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| Downtown West L.A. still hanging on |
No doubt excessive homelessness and crime
can destroy towns and cities, but are they the cause of urban deterioration today,
like many argue? I have no more
experience in urban planning or law enforcement than most Americans. I’m not a
sociologist or an environmentalist. I'm a raconteur, so my imagination is always in high gear.
I live a few miles from the coast, in the
western part of Los Angeles, where the weather is moderate most of the year and
the homeless tend to gravitate. They build encampments on the streets and in
parks. Eventually, city workers come in with trucks, displace the homeless, and
clean up the mess left behind. In no time, they return with new encampments. Some
cities are more lenient than others. Before long, the city comes in again and
cleans the area, a game of cat and mouse.
I’ve driven and walked the streets of my
community for decades. I haven’t personally experienced any violent crime, knock
on wood. I once witnessed a teenager run out of a liquor store, the clerk hot
on his heels. The thief got away. Another time, I drove past a convenience store
after a local kid had been shot by another kid. Once I had to confront a vagrant who came at me with a threatening look on his face. Other than that, my experience
with street crime is only what I see reported on television news, robberies, kidnappings,
vandalism, and homicides, often domestic, sometimes random but not usually.
We know the media have always hyped bad
news, whether a storm, homicide, roving gangs on motorcycles, or war, to get more eyeballs on the television the next
night. Today, TV viewership is dwindling. More Americans get their news on the
Internet or their favorite cable station. Many have just stopped caring and don't watch, at all. It’s
hard to know if life in America is as bad as we hear or as bad as politicians tell
us when they’re running for office or blaming the last political party. Illegal immigration and runaway crime have
always been hot-button issues for political campaigns.
The day-to-day reality is different. Each
afternoon, I stop by the neighborhood park to walk my dog. One evening, police
chased a man wielding a knife through the park, one incident in twenty-five
years. Normally, I watch teenagers and young adults of all ethnicities playing
basketball and children enjoying the swings and jungle gym. Yet, if I watch the news,
I hear the U.S. is so racially polarized, people don’t even talk to each other.
Of course, I live in fairly integrated
neighborhood, solidly working-class. A few blocks north, it’s upper middle-class.
We have nice parks, a lot of trees and clean air, because of the afternoon
ocean breezes. On weekends, African Americans and Latinos from farther east
come in, set up their cooking gear, and celebrate birthdays and holidays. I have never seen a
fight or an awkward incident, even when the park is packed with people. Now, I’m
not saying crime doesn’t happened, bad stuff. I just wonder if it’s as bad as
politicians and the news report it.
I remember, back in 2010. I was visiting
my granddaughter at her university campus just outside a small Connecticut town
of about 120,000 people, founded in 1686 and incorporated as a city in the 19th
century, a lot of history and beautiful architecture. When my granddaughter was
in class, I’d cruise the town’s hilly neighborhoods, tree-lined streets, picturesque,
right out of a postcard, except for downtown, which had fallen on hard times.
So many old, familiar stores had closed,
taken over by tattoo parlors, souvenir shops, insurance companies, cellphone
repair stores, and a few clothing stores fighting to survive the urban blight.
The old bank and city hall were still there.
It was spring, still cold bur warming. In
the center of town, homeless people and edgy youngsters sat around smoking
cigarettes and talking. I parked my car and got out to walk around. It never
felt dangerous, just depressing to realize how beautiful the town must have
once been.
I got to talking to people on the streets, the town's folk. I introduced myself as a visitor. Delicately, I asked how the
downtown area had changed over the years. I hinted at homelessness and crime as the possible
culprits. People said the center’s decline had nothing to do with either. They
blamed the decline on the opening of the large, new indoor mall just outside of
town. People stopped shopping and eating in the stores and cafes downtown. Everybody
rushed to the mall where they could buy whatever they needed, cheaper, and where local
kids found jobs. They claimed the vagrants, homeless, and crime started after
people abandoned downtown, and sleezy businesses picked up places for cheap rent. The cops stopped patroling downtown and switched to the mall.
At the time, I remember thinking what a
loss to the community. It wasn’t hard to imagine how charming the downtown must
have once been, and what did it mean for old, outdoor shopping areas back home, like the
popular Santa Monica Promenade, downtown West Los Angeles, and the Westwood
Village, which were still thriving. I hated to think that this small
Connecticut town might be a precurser for what was to come, a slow movement
west. So far, our outdoor spaces had survived the large indoor malls, like in Sherman Oaks, the
Westside Pavilion, and the Fox Hills Mall, plenty of shopping and entertainment
for everyone.
Today, things are beginning to change, our own urban blight. Are we becoming like that small Connecticut town. The Santa Monica
Promenade and the Westwood Village are barely hanging on, stores and
restaurants shuttered and closed. The crowds stay away at night, no longer coming
by to walk about or enjoy the music buskers and street performers. Rough-looking characters have moved in and crime is on the rise. Residents in Santa
Monica say the City Council has lost control, uncertain what to do.
Entrance to the old Santa Monica Pier (Daniel Alonzo)
I saw it, firsthand, as I walked through
the Westwood Village a few weeks ago. Business had been slow for years, but
when I saw the Fox and Bruin Theaters had been shuttered, two icons of Westwood
entertainment, where Hollywood held premiers and the streets glowed with
celebrities, the decline was evident. So many storefronts posted “Closed,”
signs. Popular stores had shut their doors. The finest restaurants were gone.
The only places crowded were Chick-Filet, In ‘N Out, and Starbucks.
The once-booming Santa Monica Promenade
was worse. On some evenings, the old promenade, famous for drawing crowds going
back to the 1920s, looked abandoned. The three movie theaters are still up and
running. Homeless people sit in corners or on bus benches. Shoppers don’t
feel safe. Thieves break into businesses, at will, but are they the problem or
the consequences of the problem? The shooting deaths of one or two European
tourists over the past years haven’t helped.
Some business owners say homelessness
and crime are disturbing. They hurt business, but they’re easy fixes. The city can hire more police to
patrol the area or post security guards at store entrances, but the real
problem is shoppers no longer need to leave the comfort of their living rooms
to make purchases and have the items delivered to their doorsteps in a day, or
hours, in some cases. Bookstores became the victim years ago. When Bezos can get you a book at half price and deliver it to your doorstep in a day, that's progress.
The gigantic indoor malls didn’t have
homelessness or crime, but they’re suffering the same decline in shoppers as
the outdoor promenades and downtowns. When the Westside Pavillion shuttered its
mall, Google was there to scoop it up. Somewhere, in complex negotiations, UCLA
stepped in and ended up with the property. There was neither crime nor homeless
in the malls, so then what?
What about technology, like Amazon, online
purchasing, food services, music streaming, and the latest movies on television
– to order? Who knows, as television screens get larger and speakers more potent,
maybe the movie experience is just as good from home, entertainment at a touch of a finger. It’s not just Amazon or the other shopping services increasing
but so are people’s homes. Everywhere I look in my neighborhood, I see old two
and three-bedroom stucco homes being demolished and replaced by enormous five-bedroom
homes with very little outdoor yard space, mega homes and mini yards. It’s become an anomaly to see kids
playing outdoors. If they are, they’re usually on their phones.
The times are definitely changing, and I
can’t say for the worse. Who knows for sure? I do know our environment and landscape
are changing. Kids today have no idea what it was like to come home from school,
jump on bikes, and ride to their friends’ homes, pick them up, and head out to
the park to play basketball, flag football, or a game of “over-the line.”
Whatever is coming, I don’t think it’s
healthy or truthful to put the blame entirely on vagrants, immigrants, or crime. Blame progress, whether you like it or not, the world is transitory. Like the sage sang back in the Sixties, “Your old road is rapidly agin’/ Please
get out of the new one if you can’t lend a hand/ For the times they are a
changing.”
