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I hadn’t been to ROW DTLA/ SmorgasburgLA since the pandemic. 

This past Sunday was cool and it seemed like a good day to go down there, so we drove to the weekly event, parked in the commodious and well-ordered concrete car park, and walked across to the food trucks and cheerful carnival of Smorgasburg.

I ate a type of goat cheese and beet Chivadilla (a mulita style Quesadilla)  from The Goat and later had pulled pork on a roll at Battambong BBQ, a Cambodian American joint. I tried a fresh fruit drink from another Cambodian seller, Sweet Grass. Everything was delicious and affordable (to a point).

The crowd was varied, and dressed colorfully, some pushing baby strollers. 

I stopped to speak to one man at Lost in LA, selling embroidered knitwear. He had recently returned from Japan which he had visited a few times. We both admired the public civility of that nation and wished we had more of it here.

“Their kids clean their own classrooms!” he said.

Later we walked along the landscaped, manicured and well-swept symmetrical street of shops where they sell luxury perfumes, furniture, clothes, liquors, coffee drinks, pottery and jewelry.  This is a kind of “downtown” you might find in Zurich or Singapore, a controlled destination where crime is rare and all the social ills are absent.

But this is Los Angeles, so we make do with an artificial representation of urbanity other cities take for granted. Because we don’t have civilized choices downtown or in Hollywood where our safety is sacrosanct. We instead find walkable and safe spaces under private ownership, guarded by for hire security forces.

On the route back home, we drove along Alameda and past tents where human beings reside along old railroad tracks next to shuttered industrial buildings that are awaiting new, more profitable uses. Piles of garbage and debris lined the road. And this wasn’t even the worst example of vagrant life in our city. There are many worse places nearby, skid rows by the dozens all over the Southland and a paucity of humanity and public policy to house and minister to people who are down on their luck and their circumstances.

There is not a park, a freeway underpass, a river, bus stop, library, 7/11 or a major street without RVs, tents, shopping carts, and piles of garbage. Wilshire Boulevard from downtown to Wilton for example.

Wilshire Boulevard! The once prime and pristine example of the glory of this city! Can it be that Los Angeles will soon host the 2028 Olympics? What can this city do in 48 months to become what it should be and disavow what it should not be?