On a recent Saturday morning bike ride in Van Nuys, on the first cool morning in months, I observed the paradox of living here: both filth and poverty, clean up and renovation.

On the corner of Kester and Victory, a crew of volunteers was sweeping the sidewalk and picking up trash. Yet just around the corner on Friar Street, old houses and families struggling to survive, slum buildings (one operated by the notorious Dare Management) and commercial buildings without tenants.

There is the glorious new Civic Center and the beautiful plantings. Yet these trophy gestures, aimed for a public audience of news media and attorneys, does nothing to improve the daily lives of the poor residents of Van Nuys.

An imaginative and humane city government would rent out the empty storefronts to the displaced chefs and restaurant workers of New Orleans who could create a little Creole district in Van Nuys.

A caring city would pump millions into the area to build new apartments on the empty parking lots and vacant lots seen everywhere. Maybe this is already being done. But the progress is excruciatingly slow.