patrick.net

The corrupt Democrats on the board of supervisors want to strip voters of their power to elect a sheriff and bring the position under their control

But the mirage called Hollywood is not the Southland’s reality at all. In fact, greater Los Angeles is a hard-edged, multi-dimensional city of 4 million and county of 10 million, including satellite cities Long Beach, Santa Clarita, and Santa Monica. In El Monte warehouses and South Gate steel yards Korean boss men bark orders and pay wages in cash on the loading dock. And better to hire hardworking braceros who never had it so good in Oaxaca than bummed-out, low-caste US natives on W-2s with medical benefits.

A vast hive of heavy capital, warehouses, and assembly plants moves food, commodities, and finished things around the US and for that matter, the entire planet. In endless containers, on ten-lane highways, on railroads, ships, and cargo planes, day-and-night, Los Angeles is a unique global hub and Pacific entrepot. Much of the city is transient, without roots: foreign-born, with little or no English, and living in distinct ethnic enclaves lacking civic disposition.

Formerly middle-income neighborhoods with working families, greenery and yards — maybe a few swimming pools — have become expensive islands amid a concrete and asphalt stew. Affordable housing means bumpy streets, trashy mini-malls, aged tract houses and cheap stucco fourplexes sprawled in every direction. Taxpayers are selling property, fleeing the state, and the residents who remain are apprehensive.

They don't seem to say why though.