Los Angeles Is Dying

I found the thought intriguing. Apparently, Los Angeles is such a mess that it might not be ready to host the World Cup next year.

Natalie Jean Beisner reports on Twitter:

Karen Bass says the city is covered in graffiti—far more than just a few blocks. The vandalism is so extensive, she says the city won’t be ready to host the World Cup, and she’s calling all hands on deck—including non-city employees and the public—to clean up the graffiti. But LA city officials had it under control, right? They don’t need assistance, right? It’s all peaceful demonstrations, right?

One is naturally concerned about the current state of Los Angeles. What has progressive governance, on the state and local levels, done to a once-great city? In effect, according to Joel Kotkin, hosting the World Cup is the least of the city’s problems.

Happily, or, not so happily, Kotkin anatomizes of the city’s failure.

Rather than a model for the future, Los Angeles today offers a masterclass in urban dysfunction. Drive through the streets of the South Side or along Central Avenue – historically black LA’s main thoroughfare, now predominantly Hispanic – and the ambience increasingly resembles that of Mexico City or Mumbai: cracked pavements, dilapidated buildings, outdoor swap-meet markets and food stalls serving customers, much as one would see in the developing world.

Homeless encampments are scattered throughout the city. In a friend of my wife’s neighbourhood, close to where we once lived, homeless people loiter in supermarkets and eat in the aisles. Others harass shop owners and tap directly into the city’s power grid. Many workers, particularly immigrants (both legal and undocumented), earn very little.

Not a pretty picture.

Of course, this predates the current riots. No one reports on it because the Democrat leadership cannot blame an ongoing problem on Donald Trump.

Once a middle-class haven with a broad industrial base, LA now has the highest poverty rate in California – and among the worst nationwide. Failing schools, dilapidated parks and an exodus of residents and firms suggest the city’s long-term prospects could be bleak.

The demographics are telling:

Once known as ‘the city that grew’, LA has lost population since the early 2010s. By 2060, according to the state’s finance department, Los Angeles County will experience no growth – and could shed well over a million residents. The young – the lifeblood of any growing city – are already leaving, some 750,000 in the past decade alone. People may still come temporarily, but few stay to raise children. LA now has the second-lowest birth rate among the 53 largest US metropolitan areas, according to the American Community Survey. Younger Angelenos, according to one UCLA poll, are even more disillusioned than their elders.

Kotkin finds little cause for optimism:

This reflects a harsh reality: LA’s economy no longer delivers decent wages. Latino workers, once cost of living is considered, fare worse here than in most American cities. Home ownership rates for both Latinos and African Americans are among the lowest in the US. Neither the business community nor the political elite seems capable of reversing the trend.

Consider this:

In 1984, LA County boasted a strong and highly motivated business elite, with 12 Fortune 500 firms. Since then, the region has lost many of its oil and aerospace giants, along with its largest banks. Today, the Fortune 500 count stands at just seven – only one of them within city limits, on the outer edge of the San Fernando Valley.

Apparently, massive amounts of government spending have not improved conditions. People have thrown money at the problem, and cannot understand why things keep getting worse.

But, what about the business elites?

Few corporate leaders possess the cojones to address the reasons for LA’s precipitous economic decline. This is most apparent downtown, an area that has ‘benefited’ from vast transit developments, tax incentives and a new convention centre. Yet, despite billions spent, it remains strewn with encampments and sometimes fire-damaged buildings. The empty, never completed luxury high-rises there have become renowned among tourists for their elaborate graffiti.

Los Angeles has become dystopia. Within its boundaries there are utopian enclaves for the very wealthy, people who can wall themselves off from the lives of common proles.

The business elites, the high-priced lawyers and the many fixers, can nurture their LA idyll, living in secure, ultra-pricey places like Brentwood (home to Kamala Harris), the Hollywood Hills or out further in Malibu or Palm Springs. They have stood by as the city’s political culture has nurtured a criminal class, strengthened by unrestricted immigration and often feeble law enforcement.

And, of course, Kotkin blames the politicians:

While cities such as San Francisco, Houston and even New York shift back towards the political centre ground, Los Angeles in 2022 elected Mayor Karen Bass, a lifelong leftist who travelled to Castro’s Cuba as part of the Venceremos brigade. In 2016, upon Fidel’s death, she issued a praise-filled obituary to ‘El Comandante’. Her Castroite bona fides may have hurt her when she was briefly considered for Biden’s running mate – a position that went to Kamala Harris.

Crime is not just a problem today. Crime has always been a problem. As long as no one sees it, no one cares:

It is rare to hear a public voice push back against random violence. In the months leading up to the latest unrest, there were countless incidents including violent gangs of kids, vandalism and theft throughout the city, particularly downtown. Criminals are now so bold that they have started stripping copper wire from street lights, leaving some parts of LA in the dark. You don’t have to support Trump’s crude, draconian approach to want to see streets cleared of thugs, imported or otherwise. Yet the response of the city’s elites – political and corporate – seems to boil down to ‘party on, dude’.

So, Los Angeles joins the ranks of the failed cities. Or better, the cities that have been destroyed by leftist politics.