What makes a city fly apart? It’s not yet clear: Urbanologists don‘t have many precedents. Just as it pioneered so many other lifestyle innovations — swimming-pool-centered apartment complexes, muscle-toned surf bunnies, Kung Pao pizza, free alternative weeklies and an NFL-free major metro area — Los Angeles is now contemplating the self-inflicted mode of urban disintegration […]
Category: LA Weekly
The Lakers Lesson
So when was the last time you saw Los Angeles happy?I mean, happy like it was happy Friday morning, when the big guys, Shaq and his titanic pals, trundled down Figueroa Street, not in sumptuous convertibles like a bunch of mere astronauts, but atop double-decker sightseeing buses.And the crowd went wild but in a nice […]
Health-System Meltdown
CAN HEALTH CARE FOR THE POOR AS IT NOW exists be saved in Los Angeles County?The answer looks like “no.” Even the Department of Health Services’ (DHS) usual strong supporters — Supervisor Gloria Molina, for instance — seem resigned to an “inevitable” downsizing that will make for longer lines at fewer facilities. Or as the […]
Sickness and Subways
One thing was made perfectly clear from the Shock Corridor reductions of Los Angeles County health care last week: providing health care for this region’s needy is not a problem that can be handled, ultimately, on either the state or local level.The Board of Supervisors last week tentatively voted to knock $57 million and 5,000 […]
A Platter of Prejudice
Way back in the ’60s, those with entry-level salaries, including me, had our own Great Good Place in New York‘s Chinatown. Lin’s Garden offered the best Big Apple Cantonese — fried-duck won ton soup and beef-with-black-bean-sauce kind of stuff — I‘ve ever had. All for upward of 85 cents per magnanimous portion. The stuff was […]
County Sneaks Through Museum Rebuild Proposal
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors this week voted unanimously to authorize a $250 million bond initiative that would enhance fire and seismic safety at the two major county museums. Sources confirmed that the initiative also could provide the lion’s share of funding for the controversial proposed $200 million Rem Koolhaas reconstruction of the […]
News From Up North
PARIS IS A CITY OF THE NORTH, LOCATED ALONG THE SAME 49TH PARALLEL that forms the U.S.-Canada border. That’s why, in mid-July, you still need your sunglasses at 9 p.m. and twilight waits until 10:30 to conquer the day. During their warm and blessed 10-hour summer afternoons, couples and families cluster in the parks and […]
Cooley Cops Out
It’s no longer up to Steve, our almost brand-new district attorney, who last week formally abandoned any further interest in the Rampart-area police-corruption cases. These are the very cases, you‘ll recall, whose neglect helped Steve Cooley beat incumbent Gil Garcetti in last year’s election. Too bad about that. Many, many voters expected much more.Cooley himself […]
The Battle for Tujunga
It‘s important to realize that the impossible diversity of L.A.’s 2nd Council District came about 15 years ago as a move aimed at dumping Joel Wachs. The suave, cosmopolitan Wachs was seldom popular with his council colleagues. And never less so than in 1986, when the death of Councilman Howard Finn during a planning hearing […]
L.A.’s Watchdog
Maybe it was simply that in the end, she had to fight her way into a job she‘d planned to walk into — unchallenged — in this year’s election. But Laura Chick came out swinging and won big. Now, Los Angeles‘ new controller has managed to land some hard punches in her first 100 days […]