

'' also has a few editions over the area. There is also an Inland Empire edition of the ''

''. For the segments of the Inland Empire surrounding San Bernardino and Riverside cities, regional newspapers include: * Inland Empire: Th
Inland Empire Community News
provides online and print reporting for various cities in the Inland Empire. * High Desert: the Victor Valley is served by both th
Victor Valley News
and th
Daily Press
Other newspapers include the ''Antelope Valley Press'', and the Barstow ''Desert Dispatch''. Both Victorville and Barstow have a Sunday edition circulated across both areas called the ''Press-Dispatch''. *

: '' The Desert Sun''

Radio

The Inland Empire is ranked 26th (June 2008) in the national radio market as a stand-alone market. When combined with the Greater Los Angeles Area, it is part of the second largest radio market. Due to the various mountain ranges including San Bernardino, San Gabriel, and Idyllwild, it may be difficult to receive a single station throughout the entire Inland Empire area without interference.

Television

PBS member statio
KVCR-TV
broadcasts directly to the Inland Empire. The station covers all of Riverside County and San Bernardino County with some Los Angeles area overlap. The station is located on the campus of San Bernardino Valley College. In addition to PBS and original, local content, First Nations Experience (FNX), KVCR's sister station, also broadcasts programming about the indigenous peoples and Native Americans to the Inland Empire. The current TLC TV series '' Dr. Pimple Popper'', a spin-off of the

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second most ...

channel of

dermatologist Dermatology is the branch of medicine dealing with the skin.''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.'' Random House, Inc. 2001. Page 537. . It is a speciality with both medical and surgical aspects. A dermatologist is a specialist medica ...

Sandra Lee, is shot mainly at Skin Physicians & Surgeons, a clinic in Upland run by Lee and her husband Jeffrey Rebish, also a dermatologist.

Film

While there are no large film production companies or studios based in the Inland Empire, on-location shoots accounted for a total economic impact of $65.2 million in the two-county region in 2006. From 1994 to 2005, filming accounted for over a billion dollars ($1,228,977,456) in total revenues spent in the area. Some famous films shot in the Inland Empire include '' Executive Decision'', '' U Turn'', '' Erin Brockovich'', and '' The Fast and the Furious''. While the 2006

David Lynch David Keith Lynch (born January 20, 1946) is an American filmmaker, visual artist and actor. A recipient of an Academy Honorary Award in 2019, Lynch has received three Academy Award nominations for Best Director, and the César Award for Be ...

film '' Inland Empire'' is named after the region, no scenes were actually shot in the Inland Empire. Ann Lerner,

Albuquerque Albuquerque ( ; ), ; kee, Arawageeki; tow, Vakêêke; zun, Alo:ke:k'ya; apj, Gołgéeki'yé. abbreviated ABQ, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico. Its nicknames, The Duke City and Burque, both reference its founding i ...

's film liaison, told the ''L.A. Times'' about the AMC cable TV series ''

Breaking Bad ''Breaking Bad'' is an American crime drama television series created and produced by Vince Gilligan. Set and filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the series follows Walter White ( Bryan Cranston), an underpaid, overqualified, and dispirited ...

'' producers wanted to film the series in California's Inland Empire but switched to New Mexico because of New Mexico's tax incentives. Shot Caller has scenes set in the Inland Empire, called "I.E." in the film.

Incorporated cities

References

External links

* * {{Authority control Regions of California San Bernardino County, California Riverside County, California Southern California Metropolitan areas of California