Understand
It is about half way between Los Angeles and San Diego and is the best American embodiment of planned suburbia. Six-lane wide avenues and endless subdivisions of single-family houses surrounding pockets of strip malls are the norm.
The proper name in Spanish should be Misión Vieja, as 'mission' is a feminine noun. The masculine gender of "viejo" is a vestige from the original name of the area, "Rancho Mission Viejo" (http://www.ranchomissionv...); "viejo" modified "rancho", a masculine noun. In light of the history of the area, the masculine adjective was preserved. The "Mission" of "Mission Viejo" is Mission San Juan Capistrano (http://www.missionsjc.com); Mission Viejo was a community of San Juan Capistrano until it became an independent city in 1988.
