As a kid in the 70’s, we regularly vacationed in the Los Angeles area. My grandparents had a nice home in Chino. Their neighborhood was the kind of place where you’d find the Brady Bunch house. I have great memories of those vacations. As a midwestern kid, L.A. seemed kind of idyllic. Sure, Disneyland didn’t hurt, but there seemed something more to it all.
No question that back in the 70’s, L.A. had neighborhoods that were not ideal for the folks living in them. Still, the greenery was greener and the weather all the more glorious than my native Minnesota. At least that’s how I remember it.
Early in 2018, my wife and I took a trip to Los Angeles. No reason. Just good old fashioned tourism. We went to a concert, took in some culture and a really cool tour of the Peterson Automotive Museum. That was our itinerary. We succeeded.
Sad though, the California of my childhood was all but gone. The 405 freeway was pretty much a long string of tent cities. Where these encampments didn’t collect on the highway, they were strewn along exit ramps, street sidewalks with dilapidated RV caravans parked as near permanent housing in some areas.
Newly minted California Governor, Gavin Newsom, recently had this to say, “Around the world, we are a beacon of light. And for an America divided? Mark my words, California – we are the light at the end of the tunnel.”
People are living in these tent cities. People are living in squalor. Literal and definitional squalor. In those encampments are people living under conditions reserved, historically, for the third world. Despite America being the richest nation on the planet.
I’m not sure everyone in California sees the same ‘light’ as Governor Gavin.
Though Newsom is the state’s governor and not the mayor of L.A. (that’s Eric Garcetti), the state’s policy is reflected in L.A. policy. Los Angeles should be a progressive paradise. It clearly is not.
Leftists tend to blather on about income inequality. With California and Los Angeles so deeply entrenched in progressive idealism, you’d assume that an equity Nirvana has been achieved.
Or not.
According to the Program for Environmental and Regional Equity at the University of Southern California,”Between 1990 and 2012, Los Angeles experienced a 27 percent decline in middle-wage jobs…During the same time period it gained low-wage jobs (15 percent increase) and high-wage jobs (6 percent increase).”
Think of it this way; of the 27% middle-wage job loss, 6% got richer, 15% got poorer and the remainder of that 27% probably just up and skedaddled.
You’d wonder at what point the ‘rich’ in California will, as leftists tell us, be willing to pay their fair share. You know, to help the downtrodden. Bernie often reminds us as much, “We are living in a nation which worships wealth rather than caring for the poor. I don’t think that is the nation we should be living in.”
One of the wealthiest cities is in America is Atherton California. The average Athertonian makes $444k. What’s the average wage nationally? All us flyover folks bring home about $59k annually.
If money for housing were an issue, the tech titans of San Mateo County could drop in a few shekels and take care of all this pretty quickly.
Yet, the poop remains.
Speaking of poop, when driving the L.A. region during our vacation, the abject destitution was shocking enough. As shocking as it was, we were but spectators observing from the safety of our Uber. North of downtown L.A., it was not uncommon to come upon an intersection with the homeless panhandling and to see in the adjacent turn lane, $2,000,000 of luxury supercars. Sad to be sure. Only in passing though, as we headed to the next adventure. Attempting to suppress the pang of guilt.
Downtown Los Angeles, our trip’s home base, was but a giant toilet.
Walk only a few blocks from the relatively clean L.A. Financial District, the city becomes rife with human waste and debris. You must look downward to safely navigate the dense minefield of human-borne excrement.
One day with a little time to kill, we thought we’d saunter down L.A.’s The Last Book Store. Cool place. All manner of books and a second floor artists co-op. It was only a few blocks from our hotel.
Little more than a block in to our trek, we started to encounter an increasing frequency of waste. Urine stained walls and human excrement dotting the sidewalk. Shockingly, in the middle of all this was an open air farmers market. I was imagining that I’d ask one the the vendors, ‘Say, I’d like those brussels sprouts please. Oh, and a bacterial infection too.’
Los Angeles is now seeing the return of medieval diseases. Simply walking in L.A. is not safe. Recently, a police officer contracted typhoid fever. Traveling with fleas or rodents, typhus spreads often through consumables such as water. The fever may have been the cause of plagues centuries ago and even more recently, disease during the Civil War with conditions that were not optimally clean. And let’s not forget Typhoid Mary in the early 20th century.
That was until effective vaccines were invented and typhus was all but relegated to an artifact of dirtier days.
Dr. Drew Pinsky recently noted about L.A.,”We have the three prongs of airborne disease, tuberculosis is exploding, (and) rodent-borne.” The discussion also details typhus outbreaks last year and a projected outbreak this year. Even the bubonic plague appears to be making a comeback.
Sorry Governor Newsom, you’re not a ‘beacon of light’. You’re an ever growing pile of feces and disease.
To hear the the Golden State’s leaders, the answer to all this is just more housing. Tweeted by L.A. mayor Eric Garcetti regarding a newly built homeless facility, “Opening the first of many projects and putting #PropHHH dollars to use for vitally-needed housing and facilities for our homeless neighbors.”
Lots of projects. Lots of projects. More and more projects. Housing is surely needed but the homeless find that a tent on skid row is a cleaner option than most shelters.
Terrifying.
As part of this issue’s diagnosis, state leaders lean heavily on housing shortages as at least a portion of the root cause. Further that the cost of housing makes California too expensive. They’re not wrong. In Los Angeles, the average home price, according to Zillow, is $686k. The average home price in the U.S. overall is almost $227k.
It’s quite literally three times as expensive to live in L.A. than most of the nation.
There is clearly a correlation in home cost and homelessness. According to real estate industry journal, Inman, “The states with the highest homelessness rates also had some of the nation’s highest median home prices in 2017.” Those being Hawaii, DC and California. All of which are deeply rooted in leftist policies.
What drives such skyrocketing housing costs?
According to California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office, “First and foremost, far less housing has been built in California’s coastal areas than people demand. As a result, households bid up the cost of housing in coastal regions. In addition, some of the unmet demand to live in coastal areas spills over into inland California, driving up prices there too.”
It should be noted that not unlike New York City, Los Angeles has quickly become a mature real estate market and impacting the ability for developers to bring new dwellings to market.
Still, the study explains further the other cost pressures such as environmental reviews, local government incentives for commercial development as well as limited vacant land. Local residents also have a say in what gets built. Local residents often say no. From the study, “Local communities make most decisions about housing development. Because of the importance of cities and counties in determining development patterns, how local residents feel about new housing is important.”
Consider that the median income in Los Angeles County is $30k and median home value in the broader L.A. County is $409k, that means your mortgage is $2000 with a take home wage is $2100 after taxes.
Don’t go crazy with that extra hundred bucks that you’ll need for food, insurance, gas, utilities and other sundry items.
Yet, all the Hollywood glitteratti love nothing more than to lecture us on income inequality:
So lectures everyones favorite activist actor Alyssa Milano tweeting from her (per Wiki) gated community home, “…with acreage for nine horses, eight chickens, two rabbits, and five dogs, in Bell Canyon, California”
California is the state with the second fastest growth in income inequality.
Like Milano, with an utter lack of self-awareness, the wealthy and famous of southern coastal California are the problem. Consider that these same locals don’t want more homes, new homes and affordable homes built. Those locals being the rich and famous. They are the cause. With California’s hollowing middle class, more citizens are becoming poorer and affordable houses are becoming fewer if not non-existent.
California’s homelessness is not due to the warm weather, at least not to the extent many suggest. It’s the fraud and lies of progressivism.
With the ad nausea lectures from the rich, leftist and famous, be it on Twitter or the next virtue signaling award speech, it’s just lip service. You don’t find state homeless shelters amongst Malibu’s beach homes. Only churches willing to offer aid to the homeless.
It’s not up to the likes of Alyssa Milano to clean up the pervasive human waste found throughout Los Angeles. It’s also not the Hollywood elite’s doing that makes the California poverty rate the highest in the nation.
That’s the state, local and city governments doing.
Democrats simply own nearly all of California politics. 85% of the federal House of Representative seats belong to Democrats. The state government boasts a vote proof super-majority of Democrats. The Los Angeles County board is comprised of 14 Democrats and one Republican.
Delusions of the progressive paradise dance in the heads of all these office holders blind to the obvious fact that leftist ideas are not working. Oblivious to the lessons of history that make, in many ways, Detroit not much different than Chernobyl.
But for some reason, Newsom thinks the bad press about Cali is due to Tucker Carlson.
California taxes residents at the highest rate as compared to the remaining 49 states. Those who can no longer afford to live in the Golden State but can still afford to move, move out. If you stay, you’re either rich enough to afford it or too poor to escape.
It’s the progressive policies that make Los Angeles and California at-large such hellholes. Even looking in to the abyss, leftist Californians are even more convinced that all answers are found within more government power.
No doubt the Los Angeles of my vacation was not the Los Angeles of my childhood. Though I enjoyed the trip, I doubt I’ll ever go back. Which is very sad. I still found the average L.A. citizen to be friendly as anywhere I’ve traveled and Uber drivers were uncommonly nice and knowledgable.
Gavin Newsom’s beacon is not there for me. Only a warning sign telling me to stay away.
Soon to be changed for a sign telling us all the state has been quarantined.
Due to the plague or something.
Very timely. I’ll put up on FB and see the baloney I get back over this.