Los Angeles Following in the Footsteps of Detroit
But the L.A. city council has had too many great issues on its agenda to attend to something so trivial as closing the budget deficit without raising taxes. Last month, for example, it voted to prohibit pet stores from selling dogs that come from breeders. I am the proud owner of a rescued mutt, so I have little interest in obtaining a purebred dog, either now or in the future. But I realize that others do not necessarily share my taste in pets, and as much as I might wish that everyone looking for a dog get one from their local animal shelter or rescue group, some people will only be satisfied with a pedigreed pooch. They should be free to buy one, and people in Los Angeles should be free to sell them one.
And back in May, the city council voted for another, even more annoying restriction on freedom when they banned the use of plastic grocery bags, forcing consumers to pay ten cents each for paper bags or else buy those reusable canvas germ traps. If some pandemic breaks out and claims thousands of lives in Los Angeles, it will probably be traced back to one of those bags that had for too long been rolling around in the back of someone’s Prius.
And while the Los Angeles city council has busied itself with these feel-good examples of utopian legislation, the long, steady decline in crime in the city appears to be coming to an end. Looking at the year-to-date figures as of Nov. 3, the city as a whole has seen crime decline by 0.9 percent from last year. Not the sharp drop-off seen in recent years past but not necessarily a call for alarm, either. But a closer look at the data reveals ominous signs. Part I crime has increased in seven of the LAPD’s 21 patrol divisions, in one case by almost 20 percent. And homicides have increased in ten of those divisions, with three of them up 100 percent or more. The city’s troubled finances have precluded the further expansion of the LAPD, and this, coupled with the early release from state prisons of thousands of convicted felons, will all but guarantee a further rise in crime next year.
In July of last year, Joel Kotkin wrote of L.A.’s decline in the Wall Street Journal. In the article, titled “How L.A. Lost Its Mojo,” Kotkin described the city’s political transformation that has seen power shift from business and homeowner groups to those identified with labor and ethnic solidarity — a shift the current civic leadership openly encourages. That way lies trouble, which is why the Dunphy family decamped for a neighborhood that is clean, safe, affordable, and blessed with good schools. Such neighborhoods, once common in the Los Angeles of my youth, no longer exist there.
So while things in Los Angeles may seem all palmy and nice for the moment, with the sun-drenched landscape unmarred by plastic bags or purebred dogs, it appears to me that Los Angeles is in the early stages of what will be a long, slow, Detroit-like death spiral — an agony I’ll be fortunate enough to witness from out in the suburbs.
We run into quite a few refugees from Los Angeles in our new neighborhood. We have yet to meet a single one who claims to miss it.
So what the author is saying is that Los Angeles is fast becoming San Francisco. That indeed is a tragedy, because San Francisco is the most trivial city in the United States of America. It produces nothing but opinion.
Whichi is too bad because there was a time when San Francisco was a very beautiful city. I’m from the East Bay too, and I left the state in 95. My brother, who still lives out there tells me the city looks as if a bucket of grime has been dumped on it.
grime?..nawwww…that’s from sitting around naked , they’re kinda like dogs scooting along the rug wiping their butts….
“The most trivial city…” That’s a good one. I’ll have to remember that. And don’t forget that there was a time when SF was one of the world’s leading cities in commerce and education. The financial industry for the western half of the U.S. and much of the Pacific Rim was based there prior to about 1960. Stanford University had its roots there. And SF was also one of the world’s leading media cities in the pre-television era.
I’m in the aerospace industry. SoCal, and the L.A. area in particular, was once the world center of aerospace. At one time the area featured important airplane and rocket builders like Douglas, Ryan, Martin, Consolidated (Convair), Lockheed, Northrop, Vought, Standard, and Grumman. More recently Boeing, McDonnell-Douglas, and Rockwell had plants all over the region. Most of those are now closed — run off by high taxes, environmental restrictions, a cost of living that made the region unaffordable for most engineers, a sharp decline in the quality of the area’s universities, and — most importantly — an attitude that actually designing and building things, other than hand-held devices that provide mindless entertainment, is uncool. The entertainment industry has long been hostile to SoCal aerospace and they’ve pretty much gotten their way.
Good to know how hostile SoCal is to aerospace, Dave. I’m going to attempt to get a master’s in engineering (mechanical major, aerospace minor) after my bachelor’s in history has gotten me absolutely nothing. Was planning on staying out of SoCal anyway due to taxes and economy, but nice to know that I wouldn’t be welcome as an engineer anyway.
You should seriously look at getting a degree in petro chemical engineering.
There are a gazillion jobs waiting for those qualified. And just pick a state: Texas, Montana, Oklahoma…the list goes on.
Any STEM discipline is in short supply. For engineering – civil, petrochemical, mining, mechanical. For science – materials science is huge right now.
I am math + physics that has worked my entire career as an electronics systems engineer. I do industrial robots for the last 15 years.
Get out of the deep blue states and come to the red (misnomer) ones for a good lifestyle. Texas is hot, hot, hot. Just do not try and Californicate us.
Interesting that you should caution not to “…Californicate us…”. I’ve heard comments from some people in AZ and NV that Californians get fed up with the political climate in CA, so they leave and go into those states and royally screw them up. They take with them the very liberal ideals they claim to be fleeing, and push them off onto their new locations. So, those states are getting infected and becoming more blue. I’m a conservative surrounded by libs in CA. If I were a resident of those states, that would piss me off, too.
I grew up in Glendora and left in 1993. I remember listening to Aerojet General test fire rockets in the late 50s-early 60s. Those were the day.
I grew up in San Pedro and love it dearly. But I left a long time ago. The city is no longer in safe, caring hands. I presently reside in a central Calif coastal city. Love there too!!
Lots of new style (social and ap) tech companies are in SF. Twitter and Zynga just received forbearance on SF’s 1.5% payroll tax. This will save them both millions of dollars.
The payroll tax applies to stock options where investors reap big rewards if a company hits the big time.
Mayor Ed Lee enriching the top 1% with his cuts. These guys likewise contributed to his campaign.
Actually it is a major producer of perversion and amorality; the medicine of immorality.It is a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah; a location without redeeming virtue. LA, my home town, is sprinting to catch up to Frisco, and hopes to achieve the same level of demonicity ASAP.
One may note the behavioral and attitudinal similarities of the residents in our LAs, SFs, Detroits, DCs, etc., and thus discern the etiology of Evil. What have they in common?
Detroit put a bullet in its head in 1968 and took 30 years to keel over. I was there and driving now through any vector to the the south and east and a good part west and north in LA is a fail zone, menacing, and politically finished. Typical story – a guy comes up to you at a gas station and sticks a gun in your ribs and wants your wallet. Traffic goes by, people around you are pumping gas, too – in broad daylight as they used to say – not anymore because the term is meaningless – anytime, anywhere – you give him the cash, he saunters away and stands waiting for a bus and looks back at you in disgust – $20??? – loser. Hey, sorry, next time I will bring some Bens. Or maybe just take the Sig Sauer from under the seat and casually go over and put a bullet in his ass. No one would much care, or even notice. I love LA.
Why do you mourn for a city that was always overhyped. Riots, earthquakes, gangs, pollution, lousy public transportation, superficial people, corrupt police and I’m just talking about the 60′s and 70′s…..
Because the Bell Tolls for all of us. And we grieve to see the loss of integrity, industry, intelligent design that dominated before the present amorality and consequent animosity took over, maybe in the late fifties.
LA was very different in the thirties and forties. There were always, of course, persons of low character- but they were not in control. As WWII balooned the population and later a de facto open border/amnesty policy prevailed, the majority of the electorate came to consist of irresponsibles. Criminals, the ignorant, racists, tincuppers, dopers, the insane, the intellectually challenged, illegals, decedents, frequent voters, dishonest vote counters, etc.
With criminal personalities in control the city necessarily became, morally, a rotting corpse. As has our entire nation under the monstrous perversion called the Obama Administration and led by the babykilling sodomist-in-chief.
Here in Southeast LA, along the banks of the beautiful LA River, we are awash in corrupt politics.
Bell, California made national news when the LA Times discovered that City Manager Robert Rizzo was making $780,000/year and is expected to reap $13 million in pension benefits. Other city officials were similarly overpayed for a city with only 35,000 population.
Former Southgate Mayor, Albert Robles, is serving 10 years Fed time for corruption. It is widely believed he tried to murder a political rival.
Cudahy mayor David Silva faces 30 years fed time after pleading guilty to corruption and extortion charges. Supervisor Osvaldo Conde faced down the FBI from inside his jewelry store befor surrendering. Conde was an honorary LA County Sherriff. A photo of a buxom party girl wearing Conde’s badge and flashing two pistols shot around the world making tiny Cudahy famous for a day.
Huntington Park Mayor John Noguez ran that city into bankruptcy doling out government contracts to friends. Noguez then ran for LA County Assessor. He immediatly reduced the property taxes of politcal contributors and is now sitting in county jail facing big, big time. The incarcerated Noguez will receive his salary until he is sentenced — $192,000 year for this idiot.
Maywood Police officer Pablo Cunningham busted open a scandal where city officials were getting kickbacks from a towing scam. Pablo was ostricized but did not give a crap, having grown up in Maywood he was loyal to the citiziens. Maywood has since farmed all city services out to other agencies and companies.
This is just a fraction of the filth that goes on in Souteast LA. Go to http://www.watchourcity.com.
Detroit is certainly in a league of its own in terms of the level of decrepitude, brutal criminality, abject filth and decay, utter corruption, and monumental mismanagement due to its majority-minority third-world population. But this country is full of cesspools like Detroit in nearly every state. And these cesspools were responsible for the election of Hussein. Detroit is now the face of the USA. The only way out of this madness for those of us who live in the hinterlands and do not want to devolve into poverty, penury, and outright slavery and serfdom is the nullification and secession movement. We simply must cast off the chains and shackles of these sinks of corruption and rebuild the Constitutional Republic of old that was lost to us by the creatures in the cities.
Agreed. As a resident of the hinterlands, I’m in the process of emotionally divesting myself from the USA. The plight of places like Detroit and LA will hopefully soon have no more resonance with me than Nairobi or Cairo.
You’re gonna love the Founders’ Party…
I lived in the Detroit suburbs most of my adult life; my parents both born and raised in the city. One difference between LA and Detroit is, Detroiters go ballistic whenever an outsider points out the obvious about their city. Unfortunately cities like Detroit (all of Michigan, actually) are stark examples of where we are headed as a nation.
The common thread in these cities are Democrat run state governments and a union dominated business
Chicago (Illinois) has the biggest pension defecit per worker in the country
Los Angeles has the largest unfunded liability by city.
5 of the top 10 unions by population are in California followed by NY Michigan and Ct.
Hostess-General Motors-American Airlines-Chrysler all bankrupt by overpaid union employees
Democrats did it to states and major employers, the country is not far behind
Thank you Barack,Nancy,Harry,Joe,Barney and Frank
The problem with this article is one of the last sentences: “an agony I’ll be fortunate enough to witness from out in the suburbs.”
As a lifelong resident of Detroit, I can attest to the fact that Detroit is the anchor around all Michigan’s necks. As the economy and neighborhoods there rapidly devolves to Mad Max like chaos, businesses (and the jobs they bring) leave. The more dependent on the state Detroit becomes, the more the apathy spreads.
Unfortunately, Detroit’s decline is dragging the rest of the state with it. I see no reason why Los Angeles’s decline won’t do the same to California, especially when LA’s population is at least an order of magnitude greater than Detroit’s.
I fear that “witness”ing from the sidelines won’t be enough to spare you the blight that’s coming your way. Good luck!
I’m watching the chaos this morning from the union strike that has shut down LAX. I imagine that John Wayne and Ontario are making out like bandits. Maybe it’s time for someone to build some terminals at Victorville.
That isn’t even a strike. It is a demonstration by the decertfied union that used to represent some LAX employees. They don’t actually have any legal right to do it, but when Democrats are in charge, nothing a union does is illegal.
Likewise the crap going on with WalMart; none of it is legal protected collective bargaining activity. At most it is a 1st Am. assembly that can’t trespass or disrupt legally. But, the NLRB is just taking its sweet time to order the unions to stop so they get maximum disruption over the Thanksgiving holiday.
I fear that “witness”ing from the sidelines won’t be enough to spare you the blight that’s coming your way. Good luck!
Especially in a state as hostile to gun rights as Crazifornia. (Perhaps current and former cops like Mr. Dunphy are exempt from all those restrictions.) Eventually the zombie hordes are going to invade the suburbs. What will you hold them off with — water hoses?
Much of what Dunphy wrote can also be said about Miami — not unexpected as the population has gone from 90% white to 10% white in less than 50 years. The big difference is that we here in Florida take the 2nd Amendment very seriously, so the zombies would be annihilated. And with both the Everglades and the ocean close by, corpse disposal is not a problem.
After reading this essay, the phrase that comes to mind is “Potemkin village” — a lovely facade concealing the filth and decay behind it. LA and Miami still have theirs for now; Detroit’s crumbled to dust long ago.
“we here in Florida take the 2nd Amendment very seriously”
Just wait until after the Saint Skittles trial of George Zimmerman….Scott is a spineless jerk that will decimate our 2A rights to appease the beasts. And there will be no more “stand your ground” in FlaDuh.
I have a condo in Carrabelle, FL (“a drinking town with a fishing problem…”). In the county next door (Wakullah?) they have range, maintained by the cops that a family can join for less than $50 per year and charges $20 for concealed carry classes. Floridians are serious about the 2nd Amendment.
If you shoot a goblin in Florida, the only thing you’ll get from the cops is a critique on your grouping. The Zimmerman Case is NOT the norm in Florida.
shhh… Don’t mention Carrabelle. Others will show up, take one look around, and want to stay. Ixnay on the arabelleCay, OK?
You’re in the “Redneck Riveria” part of Florida Mr. Horrible! Might as well be south Alabama.
My point is that Scott and his racist State prosecutor will strip the Castle law and stand your ground to it’s bear bones. She already knows how she’s going to paint this picture. Since not one member of the NBPP who put a dead or alive bounty on Zimmerman, was ever arrested…should let you know how it’s going to turn out. And when you have an AG who thinks like Hillary Klinton ( who’s pushing for a UN small arms treaty ) you should be very wary of the forgone outcome.
The racist loons are inside the gate…not at it anymore.
Don’t get cocky, kid.
The court cases that one by one drove California down, down, down weren’t the norm in the Golden State, either. But now they’re precedent.
P.S. A bit of advice; don’t let no Texans into your state. Dust Bowlers in the 1930s, oil busters in the 1980s – they migrated to California and those Fuxans screwed it.
This is happening everywhere. It is easier for politicians to get elected if they have dependents than constituents. Be it welfare or race, if a politician can make someone dependent on them, things will go down hill from there. As the pandering increases so do the taxes to pay for it, thus squeezing out the productive classes. Things then follow the pattern of Detroit and LA. I live in a small, Eastern city and it is happening here as well. It’s not bad enough to flee yet, but it won’t be much longer.
I’ll witness LA’s continued march to decline from about 1,600 miles away, thank you very much. Detroit is about 100 miles and too damn close.
You didn’t move far enough. Good luck.
The destruction of America, like termites eating a house except maybe faster.
As an architect working mostly in LA for nearly 40 years, I can tell you almost all of LA’s wounds are self inflicted.
Up until the rise of Silicon Valley in the early 70″s, LA was the entrepreneurial capital of the World. It was an idea and manufacturing hothouse. Not only that, LA had the best educational system, the most educated workforce, the best transportation system, the most functional and most affordable housing ( LA was the first suburban major city) as well being the center of both the entertainment and defense industries. And it had, ( and still does have) great weather, the beach, the mountains, and the desert to boot.
And then the corrupt, power mad politicians threw it all away.
Where once LA was the ultimate free thinking, can do City, now it is the youhadbetternotdothat or you’llbearrested City,
Where once, it had the best educated workforce, now arguably it has the least educated, functionally illiterate workforce in the nation .
Where once, it had the marvel of transportation systems, now it approaches daily gridlock.
Where once housing prices were below average with the latest of housing innovations, now housing prices are way beyond what the middle class can afford.
Where once there was a massive defense industry presence, now there are only small remnants of that once great industry.
Where once there were the workforce, transportation system, regulatory regime, housing and manufacturing facilities infrastructure to support an entrepreneurial giant, now it nearly impossible to start new enterprises on any large scale here. Regulations do not permit it, Taxes and utilities are way too high. There is no space for those activities anymore. No housing for an educated workforce, and a workforce that doesn’t speak or read English.
LA still has natural advantages few places can match, but in a recent survey ranking cities with the best employment opportunities , among major metropolitan areas LA was almost at the the very bottom, only barely edging out Sacramento, Detroit and Oakland as the major city with the least opportunities.
This all happened because of CRONY SOCIALISM, pushed on us by the Unions and the Democrats. Yep, the same Snake Oil Lord Buraq Hussein is pushing. Watch out America. The Crony Socialists now have their sights on you! What happened here can easily happen where you live.
Bravo for your insights and well-researched opinion.
Of course LA was fine in the seventies and eighties. The whole economy was being subsidized by military spending. What you had was Uncle Sam’s open checkbook that was demanding things like anti-nuke systems and stealth bombers costing 2.2 billion a pop.
That’s not a criticism of military spending it was the cold war and the plan was to outspend the Soviets. The result was a demand for skilled labor, that created good paying jobs. Moreover, these jobs weren’t subject to globalization since they needed to be on American soil.
The overwhelming reality is that unions or not it makes little sense to hire anyone in America at $7 or $10 when you can get labor for $2 or 3$ in Mexico or China or wherever. You might get a bunch of “feel good” hipsters to convince people to spend exorbitantly priced t-shirts, everyone else is gonna buy them 6 to a pack for three bucks from China.
There has been an exodus of manufacturing, and defense. To say that Dems and social progressives “took over” isn’t the truth so much as there was a huge economic vacuum and no way to plug that hole.
Nonsense. Defense contractors aren’t the only employers to back away from LA by any means. To talk of “military money” in such derogatory terms only reveals you as a liberal dove mush head.
Can’t see anything derogatory about my remarks. Companies like Northrop, Lockheed and others had provided employment for engineers and other skilled labor. Those types of jobs created a steady tax base.
When military spending cuts came it was a blow to that tax base.
Most of that tax base still exists, Lefty, but now resides in states whose Senators aren’t named Feinstein-D, SF and Boxer-D, Marin County.
Try again.
LA had a big furniture and clothing industry.
Near right from the late 1600s America attracted skilled and not skilled labor with higher pay rates and lower cost living and low/little government. The War of 1812 was partly about British sailors jumping to serve on higher paying American ships. Even slavery was a way to get around the high cost of American labor
Since the economic structure was basically labor and capital, profits could be spent on labor more. There wasn’t as in Europe a large government with legions of bureaucrats sucking up wealth. With little government, business was free to innovate, so not only did we build our cities, roads but we built industries and advanced past the high cost, high bureaucratic Europe. We were kind of the China of our time, but with out the socialist party baggage. But that was then.
Now the only thing that thrives, for now, is the state, the new royalty, and it’s minions.
Like most big East Coast and Midwest big cities (I live 35 miles north of Baltimore) feel-good legislation and nonsensical pandering to groups who demand everything and produce nothing, the industrious move elsewhere, taking tax dollars with them and sensible pro-business attitudes that produce employment with them. What’s left is minority groups with little experience in capitalism who elect their own to governance. They end up with exactly the opposite of what it takes to create urban areas that are vibrant and rich. Look at Cleveland,Richmond, Baltimore, Philly, Chicago, etc. The list is long. The prospects are dim.
You’re right. What’s also interesting is how they try to fix the problems. They try doing things like bringing in “performing arts” centers and programs and gentrifying certain areas to try to lure in people with higher incomes or “creative” types. At the same time they are increasing taxes to pay for these things as well as cover the social services expenses.
What they don’t really do is doing what counts: bringing in business and improving the schools. If there are no jobs, particularly those above service sector jobs, and the schools stink, you aren’t going to get middle and upper income people to move in. Around here several starter families have moved in, spent a few years then moved out as their children reached kindergarten age.
We do get some other middle class families, usually just couples without kids and without intention of having any. Most of them are also government workers, mostly federal. You can also tell their houses by driving around: they are the only ones with money enough to do extensive upgrades and remodels. All us civilians are just keeping the places up. They typically also get new cars every year or two while everyone else has older models. By the same token, businesses in the government districts are doing fine, but a block away are rows of empty storefronts.
All part of their game: government looks out for itself and to heck with the kulaks and proles.
Therefore, it is not difficult to understand why people such as myself moved to country areas where the values are old-fashioned, people are respectful of each other because they’re not on top of each other, and the nightly TV crime reports of what mayhem takes place within the city limits and those communities that are adjacent to it offers a daily reminder of why we weren’t so crazy to leave the insanity in the first place.
I grew up in Orange County, CA and the blight has taken over most of the north part of it, where I lived. Now I live in Calaveras County; decidedly rural (1000 sq/mi, about 50,000 total population) with local headlines to match. My favorite “news stories” revolve around escaped livestock causing traffic hazards. It’s a whole different way of life.
Obama was re-elected to fix the “urban problem” by sticking it to the 53% in the burbs, and resuming the bleeding of the middle class to keep the Democrat utopian dream alive.
………(I live 35 miles north of Baltimore)……….
York, Pa?
I spent 3.5 years 35 miles west of Baltimore near Frederick(until 2008), and it really illuminated the struggles of Baltimore. The cries of city vs county, the clawing at outer ringed suburbs for tax revenue (and at the state level, cigs went up $2 a pack in 2007 or so), the shrieks of “racism!” whenever a city based program was shy of funding, etc……
It sickened me, and I was glad I did not choose to live near it all, but out in Frederick county cow country, with genuine friendly folks as neighbors I was able to easily develop trust in.
I can only imagine what L.A. and its near surrounds is like.
As a lanzmen, I wish you safety. Heterogeneous societies don’t work; that’s why Israel was founded. That’s why the USA is failing.
L.A.’s plight can be seen in cities, large and small, all throughout the country where crony socialism, identity politics, crime, and welfare dependency have ruined once-vibrant urban centers. From L.A., San Francisco, and Oakland in the west to New York, Newark, and Baltimore in the east, to Detroit, Chicago, and Cleveland in between, urban areas have become sinkholes of corruption, crime and poverty, dragging down their respective states. I live about 35 miles south of Chicago but I refuse to go into the city anymore (fortunately, I have few relatives living there anymore). While Chicago has some great cultural attractions – the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Art Institute, Navy Pier, the Museum of Science and Industry, the Shedd Aquarium – it’s just too expensive and dangerous to visit.
I’m another LA resident for many years and I know I should leave, and I’ve been working towards that goal for some time, and yet … my question is why anyone would leave LA and yet stay in California, most of the problems are state problems. Of course the problem problem is that most of the problems are also national problems, and for that matter international problems. Still, barring interplanetary options, I should find me a red state and vamoose there.
Um, why did I start this post, oh yeah, wanted to point out that the big errors were made 30+ years ago, when illegal immigration started to soar, the city and county has been utterly deficient in not just urban planning but even code development and enforcement forever, and maybe there are no good solutions anyway. It is a nice place to live, and too many people are now here doing so.
Still, some of this has stuttered along a bit better in recent years, the trolley lines may help a bit, and the subway, due for completion in only another 30 years or so, and maybe it will even connect to LAX by that time. For that matter higher gas prices help reduce traffic somewhat, though the reality is that with no real options it can’t help that much.
But no large business will establish in Los Angeles now and hardly any in California. We are supporting a huge illegal immigrant class that costs money. We are going down the tubes.
And the Big Earthquake will arrive at some point, that’s if Mammoth Mountain doesn’t blow and turn half the state into a sterilized, fossilized Pompeii overnight.
And so, I ask for your vote as the Director of PR for the LA Chamber of Commerce.
The built a rail line between the main train station and Philly International in the 80′s. We call it the Ghost Line. The empty cars roll back and forth all day, every day, empty, but for a very few airport employees catching connecting rides back to the neighborhoods.
That kind of transportation boondoggle seems to be in lots of places now. In the Ohio county where I grew up, a publicly-funded bus service has been in place for years, with full-sized buses that are almost always empty, or with a couple passengers at most.
But hey, its “going green,” so the local Democrat officials and bureaucrats feel great about themselves.
Big government specializes in waste, fraud and misdirected public investment. It perverts everything until one day you find yourself standing in line for three hours just to buy a loaf of bread or two left shoes of the wrong size. But at least you can find an empty seat on the bus to get there.
The whole situation is a real black hole.
I could have written this piece with my home City of Brotherly Love, Philly, as the subject. It all ended in the 80′s when, after the election of W. Wilson Goode, it was anounced, “The brothers are in charge now.” The bombing of a square block of West Philly followed in the attempt to deal with the radical MOVE group, since then anyone still able to spell and cipher has exited to the burbs. Imagine a 7% payroll tax for the privilege of being robbed on your front stoop. Only last year a student was beaten to death only steps from Independence Hall, the very birthplace of liberty.
Democrats. They ain’t the party of the working man anymore. Quite the contrary.
At least in Philadelphia and Detroit you can get a handgun carry permit. Not so in LA.
Some serious rambling: I was born and raised in San Diego and one day I noticed that the Mexican neighborhoods were getting larger and larger and the white neighborhoods were getting smaller and more costlier and then one day I went traveling through old haunts scattered throughout various southwestern states and I noticed the same demographic problematical phenomenon happening throughout these regions, namely that the white population was getting smaller and smaller and that that Mexican, black and Chinese populations were growing exponentially. so after many hours of thought and years of witnessing these trends I finally figured out the root cause of America’s problems, and that being that the white people are all dieing off with their planned parenthoods of two children and countless abortions. The university meme of white guilt about how Anglos (white men) are the imperialist causes of the worlds problems has taken hold on the minds of the white youth and pummeled them into psychological submission to the Hollywood and homosexual agenda which has made it their business to legislate further illegalities to behaving like a normal homo erectus. Ah, I’ll quit now I need a beer. But the point is that white people have committed suicide with over 50 million abortions since the 1970s. 50 million abortions translates to 300 million population loss among white people.
I’ll take the Chinese and other Asians any day. I grew up around lots of them out here in Orange County in the 80s and 90s, and they learn English. The children of the immigrants get highly paid professional jobs, and readily intermarry with Caucasians. I’ve dated Asian girls, and let me tell you they almost never get fat.
The blacks and hispanics instead embraced racial politics and look where it got them. Most of their young men don’t work but instead sell drugs or get free room and board at the Musick or Santa Ana Jail. The young women have illegitimate children and are on welfare (and tend to be extremely fat). This happens across generations, which also tends to be about 15 years.
21 yo AA female came into the office for a pregnancy test, which was positive. Talked with her about stopping drugs, alcohol and tobacco, all of which she was using. The patient was concerned about her pregnancy. Her mother’s only concern was getting a copy of something proving she was pregnant, so the patient could get welfare.
My roots are in a small southern town. Its population has dropped from ca. 5000 to ca. 3200 in the last couple of decades, and most people are now blacks living in public housing and living on welfare. The mayor is an attractive black woman, the second black mayor. Upon getting elected, she doubled her salary (to $50K) while almost eliminating the budget for the police department — it’s not quite clear whether she can issue an executive order eliminating the police department, but no one is holding his/her breath on that one. What anyone with a bank account is doing is getting the hell out of Dodge. It’s Detroit in a small southern town: skyrocketing taxes, increasing numbers of public employees and a collapse of public services.
So I guess, as the Progressives will point out, all of the racist misogynists are leaving town.
Just come on down and move in with us Mexicans. The money you save on housing can pay for private schools for your kids. Problem solved plus they will be sure to get an A in Spanish class. Problem solved. We ain’t that bad.
Any abortion makes me sad — any ethnicity.
Promiscuity is the door to abortion. Hollywood makes promiscuity look cool. Abortion does not empower young women. Abstinence until marriage does. I think there is some adage about the cow and free milk.
I guess I am out of step with the culture.
sounds like a good deal. Can we be friends? Love good Mexican quisine; can’t bear much of the music, however.
Meant this as a reply to #18-James Just.
Sorry for confusion.
When L.A. gets to the point where even churches have to install burglar bars on their windows, then it will officially be Detroit with sunshine.
And the common denominator is?
The few, the proud, the endangered species, the native Californian! Second generation Angeleno makes you like a Mayflower descendant, “fer sure.”
Here in Alameda County, we just narrowly defeated a measure that would have made a 25-year half-cent sales tax boost for “transportation” permanent, as well as adding yet another half-cent for some years. Of course, “transporation” has very little to do with catching up on roadway deferred maintenance. And the defeat was just narrowly.
Still, the two-thirds majorities in both houses of the State Legislature just voted in for the Democrats makes me fear for what will happen to Prop. 13′s protection of long-time property owners. Should it be wiped out, my property taxes would double, and I have no idea where I’d get the money to cover that.
As for Los Angeles in its current state dragging all of California down, well, that might not be my problem after the California Civil War of 2024.
I love your essays; too bad they always seem to sadden me.
Don’t worry – they’ll just keep re-writing the legislation until it’s passd. I’m from the East bay and I don’t know HOW many times we voted down this bill or that bill – all the same bill, actually – just rewritten…….until it either passed or they just decided to take it out of our hands altogether and silence our voice forever by passing it by fiat.
I gave up and left.
The ban on pet stores selling ‘new’ dogs is only the latest step in the LA war on pet breeding. Impossible breeder licensing schemes (even for hobbyists), limits on breeding, have been progressing there now for a decade or more. It’s a nationwide trend, driven by the money so many of us give to the Humane Society of the U.S. to support their campaign for exactly these laws. No they don’t give it to local animal shelters — less than 1% of HSUS income actually cares for any animal.
Nationwide, but LA’s in the lead. The city council imagines that people who can’t get a breeder puppy (they’re not all purebred!) will get a shelter dog instead but that’s less likely than that the latest tax increase will balance the budget. When did it get to be uncool to find out how a proposed ordinance has worked in other places before passing it in your own city? (Hint: Animal rightists LIE; you have to actually do the research if you want the answer.)
LA’s among the leaders in the American anti-freedom movement. I grew up in Anaheim and I shake my head in wonder now at those memories: Such a boyhood would be impossible today, anywhere in the U.S. What would I have become without it? And what will today’s youth be like? Will growing up without freedom make them love it or will they be as unconcerned as LA’s city council?
These are the most interesting years of my life and I think some excitement may be expected.
From LA to Detroit, and everywhere between and beyond. The Niagara river looks fairly placid up to a mile or so from the falls. We’re not on a journey to the sea, we’re about to go over the $16,000,000,000,000+++ debt falls. It’s going to come suddenly, things will look OK until one day they aren’t.
Democrats See “B l a c k s” as “Useful Idiots”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UObEdF_uhaw&feature=player_embedded
I don’t think LA will decline to the level of Detroit. LA will decline to the level of a typical Latin American metropolis (e.g., Mexico City). As the majority of LA’s residents will be Latin Americans, they will replicate in LA their home cities’ culture and characteristics – both good and bad. There will be considerable poverty, crime, and corruption. It won’t be a particularly nice place to live, but it won’t be Detroit either.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha….
I live north of Detroit and was raised in the city until my parents moved me out.
Everything is free in the city, even the shootings, rapes and theft.
The ghetto rats would sell their mama if they could scam something for nothing.
I now have 3 years worth of freeze dry food, water filtration, kerosene for light and wood for heat. I’ve stocked in 3000 rounds of ammo, night vision and am a skilled marksman. I’m ready for the coming upheaval.
G-d speed to all.
Despite all of the clear thinking that dwells in the comments section of PJMedia, the voting public perhaps ignored the cogent advice that is disseminated from the columnist’s and the commenters here, and determined to vote for the CIC (Cheater in Chief).
Well, we’re just going to have to suck it up and go on this magical mystery tour with Obama and the Kool-aid populous and as R. Limbaugh calls them the “woefully uninformed”.
My guess, is that each city will manifests its own “inner Detroit”. LA I see as a vengeful place that would implode upon itself after a brutal natural disaster to kick start things off. Miami the same, and probably Seattle and San Fran also.
Minneapolis and Boston lean more towards a racially based incident bringing forth some subtly hidden gargoyles waiting to express subterranean but known passions.
Baltimore and Washington DC have some interesting dichotomies as compared too Balt & DC, their inner Detroit is black on black racial violence leading to out of control inner cities that have histories of ineffectual leadership at the local level . Struggling to prevent spiraling crime and a appalling youth unemployment rate. Ditto Philadelphia.
The Southern US outside of Fla, I’m chastened to remark, I don’t know it well. This I do know, the history of the US has been extra ordinarily peaceful since the 1970′s. As far as internecine warfare goes not since the
Civil War. The threats and the allusions that drip drip drip from the keyboards and mouths of so many frustrated souls is not a good omen.
My disposition is to dwell upon conspiracy. Fascinatingly, their is lately more to attract my attention to this affliction than a Kennedy assassination buff on 11/22/…… oh my its that anniversary!!! Again.
Violence, murder, mayhem. mystery. Let us be careful of those things we wish. They’re are forces that accommodate such wishes.
Despite all of the clear thinking that dwells in the comments section of PJMedia, the voting public perhaps ignored the cogent advice that is disseminated from the columnist’s and the commenters here, and determined to vote for the CIC (Cheater in Chief).
Well, we’re just going to have to suck it up and go on this magical mystery tour with Obama and the Kool-aid populous and as R. Limbaugh calls them the “woefully uninformed”.
My guess, is that each city will manifests its own “inner Detroit”. LA I see as a vengeful place that would implode upon itself after a brutal natural disaster to kick start things off. Miami the same, and probably Seattle and San Fran also.
Minneapolis and Boston lean more towards a racially based incident bringing forth some subtly hidden gargoyles waiting to express subterranean but known passions.
Baltimore and Washington DC have some interesting dichotomies as compared too Minneapolis & Boston, their inner Detroit is black on black racial violence leading to out of control inner cities that have histories of ineffectual leadership at the local level . Struggling to prevent spiraling crime and a appalling youth unemployment rate. Ditto Philadelphia.
The Southern US outside of Fla, I’m chastened to remark, I don’t know it well. This I do know, the history of the US has been extra ordinarily peaceful since the 1970′s. As far as internecine warfare goes not since the
Civil War. The threats and the allusions that drip drip drip from the keyboards and mouths of so many frustrated souls is not a good omen.
My disposition is to dwell upon conspiracy. Fascinatingly, their is lately more to attract my attention to this affliction than a Kennedy assassination buff on 11/22/…… oh my its that anniversary!!! Again.
Violence, murder, mayhem. mystery. Let us be careful of those things we wish. They’re are forces that accommodate such wishes. Corrected.
The story is not about a city in decline. That’s the conclusion. The real story was in the spate of poor decisions that led to the conclusion, and that story is a combination of political exploitation and the impact of a “progressive” ideology.
How concerned can a city council be about funding when it subsidizes Occupy to the tune of millions?
“Los Angelinos” are like people in Detroit in one important way — both chose to flush their city down the toilet in exchange for benefits promised by what they should have known were corrupt politicians.
Forget LA; I don’t understand why they still choose to live in California, after all we (and they) know.
give California back to Mexico. Surgery is the only cure for the gangrene that might infect the rest of the country
Oh, they’d probably want all of Greater Mexico back. That includes Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Montana, Colorado, New Mexico, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming…
Pennsylvania’s “emergency” tax on alcohol, to help clear up the diaster of th Johnstown flood is still on the books. “Nuf said?”.