When Wildfire Reshapes the Workforce: Why Compton Matters to L.A.’s Creative Economy

Opinion By Compton Chamber of Commerce

One year after the Eaton and Pacific Palisades fires, Southern California is still reckoning with consequences that extend far beyond burned hillsides and lost homes.

The fires struck an entertainment industry already weakened by pandemic shutdowns, historic labor strikes, and a sharp contraction in film and television production. Thousands of skilled workers — editors, electricians, grips, set builders, drivers, caterers, costume designers, and production assistants — found themselves without steady work, some forced to sell homes or leave the region altogether.

In response, grassroots organizations such as Ashes to Films and Stay in L.A. mobilized to keep production in Southern California. Their advocacy helped secure a $420 million expansion of California’s film and television tax credit program, now projected to generate billions in local economic activity and tens of thousands of jobs.

But behind these headline numbers lies a quieter story — one that directly affects cities like Compton.

The Hidden Geography of Hollywood’s Workforce

When people picture the entertainment industry, they often imagine hillside mansions or studio offices in West Hollywood and Burbank. In reality, much of the industry’s middle-income workforce has long lived in South Los Angeles and the southeast corridor — in Compton, Carson, Paramount, Lynwood, and neighboring communities.

Large residential regions that include parts of South and Southeast Los Angeles County are home to thousands of residents employed in the motion picture and video industries.

These cities are home to the skilled backbone of Hollywood: union technicians, freelance editors, camera assistants, lighting crews, transportation workers, and countless support services that make production possible. They are not celebrities. They are working families whose incomes circulate through local restaurants, shops, childcare providers, churches, and small businesses. For decades, Compton has quietly functioned as a reservoir of creative and technical talent for one of California’s largest industries.

This role is reflected in U.S. Census data. According to American Community Survey (ACS) microdata aggregated by the U.S. Census Bureau, several Los Angeles County Public Use Microdata Areas (PUMAs) — large residential regions that include parts of South and Southeast Los Angeles County — show thousands of residents employed in the motion picture and video industries.

In 2023, for example, the Los Angeles County (Central)–LA City (East Central & Hollywood) PUMA reported about 6,710 residents working in this sector, one of the larger residential concentrations in the region. Other nearby PUMAs that cover portions of South Los Angeles and the southeast corridor — including areas encompassing Compton and neighboring communities — also report significant numbers of residents employed in entertainment-related fields. Together, these figures highlight how communities in and around Compton quietly supply an essential share of the labor that sustains Southern California’s creative economy, even though city-level employment breakdowns are not publicly published.

Wildfire, Displacement, and a New Housing Pressure

The 2025 fires displaced thousands of residents from hillside and coastal communities, many of whom began relocating into lower-lying cities where new housing is being built. At the same time, entertainment workers facing unemployment or reduced hours were forced to make difficult housing decisions of their own.

The 2025 fires displaced thousands of residents from hillside and coastal communities to lower-lying cities such as Compton. As relatively higher-income newcomers arrive, rents continue to climb.

This collision is now reshaping local housing markets.

In Compton, a wave of “affordable” housing projects is rising — yet many of these units remain priced well above the income levels of long-time residents and working families. As higher-income newcomers arrive and rents continue to climb, long-standing residents — including skilled tradespeople and creative workers — face increasing pressure to relocate.

The danger is not only the displacement of households. It is the displacement of talent.

Why Talent Retention Is an Economic Development Issue

When Compton loses experienced electricians, editors, builders, drivers, and technicians, the region loses more than residents. It loses workforce capacity.

The entertainment industry depends on proximity: fast access to crews, equipment, post-production services, and experienced labor. If rising housing costs push this workforce farther away — or out of California entirely — Los Angeles becomes less competitive, regardless of tax credits and incentives.

At the same time, Compton loses a vital part of its economic fabric: middle-income families, union wages, small business customers, and community leaders who stabilize neighborhoods and mentor the next generation.

In this sense, wildfire is not only an environmental disaster. It is a labor-market shock with long-term implications for regional competitiveness and local economic health.

A Strategic Moment for Compton

This moment presents both a risk and an opportunity.

Compton sits at the center of one of the nation’s most important creative economies. Its residents already supply talent not only to entertainment, but to logistics, construction, healthcare, education, music, sports, and small manufacturing.

Protecting housing affordability, supporting workforce retention, and aligning new development with local incomes is not only a social issue — it is an economic strategy.

If Compton can remain a city where skilled workers can afford to live, start businesses, and raise families, it strengthens the entire Southern California economy.

Looking Ahead

As Los Angeles reinvents its production ecosystem after fire, strikes, and industry contraction, cities like Compton will play a decisive role in determining whether that recovery succeeds.

The question is not only where films will be shot.

It is where the people who make them possible will be able to live.

A Roadmap for Compton’s Future

For Compton, the challenge — and the opportunity — is clear: to protect its housing, nurture its talent, and claim its rightful place as a cornerstone of the region’s creative and working economy. Achieving that will require deliberate, coordinated action:

• Protect housing affordability where jobs are accessible

  Preserve affordable housing near transit lines, job centers, and major employment corridors so working families can remain close to opportunity.

• Align “affordable” housing with real local incomes

  Ensure new housing truly reflects the earnings of Compton’s workforce — not regional averages that price out long-time residents.

• Prevent displacement of long-standing residents

  Strengthen tenant protections, homeownership stability programs, and property tax relief so skilled workers and families are not forced out of the city.

• Build strong workforce pipelines

  Expand partnerships with unions, studios, training programs, and community colleges to connect Compton residents to careers in entertainment, construction, logistics, healthcare, and the skilled trades.

• Support the small businesses that anchor working neighborhoods

  Invest in childcare providers, cafés, neighborhood shops, service firms, and faith-based institutions that allow working families — and local talent — to remain rooted in the community.

• Retain talent as an economic development strategy

  Treat workforce housing and talent retention not only as social policy, but as essential tools for keeping Southern California competitive.

If recovery from wildfire and industry contraction is to be durable, it cannot succeed by pushing workers farther away from opportunity. It must succeed by strengthening the communities that already supply the region’s talent.

In that effort, Compton is not on the margins of Southern California’s recovery.

It is at its center.