of the neighborhood being Sepulveda Avenue, this southern section is defined as South Harbor Gateway. Connecting the two strips is a one-block east-west strip between West 182nd and West 190th Streets. The independent cities of Torrance, and Gardena lie immediately west of the strip, while the unincorportated community of West Rancho Dominguez and the independent city of Carson lie to its east. Population A total of 39,688 people lived in Harbor Gateway's 5.14 square miles, according to the 2000 U.S. census—averaging 7,720 people per square mile, about the same population density for the city as a whole. Population was estimated at 42,005 in 2008. The median age was 27, young for the city of Los Angeles. The percentage of married women (56.2%) was among the county's highest. Harbor Gateway is considered highly diverse ethnically, with a diversity index of 0.648 In 2000 Latinos made up 53.4% of the population, blacks were at 16.3%, Asians at 16%, whites at 11.8% and others at 2.4%. Mexico and the Philippines were the most common places of birth for the 40.8% of the residents who were born abroad, considered an average percentage of foreign-born when compared with the city as a whole. The $47,849 median household income in 2008 dollars was average for the city. Renters occupied 59.7% of the housing units, and homeowners occupied the rest. In 1992, it was noted that the poorest part of the area was between Rosecrans Avenue and Artesia Boulevard. History The city of Los Angeles annexed the area on December 26, 1906 "in anticipation of taking over, several years later, the independent cities of Wilmington and San Pedro" in order to create the Port of Los Angeles. Because of its slim shape, once likened to two shoelaces tied together with a granny knot, the neighborhood—only a half mile wide at some points—was known for years as the "city strip," the "shoestring strip" or simply "the strip." The strip was simply open fields before World War II, but "Then came factories, attracting workers who needed housing," and builders "filled those fields with small houses and duplexes." Cubans settled in the 1960s and Mexican immigrants in the 1970s. From 1985 to 1992, some seventy-five single-family homes were replaced by nearly five hundred apartment units, and the neighborhood gained some 1,500 residents, with "no plan, no thought," as the area's leading developer put it. In 1985, the Los Angeles City