Growing pains, then and now

Why did Los Angeles become the global mega-city of California? Because it built a seaport complex that became the largest center for importing goods into the United States and an airport that became the third busiest in the world. But it was not inevitable that this city and region would do those things and rise to such prominence. In fact, it was improbable.

A small town with a shallow harbor, an afterthought to powerful 19th century San Francisco and an upstart to better-endowed San Diego, Los Angeles rose on the strength of unique public institutions and a boosterish will to power. “Globalizing L.A.: Trade, Infrastructure, and Regional Development” is a fascinating history of the Los Angeles region’s great assets and the forces that drove their development. It is also a contemplation of the area’s present challenges that make a successful future far from inevitable, warns author Steven P. Erie, a professor of political science at UC San Diego.

To achieve its development, Los Angeles had to overcome the influence of the Southern Pacific Railroad, the octopus of 19th century California’s economic and political life. Its principal owner Collis Huntington and his associates never wanted Los Angeles to develop as a hub of trade and transportation. They had no need of a competitor to San Francisco, the seat of their power. They envisioned a modest seaport in Santa Monica and bought land there to develop one, ignoring bids for an enlarged port on San Pedro Bay.

A coalition of local businessmen led by Harrison Gray Otis, an early owner and builder of the Los Angeles Times, and the infant Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce fought the railroad and won in an era enlivened by progressive reform throughout California. However, it wasn’t private industry investment that built the great ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, nor later the Los Angeles International Airport. Rather, it was semi-autonomous public agencies: the harbor departments of Los Angeles and Long Beach and the aviation department known today as Los Angeles World Airports.

L.A.’s Harbor Department deepened San Pedro harbor, raising $30 million for the dredging in six bond issues between 1906 and 1932. The bond issues typically won 80% approval at the polls, partly because the department shrewdly kept the election campaigns low-key, resulting in low turnout and ensuring that supportive employees would dominate the vote.

Oil revenue and bond issues financed the development of the port of Long Beach. And in the 1970s, when further dredging was needed to accommodate modern container vessels, the federal government was persuaded to pony up $36 million for the work.

Today’s LAX, which started out as Mines Field in the 1920s, was heavily financed by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s. After World War II, the federal government financed half the cost of expanding LAX to prepare it for jet aircraft, long before other U.S. airports. The nation’s first passenger jet flight took off from LAX in 1959.

Expansion of trade and travel to and through the Los Angeles region drove the expansion of port facilities, of course. The value of trade moving through the sea- and airports increased from $6 billion in 1972 to more than $250 billion a year today. International trade is the largest source of jobs in this region -- more than half a million of the region’s 8 million overall total, whether directly involved, as in stevedoring and trucking, or indirectly, as in financing and information processing.

The late Mayor Tom Bradley once summed up Los Angeles’ role as “gateway city for the Pacific Rim.” And the area’s residents historically have supported the expansion of sea- and airport facilities.

But that was yesterday. Erie’s book turns midway to a tale of concern, not of triumph. He chronicles how the climate for big public facilities changed in the 1970s, as environmental legislation began to restrict headlong growth. Then the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978 made municipalities scramble for funds to pay for public services. That, in turn, has led to court battles involving attempts by cities, including Los Angeles, to tap seaport and airport revenues to support municipal budgets.

Most serious of all, airport expansion in Southern California has been afflicted by the state’s not-in-my-backyard syndrome. Orange County residents two years ago defeated proposals for an international airport on the site of the vacated El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. At LAX, protests from neighboring communities, and to some extent security needs resulting from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, have effectively capped the airport’s growth at perhaps 25% more than its current capacity of 60 million annual passengers.

That won’t be enough. Airport expansion is essential, Erie writes, if the Los Angeles region is truly to become a “leading export-based world trade center,” handling high-tech goods and services that reflect Southern California’s impressive array of research universities and technological institutes. If that cannot happen at LAX, the jobs will move eastward, Erie predicts, to San Bernardino and Riverside counties, where former military airfields are available for expansion and local populations -- at least so far -- are more supportive of growth.

One hundred years ago, it was improbable that the Los Angeles region would become the 10th largest economy in the world. In “Globalizing L.A.,” Erie explains how that happened and then, fingers crossed, offers lessons on how California’s largest and most diverse city and region can keep playing a leading role. *