What Sacrifices are You Willing to Make In These ‘Hard Times?’

They tell us we are living in hard times that force their tough budget decisions. 

Some of these imposed sacrifices include the following, and I am sure that CityWatchreaders can identify many others that I have not listed. 

• At least 30,000 Angelinos are living on the streets because affordable housing and public and non-profit temporary shelters are not available. 

• For those with some type of roof over their head, 600,000 people nevertheless need public housing and are waiting for the Section 8 application list to open up. For those 400 people per year who manage to get on the list, obtain a Section 8 voucher, and finally rent a truly affordable unit to rent, life is tolerable. For the other 599,600 people in Los Angeles, not so much. 

• If we choose to walk on sidewalks in LA, we can expect cracks, bumps, and small craters.  When we get to corners, we often discover that City Hall has not managed to construct mandatory ADA curb cuts, despite lawsuits and court orders. 

• If we depend on cars for transportation, we can expect potholes and numerous delays from infrastructure repairs and gridlocked streets and intersections. In fact, for the past six years, LA has had the most congested streets among all cities in 38 developed countries. 

• If, instead, we rely on mass transit for transportation, we can expect late, dirty, unsafe, infrequent busses. We also do not yet have reliable real-time cell phone transit apps or bus shelters at every stop. As for light and heavy real, the imposed sacrifices include METRO’s decision to NOT build station-site bathrooms, along with such basic services as newspaper racks and kiosks. 

• When we walk down the street, we might luck out in one of the few neighborhoods, like Holmby Hills and Hancock Park, where there is a decent urban forest. Otherwise our walking companions are barren parkways, or a hodge-podge of different tree species sandwiched together, or poor tree selections (e.g., sidewalk lifting Ficus trees), or stunted and poorly pruned trees. This is in sharp contrast to other nearby cities, like Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, and Burbank, all of which maintain a proper urban forest despite climate change and construction impacts. 

• If we send our children to LAUSD public schools, we can expect large class sizes in aging facilities that frequently lack basic maintenance. 

• If we manage to glance toward the heavens while walking or driving, we must endure traditional and electronic billboards, bootlegged commercial signs, and extensive overhead wires. Together they offer a smorgasbord of visual blight. 

• If we are unlucky enough to live in a mansionizing or gentrifying neighborhood, we regularly witness unlawful demolitions of older buildings. Once underway, these projects spew dangerous toxins, particularly asbestos and lead paint, into the air. Since LA’s Building and Safety Department does not enforce public health laws to remediate these hazards, vigilant neighbors must make desperate, last minute calls to the South Coast Air Quality Management District, move out, or literally suck it up. Only a few people ever manage to get these demolitions to comply with the law. 

• While some Angelinos take street sweeping for granted, many neighborhoods have to do without this basic municipal service.   

• If we bike on public streets in LA, we need to be on full alert because we don’t have grade-separated bike lanes, like New York City, Chicago, Austin, Chicago, and many other cities. 

• Finally, let’s not forget that “heat storms” and other climate change indicators are already LA’s new normal. Unfortunately, the LADWP has not prepared for them, as evidenced by 80,000 households recently losing power for up to three days when the city’s electric grid could not keep up with demand. 

But, why should these imposed sacrifices be tolerated, and for that matter why are they even necessary in a booming metropolis like Los Angeles, in one of the richest countries in the world.  Perhaps the answer lies in alternative sacrifices that Americans could make, without turning their wonderful cities into Bladerunner-type dystopias. 

For example, I am willing to make these alternative sacrifices. They would free up enough public resources to fund affordable housing, smooth sidewalks, ADA curb cuts, clean busses with frequent headways, street trees, small class sizes in public schools, sign code enforcement, healthy building demolitions, universal street sweeping, grade separated bicycle lanes, and undergrounded utility lines.  

Alternative sacrifices:  This is my list of alternative sacrifices to replace the ones City Hall has required of us.  I also invite readers to nominate other sacrifices they would be willing to make. 

• Scuttle the F-35 joint strike fighter and save $1.5 trillion in total costs over the lifetime of this plane. 

• Live with our current arsenal of nuclear weapons and forego spending $1.2 trillion to update the bombs and their various delivery systems. 

• Some of my proposed sacrifices are more modest, such as cancelling the new $13 billion Gerald Ford aircraft carrier. Likewise, the Pentagon’s increase for the current year, supported by both political parties, is “only” $94 billion, a modest amount that could revitalize many U.S. cities, not just Los Angeles. 

• But, there might be a reason to consider even bigger sacrifices.  So far U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Pakistan have cost $5.6 trillion. If we included Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Libya, the costs are even higher. So, let’s make a major sacrifice and terminate these wars. While we can’t recover past costs, we can at least sacrifice future wars, saving trillions in the process. 

• Let’s not solely pick on the Pentagon. Let’s also sacrifice the new Trump tax breaks, most for the super-wealthy. They are estimated to eventually cost $1.5 trillion, so that is also money that could be redirected to American cities. 

• While the bailouts for the 2008 Great Recession have already been spent, Wall Street veteran and economics writer Nomi Prins has calculated their total cost at $14.4 trillion dollars. A program of bailout recovery might generate enough money to stop the implosion of American cities. So, asking the banks to repay those bailouts is another sacrifice I am willing to make. 

Once these sacrifices are made, the next question is how these new Federal resources can be directed to cities like Los Angeles? The answers are not hard to find. USDOT has no shortage of mothballed transportation programs that could be restored to allow major Federal funding of local mass transit projects. And, HUD has many cancelled housing programs, like 221.d.3 and 236, which could be refunded. Likewise, HUD has the remnant of a once major transfer program, Community Development Block Grants, which could be used for non-housing, non-transportation local projects. 

It is time to make these and similar sacrifices if that is what it takes to restore basic public services and infrastructure in Los Angeles.

(Dick Platkin is a former LA City Planner who reports on local planning controversies for CityWatchLA. Please submit any comments or corrections to [email protected].) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.