Just how many of these have been used in the Los Angeles-Long Beach metropolitan area it is impossible to say. As indicated above, some of the major schemes have been welcomed and a number of projects are under way. But the combination of economic affluence and political conservatism has seriously restricted the scope of the Federal government's involvement in urban development or redevelopment throughout the county. Federal Lending and Insurance Activities for Housing Home building and home ownership have grown apace in the Los Angeles-Long Beach SMSA for a full quarter century and, from the financial standpoint, two Federal policies or programs are primarily responsible. These are a) the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) lending and insurance program which has enabled hundreds of thousands of middle income families to buy homes long before they would have otherwise been able to do so, and b) the Veterans housing and insurance plans which have done the same for men and women veterans of the armed services. By facilitating so much home construction, these Federal policies have contributed enormously to the broadening and strengthening of the tax base for all local governments in the area. If any criticism be warranted, perhaps it would be that the Congress might have tried harder to develop a similar formula for families on lower income levels. Intergovernmental Property Tax Immunity Ar Within the state of California this is the situation with regard to property tax immunity between governmental units. Local governments (they are the only ones using this source of revenue) have no power to tax any state or Federal property. ticle XIII of the California constitution, dealing with Revenue and Taxation, provides however, in Section 1, that all other property "shall be taxed in proportion to its value" except that used for free public libraries, free museums, growing crops or public schools. If lands and improvements owned by a county or municipal corporation, but located outside its limits, were taxable when acquired, they continue to be subject to taxation afterward provided that "no improvements of any character whatever" subsequently constructed by any county, city and county (San Francisco is the only example) or municipal corporation" may ever be taxed. . Thousands of people all over the Los Angeles-Long Beach metropolitan area got a reminder of these facts recently when the Los Angeles City Council complained that this year Mono and Inyo counties had unduly increased their assessments of the value of the Owens Valley property bought by its Department of Water and Power more than half a century ago. (Los Angeles Times, July 13, 1967.) Prognosis Regarding Disparities The Central City Los Angeles in Comparison with the Rest of the SMS A While it is possible statistically to add or average many kinds of financial data pertaining to the suburban communities in the Los Angeles-Long Beach metropolitan area and then compare them with corresponding data for the City of Los Angeles itself, one must beware of assuming that such comparisons could yield many clues to what happens in real life. The suburbs do not normally act in concert either for the central city or against it, nor does the central city maintain a set posture toward all of them or an unvarying position toward any one of them. Every community, large or small, has a personality of its own, and its own unique resources and limitations. Some of them are, to be sure, subject to common influences or pressures and these can make a difference insofar as their relations with their neighbors are concerned. But to a very considerable extent each can be the master of its own fate. Of no city is this more true than of the City of Los Angeles itself. Notwithstanding the occurrence of the Watts riot, it is a clean and decent city and one financially sound. It governs itself, admittedly, with a strange mayor-council-cum functional commissions and city administrative officer kind of system, but it balances its budget every year and it has no serious problem of bonded indebtedness. It owns and operates a prodigiously successful water and power utility, a magnificent airport and a great harbor. It is gradually becoming less dependent on the property tax for municipal revenues, but, even so, confidently expects somewhat increased yields from this basic source of funds. But this is not all. Downtown Los Angeles is currently being revitalized by a half billion dollar building and redevelopment program climaxing, as Ray Hebert, Urban Affairs Editor of the Los Angeles Times reported on June 19, 1967, a period of growth that began in the late 1950's after the central business district had experienced an economic decline familiar to the centers of most large cities. Since then about $100,000,000 a year in private and public funds has been invested in rebuilding the downtown area and refashioning its skyline. Some 43 percent of all the high rise buildings erected in Southern California since World War II are within an 80 square block area in the center of Los Angeles. Multi-story parking garages are also being built to insure convenient access to the new buildings. Finally there is the matter of gathering momentum for the construction of a mass rapid transit system for the metropolitan area. When this is completed and in use it will further enhance the prospects not only of the central city itself but of its central business district. Disparities Among Communities Within the Central City There are fiscal disparities galore among the lesser communities of which the larger community of the City of the Angels is composed, but most of them need be of no concern to those responsible for public policy. Bel-Air and Westwood (the lush area around the UCLA campus) are richer by far per capita than Eagle Rock and Van Nuys. Malibu and the Wilshire District are also well-to-do compared with San Pedro or Westchester. But what does it matter? All of them are getting along fine. The people in all these communities can readily afford to pay their tax bills to the city, the county, the school district, and the flood control district on the local level and likewise to the state of California and the United States Government. In turn they enjoy equal treatment with other sections of the city when it comes to governmental services. But things are different with regard to the disparities between these middle and upper income sections of the city and places like Watts and Pacoima and Green Meadows and Boyle Heights and El Sereno. . . . These low income communities within the central city are full of people--in the first three cases Negroes and in the latter two Mexican-Americans--who have not yet succeeded in earning middle class incomes or, what is intrinsically far more important, in developing those middle class attitudes which are prerequisite to earning such incomes. This means that they are not yet at the "take-off" stage and thus the question arises as to whether they will even be able to sustain their relative position in the life of the big city in the future. One of the most sobering facts on the international scene today is that the gulf between rich lands and poor lands is growing apace. Those who are concerned about the survival of democracy under the impact of metropolitanitis must realize that there is also danger of the same thing happening between rich and poor communities inside a big city too. What with all the emphasis on equal opportunity that has been precipitated during the past generation by Roosevelt's Fair Employment Practices Committee, by Truman's Commission on Civil Rights, by the Supreme Court's broadening the application of the "equal protection" clause, by President Johnson's "war on poverty" and by the efforts of Negro leaders to capitalize on the centennial of the victory of freedom over slavery in the Civil War, both of the two main minority groups in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area have begun to get some help and to make some progress toward their goal of equality with the dominant White Anglo-Saxon Protestant WASP's. But they have a long, long way to go before they escape from their ghettos as suggested by Conrad's recent cartoon comparing Watts with East Berlin. The Suburban Communities The LA-LB SMSA As a Whole At least one prediction with regard to the future of this huge metropolitan area can be made with confidence: the urbanization of Los Angeles County will continue until all the open land south of the San Gabriel range--except that deliberately reserved for parks or other specific uses--has been built up. . . . Probably some of these newly built-up areas will remain unincorporated for extended periods, but most of them will either be annexed to already established cities or become incorporated themselves. If the experience of the past 12 or 13 years furnishes an accurate guide, most of them will try to incorporate. Though the Local Agency Formation Commission will undoubtedly do its best to prevent the establishment of any new city likely to have serious financial trouble, it would be unreasonable to assume that it will never make a mistake. Hence the disparity prognosis on this score is one anticipating some additional troublesome inequalities among the municipalities in the SMSA, but only a few. A "new town" like Diamond Bar, near the eastern edge of the county, should have no difficulty in "making it" if its residents decide to incorporate rather than seek annexation to Pomona. The Transamerica Corporation is gradually developing this historic ranch into a residential community as a commercial venture and showing good judgment in the process. Its population, approximately 10,000 now, is expected to reach its natural limit of 80,000 by 1980. With most of its families in the middle income bracket, the chances are that it will incorporate by 1975 if not earlier. Suburban Cities Per Se The real problem is posed by the 76 cities which have already been formed within the County. . . . Will all of them be able to see their way through the next 8-10 years in good financial health? In most cases the answer is yes. They have enough resources to survive without having to get more help from either the state or Federal government. But some of them may have to get additional help either in the form of grants-in-aid or state-raised, locally-shared taxes. One hesitates to "name names" in this matter but it is quite possible that suburbs like Baldwin Park, Pico Rivera and Compton will need more and more help if they are to avoid sinking deeper into the morass of fiscal difficulty and despair. What is important above all is that the blight represented by communities like Willowbrook, Compton, and East Los Angeles be arrested and that their economic life be stabilized at a level high enough to keep hope burning in the breasts of all those who call such places home. For the state and Federal governments not to cooperate in giving them the help they need will be to run the risk not only of their own slow demise but of the spreading of the cancer of grinding poverty in ever-widening circles. School Districts It is patently clear that there are serious disparities among the school districts in this metropolitan area from the standpoint of their own capacity to finance their public schools. But of all the problems posed by the differences in revenueraising capacity among the communities within Los Angeles County, this one alone seems already to be clearly in the course of solution. California's and the nation's commitment to equality of education is so strong that only time will be required to make it for all practical purposes a reality. Recommendations for Remedial Action Democracy means the equal right of every man to prove himself unequal--and the same principle applies to groups and communities. Some kind of inequality, some measure of disparity, among local communities in a metropolitan area is therefore natural. Free men invariably choose to use their freedom to get different goods and services in different degrees and the first recommendation to be offered is one prompted by the implications of this basic truth. 1. Let everyone--citizen, official, research analyst--recognize that Public Action By Local Communities Themselves By Los Angeles County: 2. a. By charter revision based on the principle of the separa- By enlarging the membership of the Board of Supervisors from five (each representing about 1,400,000 people) to say 25 or 33 members all elected on the basis of "one man, one vote"; c. By continuing the Lakewood or "contract cities" plan, d. By making maximum use of its Local Agency Formation Com- 3. part of certain existing cities which should never have been incorporated in the first place; e. By being willing to establish and operate subordinate county service areas wherever such a device would obviate, either for a time or permanently, the incorporation of a new city or the creation of a special district. By the City of Los Angeles: Recognize that because of being surrounded by incorporated cities (or the foothills of the San Gabriel range), prospects for further growth by annexation are sharply limited. Capitalize on its tremendous capacity for further growth within its 450 square miles of land and strengthen its position vis-a-vis the other 75 cities in the county: a. By revising its charter to establish, in place of its present "mayor-council-commissions-city administrative officer plan," what might well be called a mayor-council-manager plan; b. By persisting in its efforts, jointly with the county and its neighboring communities, to build a mass rapid transit system; c. By working in good faith as a member of SCAG, the Southern California Association of Governments, to consider every major governmental activity from the standpoint of what would be best for all of Southern California; d. By trying harder than ever, and with whatever help may be secured, to heal the big sore that is Watts and South Central Los Angeles (and where, two years after the great riot everything seems remarkably--and dangerously--the same), and also to heal the smaller sores that are Pacoima, Boyle Heights and the like. 4. By the Cities Outside the Central City: Work together through the League of California Cities and in other ways to secure a greater measure of home rule with respect both to making and enforcing laws and regulations relating to the growing realm of municipal affairs, or better yet, of urban responsibilities and to levying whatever taxes or service charges are required to meet their needs. Having gotten it, justify the grant: 5. d. By more extensive use of the Joint Powers Act for doing jointly whatever can best be done that way; e. By considering consolidation either with the central city of the SMSA where that would be mutually advantageous, or with some smaller neighbor where that would make more sense. By School Districts: Proceed with consolidation with all deliberate speed until all elementary and high school districts have become members of unified districts. Strive for a better balance between |