After the 405 freeway tore through predominantly Mexican American and immigrant communities in the late 1950s and early 1960s, many migrated west into the Oakwood area of Venice Beach.
[3] During this time Venice had been notoriously known as the "ghetto by the sea" due to the City of Los Angeles' negligent attitude toward the area, and as a result, Oakwood's cheap housing prices, which attracted young counterculture artists and poor European immigrants, and maintained a preexistent working-class African American population, made it relatively easy for Mexicans to settle in.
[3] Gang members found income supplying drugs to the hippies, and eventually high-income residents who came to Oakwood from affluent areas as crack cocaine arrived.
The 1980s and 1990s brought on a series of revitalization as white homeowners began purchasing property and renovating old houses, causing the City of Los Angeles to combat the gang problem although V13 still remains active.
As well as 18th Street gang (particularly the 106th St in Inglewood), as well as the Grave Yard Gangsta Crips in Santa Monica and Culver City 13 in the Mar Vista neighborhood.
The conflict escalated and in one point in time Venice 13 and the Culver City gang went as far as to set aside their own fight to unite against the Shorelines.
While Oakwood was at one point a very inexpensive area to buy property, it is being sought after by wealthy artists and businesspeople at competitive prices.
Famous movie stars such as actresses Julia Roberts and Anjelica Huston, and actor Nicolas Cage have taken residency in or around the Oakwood area.
The affiliate, with plenty of animosity for the mostly, non-Hispanic white professional newcomers, stated that new home owners in the area at sometimes fail to even notice Oakwood as a gang neighborhood.
This gentrification has been the cause of rising racial tension between the original African American and Latino residents and the more affluent newcomers.
[11] The inconsistent pattern of gang violence in Oakwood has also scared many high income residents who are not accustomed to the neighborhood, such as a 2001 string of violent shootings which resulted in 3 murders in a two-week period.
In the November 2004 issue of Vanity Fair magazine author John Brodie contested that gentrification would fail as "...the gunplay of the Shoreline Crips and the V-13 is as much a part of life in Venice as pit bulls playing with blond Labs at the local dog park.".