Posted on 07/29/2011 7:35:46 PM PDT by ken21
Los Angeles today is a city in secular decline. Its current political leadership seems determined to turn the sprawling capitalist dynamo into a faux New York. But they are more likely to leave behind a dense, government-dominated, bankrupt, dysfunctional, Athens by the Pacific.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Mexico with legacy infrastructure.
democrats destroy everything they touch
“But they are more likely to leave behind a dense, government-dominated, bankrupt, dysfunctional, Athens by the Pacific”
Make that a Detroit by the Pacific.
if you type the title into your search engine,
the whole article comes up.
Sounds like Mexicans?
Los Angeles could never be a NYC
I don’t have an opinion on whether LA might have/could have escaped the general downturn in the economy.
I remember moving to Los Angeles in the early 80’s. It was impossible to remain unemployed if you wanted to work, had some skill at some damn thing, and were interested enough in something to show up on time without being under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Business was booming and money was running ankle deep in the streets. Some of that, I am sure, was due to the economic forces unleashed by Reaganomics.
By the mid to late 90’s, the aerospace industry had simply vanished from LA...as the article said, roughly 500K defense jobs disappeared. I remember it well, it was staggering. Perhaps more staggering was the sheer numbers of people employed in every imaginable phase of defense work...purchasing, QC, small metals shops, electronics, anything you can imagine and some you can’t. Gone, gone gone. That was my first experience with “foreclosure town”; when Hughes aircraft left (they had 100K employees in LA) and folks in Lancaster/Palmdale and Antelope Valley just had all the economic justification for the existence of where they lived vanish.
When people say “Los Angeles” there is the downtown area, located within say a mile radius of the “Superman” building = old City Hall. There were a modest (not large) number of corporate HQs around there, but it was largely much like the NYC garment district. Thousands of clothing mfrs, rather seedy. But as seedy as it was, it was vibrant in its seedy way. Except for a court appearance, one could spend most of their life in LA and never go downtown unless you were involved in arcane industrial things. Most people lived then and live now in the outlying areas; the Valley, the Westside, the beaches, Hollywood/Burbank, and then east...Covina and all the way out to San Bernardino.
IMO, cities like Los Angeles are destined to become “no go” zones. I surely miss the entrepreneurial vibe of LA, the “brushes with greatness” and the wonderfully sordid history of the place. And out at the beach, there’s still that nice ocean air.
He relentlessly villifies anyone who criticizes the Mexican illegal invasion, continuously sneers at the former American working and middle class that used to dominate Northern Orange County and the San Fernando valley.
If the place is in decline it's because of sick trash like him.
So all this is just CYA, because everyone else told him it would end like this.
They gave their soul to the devil. They didn’t even sell it.
We have Mr. Bush 41 to thank for that.
Go ahead groupies, have at it...but that's what he did.
As did Mr. Nixon between '69 and 71.
With friends like the RINOs, who needs enemies?
yes, i was here in the ‘60s and most of the time from the ‘80s and california offered jobs and opportunities galore.
that atmosphere is gone.
there seems to be a deliberate democrat “deindustrialization” of california.
governor scharznegger hid for 2 years a ucla study that claimed
over regulation cost businesses $500 billion per year.
in my area companies are fleeing california for other states and mexico.
yes, i don’t agree with kotkin.
but this article is ok.
“It is uncertain if Los Angeles will experience the Sunshine Revolution it so desperately needs.”
I’m certain. LA (California in general) is in the toilet. If you want to work, it’s time to head for Texas. If you’re retired, think Arizona or Nevada.
Good advice on the whole, but Nevada is doing even worse than Los Angeles.
socialism always does that.
Look at Detroit.
Agreed Nevada economy is terrible, but for retirees it eats California’s lunch. I also suspect Nevada’s economy will come back when the rest of the country perks up (let’s say soon after the 2012 election). Meanwhile California has made its own death bed.
On a recent trip to LA we hit a Colombian restaurant in a section of town that could have been in Mexico City. We didn’t have any issues or anything, it simply felt like another country. It was like living in South Florida again instead of Arizona. I could go without English in SoFlo until I had to work. LA has much of the same thing. In many areas, it’s not America.
In our small city, north of LA in the central valley, there are parts of town that look just like Tijuana. You won’t hear a word of English. Good places to get shot too.
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