The Future of Los Angeles Is Now

There are varying long views of Los Angeles that picture it as the ascendant capital of the Pacific Rim, a Third World city of the first rank, a collection of urban villages that are neither urban nor villages, or simply Lotus Land. Take your pick.

However one might perceive Los Angeles, defined here not as a city but a multi-centered, expanding grid of about 100 fiefdoms, the hard fact is that the long view is fast becoming the short view; faster than we like to admit, and faster than our floundering local governments can react to it.

Despite sewer moratoriums, slow-growth propositions, the lack of affordable housing, poor schools, shoddy municipal services, a crumbling infrastructure, pathetic public transit, polluted beaches and a bruised environment, Los Angeles continues to grow; the promise of a better life in a benign climate perseveres, a triumph of hope over reality.

This growth, promise and hope permeates the recently published report of the bipartisan, blue-ribbon Los Angeles 2000 Committee. I have tended to be wary of such efforts, labeling futurism an excuse used by public officials and private interests not to deal with the problems of the present and filing the reports away in an appropriately dusty cabinet.

But the report, labeled “LA 2000: A City For The Future,” is an exception, much to my surprise and pleasure. After all, I live here and hope some day my four children and their families will also be able to, in their own houses or condos, as well as, among other things, swim once again in Santa Monica Bay, have confidence in a public education system, and enjoy and be enriched by the region’s many cultural attractions.

Included in the report is a synopsis of the problems that have been caused by the region’s phenomenal and haphazard growth; you’ve heard them here and elsewhere before. And then there is the obvious list of needs--not a “wish” list, but a “must” list, from cleaner air, water and beaches to more park, playground and cultural facilities and transportation alternatives, and better schools, hospitals, housing, urban design and job opportunities.

Where the report, for me, strikes a nerve is its recognition that these needs simply cannot be met by the existing government structure; that “while local governments struggle to control the identities and destinies of their own communities . . . Glendale sewage ends up in Santa Monica Bay, South Bay industrial emissions help throw a pall over the San Gabriel Mountains, South-Central drug gangs move into Rialto near the outskirts of San Bernardino and an accident on the San Diego Freeway can make a Westlake (Village) resident miss her plane at LAX.”

As stated here previously, the issue no longer is growth or no growth, but how can growth be best controlled and managed; that beyond the delivery of frail basic services, such as fire and police protection, and garbage collection, most governments aren’t hacking it; that the region’s Byzantine political structure has created a bureaucratic gridlock. The dream of a livable city has fallen into the cracks of a fractured metropolis.

The report, citing a RAND Corp. survey in which the public expressed their frustrations with local government, calls the situation a “crisis in confidence,” and hints that it will get worse as the region grows and its needs multiply.

Then, in my opinion, comes the zinger, buried in black-and-white on Page 68, but, no doubt, to be colored purple, if not red, by civil serpents and others clinging to the status quo as it slowly sinks into a sea of self-interest:

“If we are to capture the future potential of the metropolitan area, we must find innovative ways to manage this growth, even in the face of an understandable reluctance to give up entrenched power or to accede to the reorganization of outdated structures,” states the report. “To do nothing will have serious long-term consequences, leaving Los Angeles in the 21st Century with endemic ills that are beyond any solution.”

The report then recommends, in particular, two new regional government agencies to manage growth and the environment; agencies that have the potential for broad powers to set policy and possibly enforce implementation. We are talking here no less than reshaping home rule to create, among other things, a better balance between jobs and housing, and transportation and land use.

At the same time, the report suggests that to achieve its myriad goals of a livable city “different relationships between government functions” may be needed, as well as ways “to open the way for greater participation at the neighborhood or community level.”

And warming this heart, it specifically calls for the city to establish a “streets for people” program to encourage pedestrian activity, conservation districts to protect architectural and design landmarks, an expanded urban forestry program and how public lands and existing rights-of-way may be used as greenbelts or open space.

Though there are some inherent contradictions in the recommendations and some hard questions about accountability that must be answered, at least we have at last a basis for a serious dialogue. This is a report that should not be buried, but rather heatedly debated, indeed decorated in festive colors and waved in the front of politicians and bureaucrats, and used as a guide to the future.

That future is now.

At the news conference where the “LA 2000” report was released, I was confronted by a usually mild-mannered, even-tempered city official who was angered by recent columns in which I challenged him and his department to follow through on a variety of promising proposals.

If only that anger somehow could be directed at the problems of homelessness, the lack of affordable housing, the poor urban design that is scarring our streets and the transportation mess, among others. That is anger I would understand, and respect.

For me it was a sad footnote to the release of the report, and an indication of some of the problems its implementation faces within the existing political structure.