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Decline of the West or Just Progress?

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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.”


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