Photo: USC Digital Archive
In 1939, Sepulveda at Magnolia in Sherman Oaks was a country road, surrounded by open agricultural fields. Today, it is a busy urban boulevard.
In planning and developing a city, it is important to have at least an imaginary idea of how you hope it will turn out. Did the city fathers, 70 years ago, understand that endless sprawl, single family homes, malls and asphalt stretching 100 miles into the desert, with four cars for every family might make Los Angeles into the international dystopia that it is today?
And what about old Van Nuys? It went from orange groves and picket fences in 1945 to a thriving suburb of 1960 and then descended into decay and crime in the 1980’s. It is only now crawling out, slowly, unsure of where it is heading, but trying to deal with illegal immigration, air pollution, inferior housing, bad schools and an unacceptably high level of criminality.
I am conservative in matters of law and order and believe we need to greatly increase the number of cops in LA to patrol this city more effectively. But I cannot ignore the liberal arguments which correctly point out that a nation spending $453 billion in Iraq cannot muster the resources to take care of its own domestic priorities. We cannot even guard and defend our southern border, yet we have the arrogance to invade another nation halfway around the world!
Can’t most people see the connection? Spend America’s hard earned tax dollars on the American nation first, before wasting billions to “spread democracy” overseas……
What kind of a city would LA be if it had $450 billion to spend on public transportation, law enforcement, open space preservation, fine schools and health care?
Here in Van Nuys 
So I assume that you believe that the US Military also falls into the same category of mediocrity when you speak about those government institutions that our tax dollars support.
California’s schools were once the envy of the nation. We are now 49th out of 50 states in our school system.
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High quality public schools and healthcare? I usually enjoy your posts but you must have been smoking something when you wrote that one. Name one thing that is “public” that is high quality? DMV service? the postal service? IRS? It’s all horrible. And there is no hope whatsoever for the schools until the borders are controlled, which neither party wishes to do. In short, we’re scr#wed.
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neither party is going to protect the southern border. one gives lip service to it, but doesn’t want to piss off biz owners and the other wants every mexican possible here to vote for their giveaways. Ron Paul 08 !
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You’re facing a quandary because a lot of the folks most opposed to the war also are the same ones most willing to allow every undocumented immigrant into the country, no questions asked.
New York’s legislature and governor, as one example, just enacted a bill that allows that state’s illegal immigrants to receive drivers licenses. You can be sure most of the politicians who supported that law hate the Iraq war — which I agree has been a big waste of lives, time and money — even more than you do.
As for LA’s sprawl, what makes it really bad, and what has made it exceptionally susceptible to decline, is that far too much of it is so goddamn unattractive. In other words, if a person has a fair amount of money and is somewhat discerning or discriminating, do you think he or she will happily choose to end up in a scoungy environment like Van Nuys or any number of similar communities throughout the Southland?
And please don’t rewrite history, because Van Nuys was an aesethically challenged part of the Valley even before, and well before, the era of color TV and air-conditioned automobiles.
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Woah–I’m not really seeing the connection between border patrols, (sub)urban decay, policing, and invading another nation. Are you saying that our shortsightedness in urban planning should make us hesitate to take on national planning (for other sovereign nations)? I’ll grant you that. And another thing–where’d you come upon that fine photo?
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how much of the responsibility should uncle sam shoulder to “take care of our own domestic priorities?” i agree they should tighten security at our borders, but the individual’s role in improving pollution, education, crime, etc. must be larger than the state’s. well, maybe not with crime; i, too, feel we need more cops.
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