PLANNING WATCH / PLAN-IT LOS ANGELES

Those who have toiled at City Hall or had extensive dealings with it, should realize the following: First, the ideology guiding the governance of the City of Los Angeles is neo-liberalism, not New Deal liberalism, as some people imagine because most City officials are Democrats. This is exactly same neo-liberal approach which now prevails at the Federal and State levels. It also is shared by this country's two ruling political parties. As far as I can tell, everyone who holds office in Los Angeles or has even an outside chance of getting elected, holds the same outlook. (To the extent that liberalism ever existed at the local level, it was in the 1930s when the City of LA built public housing.) Neo-liberalism means, in theory and practice, tilting government to promote the private sector. This translates to increased use of regressive taxes (user fees, sales taxes, property taxes) to redistribute wealth and income upwards. It also means reduced regulation of goods and servic...

It is amazing how little the large developers have to pay to City of Los Angeles elected officials in order get enormous tax breaks and benefits. You would think they could at least model themselves after U.S. friendly third world dictators, like Indonesia's Sukarno, and ask for the standard kick back rate of 10 percent. According to the Los Angeles Times, Anschutz Entertainment kicked in $19,000 to the Mayor's election campaign for a second term after they received $270,000,000 is tax breaks for the LA Live entertainment complex. Not too away, at the north end of the downtown, a $10,000 contribution to the Mayor from the Related Companies was not a bad investment for a $120,000,000 City subsidy to Eli Broad's pet Grand Avenue project. There is a unstated moral to this story, however. The next time someone complains that Los Angeles is in financial straights because of employee salaries, you might call their attention to the details below. These subsidies, by the way, f...

This extraordinary story in the LA Weekly demonstrates the poor state of urban infrastructure and services in Los Angeles. Not only does the city only devote four percent of it surface area to parks, but most of this parkland is undeveloped: Griffith Park. Furthermore, most existing parks are in affluent neighborhoods in which residents have access to private park and recreation facitilies. After all, they have back yards and some also have access to private clubs. Los Angeles Weekly, Wed., July 16, 2008 Parks and Wreck: L.A. 's Fight for Public Green Space In search of the Emerald City There’s a foul smell in Pershing Square . Well, several foul smells, really. Most prominently, there’s the smell of urine. It wafts in all directions, emanating from a dozen dark, hidden recesses spread throughout the square. There’s the smell of the fountain, a giant purple modernist abomination that every so often belches a tiny stream of liquid into a stagnant brown pool below. There...

Occasionally staff who work for the City of Los Angeles or the public who deal with city government get a peak behind those closed doors. It is not pretty, and in a rare glimpse this report in the LA Times describes three types of favors which the elected officials dish out to business insiders. The first is direct investment through the employee pension funds, courtesy of board members appointed by elected officials, such as the Mayor. The second is relief from ordinances and other forms of regulation. The third is breaks on fees and taxes, sometimes totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. Those who stick to their guns about the importance of picking the lesser of two evils in elections, should realize that differences on wedge issues, such as women's rights, have no bearing on this type of skull-duggery in which party labels mean zip. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-bond20-2008jul20,0,7501030,full.story Firm boasts about 'mining' tax dollars ...