Notes from the pressure cooker

Leave it to the grown-ups in Los Angeles’ most congested neighborhoods to stall an inexpensive, sensible congestion remedy on Pico and Olympic Boulevards. L.A. is in perpetual internal conflict. In the end—decades from now—it’ll make for fascinating reading.

Southern California: where the wealthy and educated lost paradise, clinging to a belief that everyone else on the block would eschew Lexus luxury for mass transit.

I passed by the Archstone Del Mar Station apartments in Pasadena yesterday—an ochre monstrosity I watched rise from the dead over the dusty northwest corner of Arroyo Parkway and Del Mar Blvd. Archstone is among a growing number of Gold Line “transit villages,” and features massive faux pillars, a bell tower, and kitschy transit theme—perfect for the über-hip, carless, young professional who works downtown and finds his sense of place in something resembling Legoland. Never will he make a spontaneous day trip to Redondo Beach or drop in at IKEA, just because he’s in the neighborhood. Life is so clean and manipulatable on government letterhead.

A few miles down the Arroyo, the Highland Park Transit Village is coming. A four story, multi-block, all-but-certainty, residents are told. Minor details yet to be worked out include: a) what it will look like, b) whether or not it will include retail, and c) whether or not it will supplant all existing public parking spaces and provide adequate parking for the new residential units. Oh—and, what will become of the “market-priced” units when the market fails to deliver. One thing is certain: 75% “affordable” means developers Kevin McCormack, Richard Baron, and Tony Salazar will sleep soundly—far from Avenue 56 and Figueroa.

I’m still searching for the young, professional Angeleno who invests $750,000 in a condo with only one parking space, among majority affordable units in a marginal neighborhood, and commutes to her six-figure job via rail and bus transfer.

Should it surprise anyone that the same geniuses who failed to notice an 800-pound sub-prime gorilla savaging the city budget in slow motion also believe they can fabricate markets, complete with consumers lining up to make bad investments? Make believe is so easy when you’re spending someone else’s money.

Meanwhile, an urgent sandwich board outside Archstone Del Mar Station reads: FLEXIBLE LEASE OPTIONS.

A little late, but…

...very cool: Los Angeles’ original blogger interviews Los Angeles’ original dystopian writer.

In the debut issue of New Angeles (a downtown/eastside monthly), Ken Layne interviews Mike Davis—author of some of my faves, including City of Quartz and Ecology of Fear—on the eastside renaissance, smart growth, and the Grand Avenue project. Take a moment and check it out. Still cynical, still Mike Davis.