[4] Pacoima is bordered by the Los Angeles districts of Mission Hills on the west, Arleta on the south, Sun Valley on the southeast, Lake View Terrace on the northeast, and by the city of San Fernando on the north.

[5] Ed Meagher of the Los Angeles Times wrote in 1955 that the 110-block area on the north side of San Fernando Road in Pacoima consisted of what he described as a "smear of sagging, leaning shacks and backhouses framed by disintegrating fences and clutter of tin cans, old lumber, stripped automobiles, bottles, rusted water heaters and other bric-a-brac of the back alleys.

Pacoima had what Meagher described as "dusty footpaths and rutted dirt roads that in hard rains become beds for angry streams.

Meagher said that the "neatness and cleanness" [sic] of the new infrastructure were "a challenge to homeowners grown apathetic to thoroughfares ankle deep in mud or dust.

Many families who were on waiting lists to enter public housing complexes lived in garages and converted tool sheds, which often lacked electricity, heat, and/or running water.

[15] In 1873, Senator Charles Maclay of Santa Clara purchased 56,000 acres (230 km2) in the northern part of the San Fernando Valley adjacent to the San Fernando Mission and in 1887, Jouett Allen bought 1,000 acres (400 ha) of land between the Pacoima Wash and the Tujunga Wash.

Soon large spacious and expensive two-story homes made their appearance, as the early planners had established building restrictions against anything of a lesser nature.

The early pioneers had frowned upon industry, which eventually resulted in the people moving away from the exclusive suburb which they had set up to establish new homes closer to their employment and Pacoima returned to its rural, agricultural roots.

With the new water supply, the number of orchards, farms and poultry ranches greatly increased and thoroughbred horses began to be raised.

[citation needed] By the 1950s, the rapid suburbanization of the San Fernando Valley arrived in Pacoima, and the area changed almost overnight from a dusty farming area to a bedroom community for the fast-growing industries in Los Angeles and nearby Burbank and Glendale, with transportation to and from Pacoima made easy by the Golden State Freeway.

[citation needed] Beginning in the late 1940s, parts of Pacoima started becoming a place where Southern Californians escaping poverty in rural areas settled.

In the post–World War II era, many African Americans settled in Pacoima after arriving in the area during the second wave of the Great Migration since they had been excluded from other neighborhoods due to racially discriminatory covenants.

[7] By the late 1960s, immigrants from rural Mexico began to move to Pacoima due to the low housing costs and the neighborhood's proximity to manufacturing jobs.

In 1994, Howard Berman, the U.S. Congress representative of an area including Pacoima, and Los Angeles City Council member Richard Alarcon advocated including a 2 sq mi area (5.2 km2) in the City of Los Angeles's bid for a federal empowerment zone.

Timothy Williams of the Los Angeles Times wrote in 1994, "For years, those relatively high-paying jobs had provided families with a springboard out of the San Fernando Gardens and Van Nuys Pierce Park Apartments public housing complexes."

[24] In 1955, Ed Meagher of the Los Angeles Times said the "hard-working" low income families of Pacoima were not "indignents [sic] or transients", but they "belong to the community and have a stake in it."

"[7] In 1994, Timothy Williams of the Los Angeles Times noted how Pacoima was "free of the overt blight found in other low-income neighborhoods is no accident."

Cecila Costas, who was the principal of Maclay Middle School during that year, said that Pacoima was "a very poor community, but there's a tremendous amount of pride here.

[34] Politically, Pacoima is represented by Tony Cárdenas in Congress, Caroline Menjivar in the State Senate, and Luz Rivas in the Assembly.

[35] The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA) operates bus services in Pacoima.

Timothy Williams of the Los Angeles Times said that an "unprecedented wave of activism" countered the crime surge.

The rededication included a plaque to David M. Gonzales, a soldier in World War II who died in the Battle of Luzon.

In addition, the center has an outdoor gymnasium with weights, lit baseball diamond, basketball and handball courts and a soccer field.

[40] In the 1990s Richard Alarcon, a Los Angeles City Council member who represented Pacoima, proposed changing the name of Paxton Park to honor Ritchie Valens.

Hugo Martin of the Los Angeles Times said in 1994 that Alarcon proposed the rename so Pacoima residents will "remember Valens's humble background and emulate his accomplishments.

[42] The Hubert H. Humphrey Memorial Park, public swimming pool, and Recreation Center are located near the northern end of Pacoima.

[50] Data from the United States Census Bureau show the percentage of Pacoima residents aged 25 and older who had obtained a four-year degree or higher is generally lower than the percentage of Los Angeles City and Los Angeles County residents, based on 30-year data spanning from 1991 to 2020.

During that year, a committee of the Los Angeles City Council recommended spending $600,000 in federal grant funds to develop plans to build two library branches in the San Fernando Valley, including one in Pacoima.

[64] The groundbreaking for the 10,500 sq ft (980 m2) current Pacoima Branch Library, scheduled to have a collection of 58,000 books and videos, was held in 2000.

Hurtado, who was still the senior librarian in 2006, said that the new library, in the words of Alejandro Guzman of the Los Angeles Daily News, was "more attractive and inviting to the community" than the previous one.