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The "should" is the tarnished but still real promise (plus such unique Los Angeles contributions as multiple urban centers instead of a single downtown and, pace Woody Allen, right turn on red); the "should not" is in the promise's failures. Cities of the future should not, for example, be without effective systems of mass transportation, as L.A. has been since the 1950s. Modern cities should not encourage the kind of uncontrolled urban sprawl that destroys a sense of unity and shared experience in its citizens. And modern cities should not stress growth over the environment as they plan for the future.
And what of race? Los Angeles is rapidly becoming a city of multiple ghettos. The blacks are in their place, the whites in theirs. The Vietnamese are here, the Koreans over there, the Japanese in the middle. The Salvadorans, Mexicans, Nicaraguans and other Latin Americans may all be Hispanic, but they too are increasingly likely to be separated along national lines. The phenomenon is not new. Watts has been a black ghetto for 60 years or so. Indeed, what was once a relatively small and discrete area around Central Avenue has grown until it is now defined more by the color of the people who live there than by actual geographic boundaries. Seen in this way, the city of the future becomes a vast continent of warring states.
Which brings us to the matter of the police. Under Daryl Gates, the Los Angeles Police Department became an army, not a police force. With its battering rams and paramilitary uniforms, its choke holds and Taser guns, it set the hard-nosed, Magnum Force, make-my-day standard for urban law enforcement through the '70s and '80s. In the process, it became so muscle- bound and senseless that it was unable to cope rationally with a traffic hazard named Rodney King, let alone with rioters and looters. Here too L.A. takes us into a Blade Runner future.
Usually, when the problems of U.S. cities are discussed, the focus is on older places -- New York City or Detroit or Chicago. Los Angeles was always, well, Lotusville. With the Watts riots of 1965 quite forgotten by most, if L.A. had a real problem (besides freeway traffic and smog), it was how to protect pedestrians from the roller skaters at Venice Beach. Now the world knows better. L.A. is what lies in store for everyone, unless Americans stop wishing on a star.
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