About, but not limited to, Van Nuys, CA.
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Imagine this outside of Union Station in Los Angeles. Unimaginable!
Photo: C.I.C.L.E.
What other comments can be added to this image? Here is one:
The Hummer is an atrocious monster that should be banned from the road.
One has to ask how some American patriots, knowing that our soldiers are dying to secure the oil fields of Iraq, can in good conscience, drive these gas guzzling vehicles. Oil is the only reason we stay in the Middle-East. As the polar ice melts, driving a Hummer (or any other S.U.V.) to the gym or soccer match is an ultimate act of selfishness and moral blindness.
Chris Corrao has started a blog about his neighborhood, Tujunga Village.
I’m not an LA City Nerd, so I cannot go into detail about the first white occupants of this historic district or how exactly how many street lamps are within a one mile radius, but I can tell you my subjective impressions of Tujunga Village.
It’s one of my favorite sections of LA. It is filled with tree lined streets, mostly built up in the 1940’s and 50’s. There are several areas with magnificent homes, well tended gardens, and a refreshing absence of security gates and the kind of cheap ornamental vulgarity that characterizes Encino and Beverly Hills.
Along Tujunga there is the Aroma Cafe, with its gardens, bookstore and delicious sandwiches, coffee and desserts. I’ve also eaten in Caioti with its excellent pizzas and pastas. There are small boutiques filled with circa 1995 Shabby Chic furniture, and those feminine oriented candle, moisturizer, jewelry, shoe and scarf shops patronized by bored women with too much time on their well manicured hands. Naturally, there are yoga and acting studios and countless hours devoted to conversations about relationships.
There’s lovely Woodbridge Park at Elmer and Moorpark, where quite often I see mothers play with their own children, rather than outsourcing the work. The park is clean and there are only one or two vagrants, about 50 less than one finds in say, a Santa Monica playground.
The street names have a nostalgic and rose scented sound to them: Elmer, Klump, Farmdale and Chiquita. Window boxes, picket fences, lavender, big oak trees and double hung wood windows with louvered shutters are just around any corner.
The bloody killing of Robert Blake’s wife Bonnie Lee Bakley on May 4, 2001 just outside of Vitello’s Restaurant, was an anomaly. Murder in Tujunga Village mostly occurs only in the scripts penned by area writers.
The whole neighborhood feeling evaporates just to the east where the brutal and environmentally murderous Hollywood Freeway slices through the area.
From the LAPD files:
Easter Shooting Leaves One Dead
Los Angeles: A shooting on Easter Sunday claimed the life of a 23-year-old Van Nuys resident.
On Sunday, April 8, 2007, at around 5:40 p.m., Jose Garcia was walking home from a convenience store with his brother and a couple of friends, in the 14400 block of Valerio Street.
The group was confronted by a trio of Asian men, ranging in age from mid-teen to early 20’s. Garcia and his companions attempted to run away from the suspects, but the suspects followed and fired multiple shots at them.
Garcia was struck several times. His brother and friends transported him to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Witnesses reported seeing the suspects flee in silver or gray Toyota pickup truck.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Van Nuys Homicide Detective James Nuttal or Detective Angel Lopez at 818-374-0040. During weekends and off-hours, call the 24-hour toll free number at 1-877-LAWFULL (1-877-529-3855).
Photos: 1930 vintage Val D’Amour Apartments, 854 South Oxford Avenue, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, CA (LOC); 2007 Van Nuys apartment, VanOwen/Kester.
Developers and the City of LA are battling over city regulations that mandate private development set aside a percentage of units for “affordable” housing. This article in the LA TIMES goes into detail on it.
My opinion on this subject can be summed up by these points:
1. Developers for profit should not be forced to provide affordability any more than restaurants, automakers, grocers, or cruise lines should.
2. When the city regulates and creates thousands of laws and fees on development it discourages building and makes everything more expensive for buyer and builder alike.
3. Los Angeles should be loosening, not tightening, zoning to make it possible to build higher and denser housing near bus and train lines.
4. The more “affordable” housing is mandated, the less it will exist.
5. NYC, with its 60 year-old rent control laws, is a perfect example of tight regulation and the unintended effect of causing an entire city to be unaffordable.
This argument could go on and on, but the way to make a market work better is to let it work.
Here in Van Nuys 
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