La_now_volume1 by The Now Institute

E. Hillard

But then I often think, you know, why did I go to California all that time ago in the first place? At the time, I always said Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d gone because it was sexy, it was sunny. But Los Angeles is also the most spacey city in the world. You feel the most space. David Hockney, in an interview with Lawrence Weschler, David Hockney: looking at landscape/ being in landscape, exh. cat. (Los Angeles: LA Louver, 1998), 10.

Presentation events and publications organized by Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, California Publication coordinated by Morphosis Assisted by students from Graphic Design Program, School of Art, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, Ca. Department of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of California, Los Angeles Photography, Film, and Environmental Design Departments, Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, Ca.

The L.A. Now presentation events and publications are made possible by generous funding provided by: The Seaver Institute ARCO Foundation California Statewide Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles Broad Art Foundation Catellus Development Corporation Thomas Properties Group Edward P. Roski, Jr./Majestic Realty Co. Urban Partners LLC Cushman Wakefield Inc. Maguire Partners

Distributed by the University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London ISBN 0-9618705-6-7 Library of Congress Control Number 2001096796 Copyright ÂŠ 2001 Art Center College of Design 1700 Lida Street, Pasadena, California 91103 All rights reserved. No part of the contents of this book may be reproduced without the written permission of the publisher. Printed and bound by Dr. Cantzâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;sche Druckerei, Germany

L.A. Now Volume One Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, California

J. Fleischmann

Contents 8

Foreword

LOS ANGELES

Introduction

INTRODUCTION

NATURAL HABITAT

Acknowledgments

Country Comparisons

Sprawl

Desert

Flora

Ecological Footprint

Fauna

Ocean

Temperature

MAN-MADE HABITAT

Urban Growth

104

PEOPLE

154

City Comparisons

Rivers & Lakes

Precipitation

MONEY

198

Agglomeration Comparisons

Mountains

Wind

CREDITS

Megalopolis Comparisons

248

30 33

State Comparisons

Natural Disaster: Earthquakes

Natural Disaster: Wildfires

Built Mass & Land Use

112

Parks & Public Lands

116

Resources & Consumption

118

Resources & Consumption: Water

Natural Disaster: Landslides

Resources & Consumption: Energy

120 122

Resources & Consumption: Food

Ethnicity

Resources & Consumption: Waste

Immigration & Migration

Air Travel

Age

126

128 132

172

178

182

Rail Travel

Language

Road Travel

Education

Air Quality

Civic Identity

138

144

150

100 People of Los Angeles

162

Body Beautiful

168

184 186

188

Homeless

192

Spirituality

184 Death

196

Technology/ Financial Services

220

Business Services/ Government Money/ Health Services

222

Global Economy/ Top Industries

Tourism

Los Angeles Industry

Pornography

206 210

International Trade

212

Wholesale Trade/ Manufacturing

216

Motion Picture/ T.V. Production

218

226

230

Employment/ Unemployment

234

Income/ Household Ranking

238

Expenditure

240

Housing

244

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INTRODUCTION

Foreword

Within every great city thrives a rich cluster of creative resources. These resources—often hidden behind the walls of cultural and educational institutions— must somehow get involved in the critical issues that confront cities today and in the future. Their expertise and creativity must engage with ideas that can benefit the greater society. Leading educational institutions must, in essence, become civic leaders to shape the future in a tangible way. For this reason, Art Center College of Design organized L.A. Now as a design initiative to focus on downtown Los Angeles—the first in a series of “wall-less classroom” initiatives to foster fresh thinking about current architectural, design, art, and cultural issues beyond the classroom. L.A. Now is also the first collaboration between Art Center; the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts); and the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) and, it is hoped, a model of how a city’s native resources can benefit the community at large. This landmark book—a graphic snapshot of the city at the beginning of the twenty-first century— comprises vital data, images, and documentation about Los Angeles. We hope that through the material provided, civic and government leaders, developers, planners, architects, students, and citizens can explore the city’s unique attributes and contemplate where we are heading in the next twenty years. By establishing the broader context of Los Angeles, a context that is not limited to formal or architectural conditions but includes socio-political and infrastructural ones as well, we hope to identify problems and opportunities within the city.

Because the responsibility of designing the city’s future will fall both to individuals like Thom Mayne and today’s architecture and design students, and to institutions like Art Center, UCLA, CalArts, and SCI-Arc, we asked Thom to join L.A. Now as the “tutor” and design leader for the initiative, which involved students, faculty, and creative individuals from around the city. Through L.A. Now, we strongly encourage the city’s key decision-makers and the new mayoral administration to address the large-scale, long-range planning ideas necessary to address the city’s enormous challenges. Volume two of L.A. Now presents proposals developed by students in UCLA’s Architecture and Urban Design Department, in collaboration with SCI-Arc, to meet the future needs of downtown Los Angeles. The research and issues featured in this volume directly informed these urban studies. The L.A. Now proposals are far from unattainable, theoretical projects. They are, in fact, achievable and well worth considering in light of the profound growth and changes projected for Los Angeles by 2020. As a series of next steps to these proposals, we strongly recommend the formation of a unique task force of thinkers and civic and community leaders to develop discrete programs of urban ideas that can be implemented in the near future. We propose, as one of many such programs, the following twelve ideas (with thanks to Dan Rosenfeld for providing the first draft): (1) implement the plans for Civic Center Mall—Los Angeles’s “Central Park”—and develop Grand Avenue from the new cathedral to the Central Public Library with additional cultural and entertainment activites; (2) create a parkway along the Los Angeles River and rescue Taylor Yard, the largest parcel currently threatened by unsympathetic development; (3) restore El Pueblo as a vibrant cultural and commercial center; (4) extend the subway down Wilshire Boulevard to the ocean and down Ventura Boulevard to Woodland Hills in the San Fernando Valley, connect LAX to downtown via rail, and implement the continuation of the El Monte bus line to LAX via the I-110 and the I-105 high-occupancy vehicle lane; (5) develop 10,000 new residential units downtown; (6) plant trees that provide shade on downtown sidewalks; (7) cover the Hollywood/Santa Ana Freeway from Hill Street to Alameda, linking El Pueblo with downtown Los Angeles; (8) develop the Staples Center/Figueroa Corridor entertainment zone; (9) install historic street lamps throughout downtown; (10) develop the Central Avenue Art Park around The Museum of Contemporary Art at The Geffen Contemporary, Japanese American National

Museum, and proposed Children's Museum; (11) develop a new Justice Center to replace our outdated police headquarters; and (12) resurrect the Red Car surface trolley and its route from Chinatown through downtown to Exposition Park. Unlike the many studies of Los Angeles that are now on the shelf, we believe that L.A. Now can provide a real foundation for public discussion and subsequent development in Los Angeles. It is our greatest hope that the data and architecture proposals shown in the L.A. Now publications and presentation events will act as catalysts to spark new thinking about Los Angeles by the city’s leadership and citizens at large. As an advocate for art and design throughout the world, Art Center College of Design will continue to implement “wall-less classroom” initiatives, both nationally and internationally, within diverse contexts and institutions to bring creativity, original thinking, and leadership to the challenges of today.

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INTRODUCTION

Introduction

The places of present-day architecture cannot repeat the permanences produced by the force of the Vitruvian firmitas…. The idea of place as the cultivation and maintenance of the essential and the profound, of a genius loci, is no longer credible…Yet the loss of these illusions need not necessarily result in a nihilistic architecture of negation. From a thousand different sites the production of place continues to be possible…. Place is, rather, a conjectural foundation…capable of fixing a point of particular intensity in the universal chaos of our metropolitan civilization. Ignasi de Solà-Morales, Differences: Topographies of Contemporary Architecture, trans. Graham Thompson (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1997), 103–04.

Los Angeles is a remarkable city. And it can be remarkably intimidating: elusive by virtue of constant flux, unfathomable in scope, and sublime in its chaotic complexity. Threatening to render any individual gesture meaningless in the overall scheme of things, the scale of L.A. can overwhelm us into inaction and apathy. The multiplicity of logics at play breeds conservative planning and other movements to fix, regulate, or otherwise circumscribe stable boundaries and values. But change is a permanent condition of the city, and while its fluctuations and discontinuities can overwhelm, it is possible to come to terms with them. It may even be possible to derive a certain comfort from them. It is with this attitude that L.A. Now has been put together. When Richard Koshalek, President of Art Center College of Design, asked us to develop projects for downtown Los Angeles, we responded by asking, What is Los Angeles? Our team of students needed to grapple with issues of scale, flux, and complexity prior to formulating any definitions or proposals. In this sense, it became useful to think of Los Angeles as a nation. With 13.1 million people, the population of the Los Angeles Agglomeration is larger than the population of Cuba or Sweden, twice the size of Switzerland, and four times that of Ireland. In the film Powers of Ten (1977), Charles and Ray Eames made cosmic concepts comprehensible by reducing them into familiar and conceivable units. Multiplying these units by ten to derive the larger entity at hand, these prolific and imaginative Californian designers organized and conveyed the scope of the universe through bite-sized chunks. Making the complicated more accessible, equating large concepts with known quantities, a sense of scale emerges. The unfathomable begins to become knowable.

While our project is about making vast quantities and complex systems accessible, it is not about ßfinding lowest common denominators. Adamantly opposed to the rampant fascination with the generic, we locate the specific and idiosyncratic aspects of Los Angeles rather than identifying its common ground with other global locales. L.A. Now is particular to L.A.; there is no other way to engage a city and project its future without embracing its distinctions. To skirt these particulars, to flatten complexity under an organizational rubric that seeks out trends and commonalities, is to eschew the intimacy that a deep exploration of a city engenders. Engagement with the polyvalent, fluctuating complexity of Los Angeles is the only way to understand it, and to orchestrate its future. It should be said that we willingly acknowledge the reckless ambition of this inquiry and the dilettante nature of such an undertaking. With growth and flux operating simultaneously—the city is expanding rapidly and in ways beyond our capacity to monitor— the contents of this book are equal parts statistical and anecdotal. Both raw data for specific research agendas and interpretive guidelines for speaking about broader issues, L.A. Now is a tool for engaging the city and cultivating coherency. Rather than ascribe negative values to chaotic behavior, we endeavor to schematize these liquefactions of boundaries and territories. There is no literal jurisdiction to the Los Angeles Agglomeration, just urban intensification of radical proportions. Formulating a way of working on a city without discrete edges, allowing for the permutations of rapid, often exponential, expansion is paramount to such an enterprise. Resisting polemics and ideological alignments, we pursued a neutral field of information from which citizens, planners, and architects alike may draw interpretations and assessments. Our objective was first to render the conditions of the itinerant city apparent, developing projective frameworks in subsequent phases (see volume two, L.A. Now: Seven Proposals). Organizing information on shifting and unstable terrain is also the subject of the recent film Memento. The territories in the film, however, are interior ones, and involve the ways in which mental maps and memories are charted. In the story, the protagonist, who has lost the ability to form new memories, develops a system for registering information. Through a combination of annotated polaroids and textual tattoos, he devises a flawed but effective system for recording recent events and encounters: a “fallback” memory from which to sort, read, and re-shuffle when confronted with new input. Memory, in this sense, becomes an open catalog that

the main character references to make sense of his world. As the search for his wife’s killer ensues, each subsequent entry allows the character to construct new, interpretive narratives of his recent past. As the film unfolds, we understand that “truth” is contingent and iterative, subject to new and malleable arrangements. If one recognizes the logic that enables this character to navigate the catalog that stands as his surrogate past, then one can easily imagine a technique for using this book. The information in the following pages is subject to a similar process of interpretation, as growth and fluctuation inflect current readings of the city. A series of “working narratives” develop as a result. An allied condition to “working title” or “work in progress,” these narratives are subject to change and further development. In this sense, the reader enacts the connective tissue that holds the city together or allows it to cohere. The “Memento” technique is one interpretive logic that might be deployed in navigating this book—and the city, by extension. This book is divided into four subjects: Natural Habitat, Man-Made Habitat, People, and Money. Not to be construed as a priori categories, they are simply the most minimal means of disciplining the information contained within the book. The will to engage with the city at this level, to pursue a kind of meaningful reading of it, is bound to two fundamental rights: to be a citizen, and to have access to public information. One could even argue that access to public information is necessary to true citizenship. This book is as much an effort to bridge these rights—to meet people halfway in the exercise of citizenship and access—as anything else. It allows residents a larger picture of the fabric in which they are a part, and makes public information intelligible. Noted information architect Richard Saul Wurman has observed that public shares the same root as publication. This formulation promotes a kind of “freedom of information” disposition toward data, replacing the ownership of information with a public compact for full and legible disclosure. It is in the same spirit that our research efforts were carried out. We are concerned with the lack of ingenuity in grappling with the city as an idea, and in developing tools to wrestle with its scope and complexity. L.A. Now is a provocation for further analysis and the advancement of interpretive techniques.

On behalf of Art Center College of Design, we would like to express our deepest gratitude to everyone who contributed to this extraordinary endeavor. We thank the generous sponsors, who gave us the encouragement and support to launch a project of considerable ambition; the core group of dedicated advisors who donated their Saturdays and gave shape to a daunting task; the design team working with Thom Mayne, whose inspiration, industry, and fortitude fostered the multiple projects within the project and kept them all moving; the staff and faculty members at Art Center, UCLA, CalArts, and SCI-Arc, whose openness and creativity allowed L.A. Now to take form; the exceptional group of advisors, jury members, and civic and community leaders, who provided insight and brought our visions closer to reality; the book and presentation event teams, who did a remarkable job of organizing a magnitude of material; and most of all, the students, whose imagination, ingenuity, and enthusiasm truly made L.A. Now happen. It is INTRODUCTION difficult to fathom the sheer amount of energy and hours necessary to coordinate a collaborative and collective project of this scope, and we would like to thank each of the creative individuals who helped to realize L.A. Now.

——Richard Koshalek and Dana Hutt I would like to acknowledge the tremendous efforts of the following people: Julianna Morais and Rose Mendez, for their vast organizational focus critical to this type of project, as well as their energy, intelligence, and proprietary care; Frances Anderton, Michael Dear, Con Howe, John Kaliski, and Richard Weinstein, who generously gave their time in the early formulation and definition of this project; Sylvia Lavin, for her support and advice; Dana Hutt, a trusty conduit and second voice throughout the dialogue between myself and Richard Koshalek; my students, Acknowledgments who set aside their own work to contribute to a project both larger and outside of themselves; Lorraine Wild, who has my implicit trust for her ability to instantaneously grasp sensibility, and for her independence and leadership; and Alexandra Loew, for her editorial advice. I second all the thanks that Richard extended, including the insight and guidance of our jury members. And, of course, thanks to Richard Koshalek, for allowing me to participate in his vision. His boundless energy and unlimited optimism made this project possible. ——Thom Mayne Project Team Project Directors: Richard Koshalek and Dana Hutt, Art Center College of Design Project Architect: Thom Mayne, Architecture and Urban Design Department, University Of California, Los Angeles, and Morphosis Project Manager: Julianna Morais, Morphosis Project Manager, Conceptual Phase: Rose Mendez, Morphosis Team Morphosis: Joe Baldwin, Perri Chasin, Mario Cipresso, David Grant, Vicki Hanson, Ed Hatcher, Maia Johnson, Edit Kozma, Mark Lipson, Alexandra Loew, Robyn Sambo, Martin Summers, Karen Wolfe, and Susan Wong Organizing Institution Art Center College of Design: Richard Koshalek, President Participating Institutions California Institute of the Arts (CalArts): Steven D. Lavine, President Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc): Neil Denari, Director University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA): Sylvia Lavin, Chair, Architecture and Urban Design Department Project Advisory Board Frances Anderton, “Which Way, L.A.?,” KCRW Michael Dear, Department of Geography, University of Southern California (USC) John Kaliski, AIJK and SCI-Arc Nelson Rising, Catellus Development Corporation Richard Weinstein, Architecture and Urban Design Department, UCLA Con Howe, Los Angeles City Planning Department Art Center College of Design Faculty Leaders Jeff Atherton, Photography Rob Ball, Environmental Design Peter di Sabatino, Environmental Design Nan Oshin, Photography Bob Peterson, Film

Book Team Graphic Design Directors Lorraine Wild and Scott Zukowski, CalArts CalArts Graphic Design Students Jessica Fleischmann, Stuart Charles Smith, Jon Sueda CalArts Publication Design Class Christina Chung David Grey Lehze Flax Jessica Fleischmann Jennifer McKnight Bruce Sachs Stuart Smith Jon Sueda Text Editor: Frances Anderton, “Which Way, L.A.?,” KCRW Art Center Photography Students (Book and Presentation Events) Izabela Berengut Dunja Dumanski Erik Hillard Brandon Kalpin Jane Kung Dave Lauridsen Theo Morrison Gala Narezo Lorenzo Pesce Jennifer Rocholl Allen Scott Vanessa Stump Makiko Takehara Art Center Environmental Design Students (Presentation Events) Nathan Barbour David Desmarais Eugene Han Chiaki Kanda Nadine Schelbert Art Center College of Design Film Students (Presentation Events) Annelize Bester Jasmine Bocs Eve Bregman John Brooks Michael Buchbinder Albert Choi Sean Donahue Melinda Epler Chris Gehl Ralph Herscu Eric Katz Jennifer Krasinski Omar Lagda Stephen Latty (team leader) Manny Marquez Alexander Martinez Trevor McMahan David Neham Elisabeth Rubin David Sanders Simba Sims Jackie Sourvelis Cassidy Sullivan Vee Vitanza Martin Von Will Randy Walker Il-Hoon Won David Zimmerman

Project Contributors UCLA Architecture Students Paul Andersen Joe Baldwin Hojin Chang Jae Kwon Mario Cipresso Birgit Bruun Hansen Ed Hatcher Maia Johnson Peter Kimmelman Jae Kwon Nishant Lall Patrick McEneany Apurva Pande Andrew Scott Apoorva Shetty Martin Summers John Truong Susan Wong Daniel Wright Young Yi YiYi Zhou SCI-Arc Students Katsuhiro Ozawa Chea Seon Roh Angus Schoenberger UCLA Architecture Jury Members Frances Anderton, “Which Way, L.A.?,” KCRW Dana Cuff, UCLA Victoria Seaver Dean, The Seaver Institute William Fain, Johnson Fain Partners Tom Gilmore, Gilmore Associates Joseph Giovannini, Giovannini Associates Martha Harris, USC Craig Hodgetts, Hodgetts+Fung and UCLA Con Howe, Los Angeles City Planning Department John Kaliski, John Kaliski Urban Studio and SCI-Arc Rick Keating, Keating/Khang Sylvia Lavin, UCLA Greg Lynn, Greg Lynn FORM and UCLA Marta Male, Visiting Faculty, UCLA Eric Owen Moss, Eric Owen Moss Architects and SCI-Arc Nicolai Ouroussoff, Los Angeles Times Stephanos Polyzoides, Moule & Polyzoides Wolf Prix, Coop Himmelblau and UCLA Andrew Ratner, Cushman Realty Nelson Rising, Catellus Development Corporation Daniel Rosenfeld, Urban Partners Robert Somol, UCLA Anthony Vidler, UCLA Richard Weinstein, UCLA Art Center Project Support Margaret Bach, Director, Foundation Relations Jan Bronte, Manager, Cafeteria Bryan Brown, Supervisor, Production and Media Services Will Cheeseborough, Manager, Production and Media Services Erica Clark, Senior V.P., International Initiatives Denise Gonzales Crisp, Senior Designer, Design Office Ellie Eisner, Production Manager, Design Office Linda Estrada, Administrative Assistant, Operations and Real Estate George Falardeau, V.P., Operations and Real Estate Jill Farmer, Secretary, Design Office

Rich Haluschak, Controller Ron Jernigan, Executive V.P. and C.F.O. Ronald Jones, Provost Yasmine Khan, Associate Designer Jan Kingaard, Director, Communications and P.R. Sheila Low, Administrative Assistant to the President Leslie Marcus, Director of Alumni Affairs Kyoko Matsuo-Dominguez, Director, Photo Operations Lisa Mayeda, Associate Director, Corporate Relations Stephen Nowlin, V.P., Director, Williamson Gallery Patricia Belton Oliver, Director of Architecture and Planning Scarlett Powers Osterling, Senior V.P., Advancement Bill Sparling, Director, Campus Safety and Security Rachael Tiede, Coordinator, Communications and P.R. Janet Yamanaka, Student Store Project Sponsorship The Seaver Institute ARCO Foundation California Statewide Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles Catellus Development Corporation Broad Art Foundation Thomas Properties Group Edward P. Roski, Jr./Majestic Realty Co. Urban Partners LLC Cushman Wakefield Inc. Maguire Partners In-kind Support Southern California Association of Governments Los Angeles Magazine L.A. Weekly Magazine The Los Angeles Times I-Cubed Information Integration and Imaging, LLC Blair Graphics Artisan Entertainment Columbia Tristar Forward Pass TNT Original Movies United Artists/MGM Warner Brothers Project Assistance Aaron Betsky, Netherlands Architecture Institute John Bowsher Tim Christ, Morphosis Victoria Seaver Dean, The Seaver Institiute Jennifer Demello, Town Hall, Los Angeles Frank Gehry, Gehry Partners Gilmore Associates (Tom Gilmore, Dawn Garcia, Philip Stockstill) James Kenneth Hahn, Mayor of Los Angeles Bruce Herbkersman, Lowe Enterprises Commercial Group Jane Hyun Peter Kirby, Media Art Services Andrew Liang, Form Zero Robbie Macfarlane Michael Mann Lawrence Reed Manville Adrienne Medawar, Town Hall, Los Angeles Cara Mullio, MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles Jang Park Jan Perry, Councilmember, Los Angeles City Council District 9 Margie J. Reese, General Manager, Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department Russell Sakaguchi, ARCO Foundation Jerry Scharlin, Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles Carol Schatz, Central City Association of Los Angeles Trollbäck & Company (Jakob Trollbäck, Bob Swensen, Laurent Fauchere, Antoine Tinguely, Chris Haak, Christian Gatgens, James Tosatti, Jasmine Jodry, Todd Neil, Nicole Amato, Meghan O’ Brien) David Trowbridge, Dogma Barbara Vohryzek, California Statewide Charlene Woodcock, University of California Press

photos 14â&#x20AC;&#x201C;49: E. Kozma

LOS ANGELES

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Country Comparisons

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Agglomeration Comparisons

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This line spans 135 kilometers through Los Angeles. A series of photographs taken every 0.5 kilometers along the line starts on page 14 and continues through this chapter. Photographs by Edit Kozma

5 km

It had taken almost half a day, and I had covered a distance that would have taken me through three or four Northeastern states, but I had finally found the other end of Los Angeles. And as I traveled around Moreno Valley that day, the people I talked to felt as much alienation from Los Angeles as my neighbors in Ventura. William Fulton, The Reluctant Metropolis: The Politics of Urban Growth in Los Angeles (Point Arena, Ca.: Solano Press Books, 1997), 2. 28.5 km

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future agglomeration boundary

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Defining Los Angeles For the purposes of this book, the Los Angeles under scrutiny comprises the built mass that radiates from Los Angeles County to absorb parts of Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties. This is not the oftenconsidered, politically defined five-county area. The Los Angeles under consideration is the continuously connected mass of urban growth, or agglomeration, framed by mountains, ocean, and desert. All data in this book pertains to this area. L.A. Now is a snapshot of Los Angeles as defined above at this point in time. The region as described here is not definite; growth is anticipated north into Ventura County, south to San Diego, and east to Palm Springs, indicated in some maps in this book by a dotted line.

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Timeline

LOS ANGELES

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LOS ANGELES •8,000 B.C. The Chumash settle in coastal villages •7,000 B.C. La Brea Woman dies in the Park La Brea area of Los Angeles •200 A.D. First Tongva Indians arrive in Southern California from the Mojave area •1769 First European explorers reach present-day Orange County •1769 Spanish occupation of California begins •1771 Mission San Gabriel founded •1776 Mission San Juan Capistrano becomes present-day Orange County's first permanent settlement •1781 El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora de la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciúncula founded •1784 First three ranchos in Los Angeles—Dominguez, Nieto, and Verdugo—granted •1797 Mission San Fernando Rey de España founded by Father Lasuén •1801 Jose Yorba establishes first rancho in Orange County–Santiago de Santa Ana •1805 First American visits Los Angeles •1805 First American commercial trading ship arrives San Pedro Bay •1810 Padres from Mission San Fernando dam Los Angeles River north of El Pueblo •1812 San Juan Capistrano-Wrightwood Earthquake •1817 First school established •1822 Mexico wins independence from Spain and begins rule over California •1827 John Temple opens El Pueblo's first general store •1835 Los Angeles given city status •1836 First official census taken in Los Angeles •1841 First California-bound wagon trains, the Workman-Rowland party, arrives •1842 Gold discovered near Saugus •1849 First city map drawn, comprising 28 square miles 1850 POPULATION: 2,968; AREA: 1.3 SQUARE MILES •1850 Los Angeles County established, comprising 4,340 square miles •1850 City of Los Angeles incorporated •1851 Mormon community settles in San Bernardino County •1853 San Bernardino County established •1853 First jail built •1854 Crime in Los Angeles rises to one murder per day •1854 Chinese immigrants brought in as laborers and servants •1857 Mormon community leaves San Bernardino County •1858 Butterfield Stage Line links L.A. to San Francisco and St. Louis •1858 Sisters of Charity becomes first hospital •1860 First telegraph link to San Francisco established •1862 Severe drought ends cattle ranching •1865 Union troops stop L.A. residents from celebrating Lincoln assassination •1865 First institute of higher learning, St. Vincent's College (now Loyola-Marymount), opens •1866 Central Park (now Pershing Square) established •1868 Los Angeles water system installed using iron pipes •1869 First railroad station at Alameda and Commercial Streets •1870 Navel oranges planted in Riverside County •1871 Massacre of 19 Chinese by mobs at Negro Alley •1873 Trolley line established by Main Street Railroad Company •1876 Southern Pacific Railroad completes connection to San Francisco •1881 Southern Pacific Railway links L.A. to East Coast •1881 Los Angeles Times founded •1882 Downtown lit by electric Urban Growth street lights •1885 Wilshire Boulevard dedicated •1887 Silver discovered in Santa Ana mountains •1887 Harvey Wilcox lays out Hollywood •1887 Los Angeles Electric Railway begins operation •1889 Orange County established •1889 New City Hall built on Broadway •1890 First Tournament of Roses Parade held in Pasadena •1891 Throop Polytechnic Institute of Pasadena (now California Institute of Technology) founded •1892 Oil discovered in Los Angeles •1892 Abbott Kinney purchases land to develop in present-day Venice •1892 Banning brothers begin developing Avalon on Catalina Island 1893 POPULATION: 66,020; AREA: 31 SQUARE MILES •1893 Mt. Lowe Railway opens •1893 Riverside County established •1893 Santa Fe Railroad dedicates La Grande Station •1894 National railroad strike triggers labor rioting •1895 California Bureau of Highways created •1896 Congress appropriates $3.9 million to build harbor at San Pedro •1896 Griffith J. Griffith donates 3,015 acres to create nation's largest urban park •1897 First known sighting of an automobile in L.A. •1897 City of Long Beach incorporated •1897 California Department of Highways created •1898 Los Angeles forms fifth symphony orchestra in the nation •1899 Los Angeles Stock Exchange opens •1900 The Automobile Club of Southern California established •1901 Pacific Electric Railway formed, connecting L.A. to Long Beach •1902 First movie theater opens on Main Street •1903 Hearst publishes the Los Angeles Examiner •1904 Mount Wilson Observatory founded •1905 Announcement of Owens Valley water project •1906 Beverly Hills founded •1907 Los Angeles Department of Engineering created •1908 First motion picture made completely in L.A. (In the Sultan's Power) completed • 1909 Wilmington and San Pedro annexed by Los Angeles •1909 Southern California Edison founded •1909 Construction begins on L.A. Aqueduct •1909 First State Highway Bond Act issued for State Highway System •1910 Hollywood joins Los Angeles in order to receive water •1910 11,050-foot breakwater at L.A. Harbor built •1910 Los Angeles Times building bombed, killing 20 •1911 C. P. Rodgers makes first transcontinental airplane flight from New York to Pasadena •1911 Manhattan Beach closed to African Americans •1912 First gas station in L.A. opens •1912 Los Angeles County Library established • 1913 Georgia Broadwick becomes first woman to parachute from an airplane over L.A.•1913 Aqueduct brings water from Owens Valley •1913 Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History opens •1914 Ford Motor Company opens first auto assembly plant in Southern California •1914 S.S. Missourian becomes first vessel to dock at L.A. Harbor after passing through Panama Canal 1915 POPULATION: 310,479; AREA: 191 SQUARE MILES •1915 Direct steamer service established between L.A. and Japan •1915 Universal Studios founded •1933 Long Beach Earthquake •1933 Mineral Wells Canyon Fire •1934 California State signroute numbering system adopted •1934 First drive-in theater opens •1939 Union Station opens •1939 90 film companies in operation •1940 First freeway (now Pasadena Freeway) in California opens •1942 First smog alert issued •1943 Zoot Suit Riots •1943 San Bernardino Freeway construction starts (I-10, completed in 1957) •1945 Santa Ana Freeway construction starts (I-5, completed in 1958) •1946 Los Angeles Air Pollution Control Board established •1946 Commercial airlines move operations from Burbank to LAX •1946 KTLA becomes city's first commercial television station •1947 Cleveland Rams football team begins playing in Los Angeles •1947 “Hollywood Ten” charged with contempt of Congress •1947 Hollywood Freeway opens •1947 “Black Dahlia” murder occurs •1947 Mobster Bugsy Siegel gunned down in Beverly Hills •1947 Collier-Burns Act passed to speed up freeway building •1951 “Bloody Christmas” incident occurs •1951 State establishes Metropolitan Transit Authority •1952 Long Beach Freeway construction starts (I-710, completed in 1965) •1952 Harbor Freeway construction starts (I-110, completed in 1970) •1953 Driest year on record •1953 Four-level interchange links highways 101 and 110 •1954 L.A. hit by worst smog ever, air and shipping traffic diverted •1954 Watts Towers completed •1954 President Eisenhower proposes National System of Interstate and Defense Highways •1955 Disneyland

37.0 km

opens •1955 Ventura Freeway construction starts (U.S. 101, completed in 1974) •1955 Foothill Freeway construction starts (I-210, completed in 1977) •1956 California State University at Northridge established •1956 L.A. City Council rescinds 140-ft. building-height limit •1956 Golden State Freeway construction starts (I-5, completed in 1975) •1957 San Diego Freeway construction starts (I-405, completed in 1969) •1958 Brooklyn Dodgers move to Los Angeles •1958 First telecopter introduced •1959 First jet service from LAX connects L.A. to New York •1960 Minneapolis Lakers move to Los Angeles •1960 L.A. becomes the nation's second largest city •1961 Bel Air Fire •1961 Santa Monica Freeway construction starts (I-10, completed in 1966) •1962 Dodger Stadium opens •1963 Vincent Thomas Bridge opens in San Pedro •1964 Music Center opens •1964 Southern California Rapid Transit District formed •1965 Los Angeles County Museum of Art opens •1965 Watts Riots •1966 Los Angeles Zoo opens •1969 Manson murders take place 1970 POPULATION: 2,811,801; AREA: 908 SQUARE MILES •1971 Sylmar Earthquake •1971 Arco builds twin towers in downtown L.A. •1974 J. Paul Getty Museum moves to Pacific Palisades •1975 Southern California Air Quality Management District formed •1975 Pacific Design Center opens •1978 Pasadena hosts first Doo-Dah Parade •1978 Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area created by Congress •1978 Agoura-Malibu Fire •1979 Los Angeles National Forest Fire •1980 Screen Actors Guild strike •1980 Panorama Fire •1985 Wheeler Fire •1987 Whittier Narrows Earthquake •1990 Santa Barbara Fire •1991 Rodney King incident occurs •1992 Landers Earthquake •1992 Rodney King verdict triggers riots •1993 Twenty-one wind-driven fires rage across the agglomeration •1993 Kinneloa Fire •1993 Laguna Fire •1993 Topanga Fire •1993 Inaugural run of MTA's Metro Rail into Union Station •1993 Glenn Anderson Freeway opens (I-105) •1994 Northridge Earthquake •1999 Willows Fires 2000 POPULATION: 13,100,768; AREA: 1,634 SQUARE MILES •Projected 2003 Metro Blue Line links Union Station with Chinatown, Highland Park, and Pasadena •Projected 2010 High Speed Rail begins operation PROJECTED 2020 POPULATION: 21,139,700; AREA: 1,797 SQUARE MILES WORLD 150,000 YEARS AGO POPULATION: 1,000,000 •120,000 years ago Neanderthals roam in Western Europe and Central Asia •100,000 years ago Modern humans in eastern and southern Africa •90,000 years ago First evidence of modern humans in East Asia •35,000 years ago Fully modern humans settle the European continent as Neanderthals go extinct •20,000 years ago Peak of last ice age •11,000 years ago Animals first domesticated •10,000 years ago Glaciers retreat, as temperate deciduous woodlands spread northward •5,000–2,500 B.C. Urban civilizations thrive in the valleys of the Nile, Tigris, Euphrates, Indus, and Yellow Rivers •2,500 B.C. Major cities take root in the Nile Valley, Mesopotamia, and the Indus Valley •500 B.C. Climax of the Classical Age •1 B.C. Half the global population lives in the three major empires of Rome, Parthia, and Han China •1050–1350 The Crusades •1300–1400 Bubonic Plague •1500–1600 The age of exploration and European expansion •1756–63 French and Indian War •1776 America declares independence •1803 Louisiana Purchase •1820 Missouri Compromise •1845 Texas Annexation •1846 Oregon settlement •1849 California Gold Rush 1850 POPULATION: 900,000,000 •1848 Mexican-American War ends, Mexico cedes California to U.S. •1850 California admitted to statehood •1853 Gadsden Purchase •1837 Patent of first electric telegraph •1861–65 American Civil War •1867 U.S. purchases Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million •1869 Transcontinental Railroad in U.S. completed •1876 Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone •1882 Chinese immigration to U.S. banned •1885 Development of first automobile by Daimler & Benz •1890 Bureau of the Census announces closing of the American frontier 1893 POPULATION: 1,484,660,000 •1895 Marconi invents radio telegraphy •1896 Revival of Olympic Games in Athens •1914 Panama Canal opens •1914 World War I begins 1915 POPULATION: 1,677,150,000 •1917 U.S. enters World War I •1917 U.S. Immigration Act bans immigrants from Asiatic zone •1918 World War I ends •1919 U.S. declines entry into League of Nations •1919 Volstead Act passes, implementing Prohibition in U.S. •1920 Inauguration of League of Nations •1921 Emergency Quota Act drastically curbs immigration to U.S. •1923 More than 13 million cars on U.S. roads •1928 Penicillin discovered •1929 Wall Street Crash starts Great Depression 1932 POPULATION: 1,921,662,000 •1934–36 Mass migration of farmers from Great Plains to California •1939–45 World War II •1945 Cold War begins •1950–55 The Korean War •1954–75 The Vietnam War •1957 First artificial satellite, Sputnik II, launched by U.S.S.R. •1959 U.S. Senate Bill 480 establishes a national 12, 414-mile freeway and expressway system •1961 Berlin Wall built, separating East and West Berlin •1962 Cuban Missile Crisis •1966 U.S. Department of Transportation created •1969 NASA lands first man on moon 1970 POPULATION: 3,548,414,000 •1972 U.S. Senate approves Strategic Arms Limitations Treaty (SALT) I •1973 Oil crisis •1989 Cold War ends •1989 End of Communism in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, East Germany, and Bulgaria •1990 NATO and Warsaw Pact agree on conventional arms limitation in Europe •1993 1.8 million online hosts •1998 36.7 million online hosts •1998 107 million online users 2000 POPULATION: 6,000,000,000 •2000 50% of world’s population lives in cities •2000 600 million passenger cars worldwide •2000 1.7 million biological species in the world identified •2001 Over 100 million online hosts •Projected 2005 Interactive TV in over 30% of American, Japanese, and Western European homes •Projected 2015 Populations approach 10–15 million in Buenos Aires, Cairo, Istanbul, Jakarta, Lahore, Los Angeles, Manila, Osaka, Rio de Janeiro, Seoul, Tehran, and Tianjin; approach 16-–20 million in Beijing, Calcutta, Delhi, Dhaka, Karachi, New York, São Paulo, and Shanghai; and exceed 25 million in Bombay, Lagos, and Tokyo PROJECTED POPULATION IN 2020: 8,000,000,000 •Projected 2020 Top ten countries receiving tourists (in descending order): China, U.S., France, Spain, Hong Kong, U.K., Italy, Mexico, Russia, and Czech Republic •Projected 2020 Top ten countries creating tourists (in descending order): Germany, Japan, U.S., China, U.K., France, Netherlands, Canada, Russia, and Italy •Projected 2090 Average temperature 5 degrees Celsius higher than average in 1900 due to global warming -

38.0 km

Timeline map

gold discovered at Placerita Canyon

Mission San Fernando Rey de España

Indigenous villages 8

Range of Chumash Indians

12 11

5 10

6 Range of Tonguu Indians

15 13

LOS ANGELES

Akurangna Asuksangna Engovangna Hutukngna Kuruvangna Nakaungna Pasbengna Pasekgna Puvungna Sa’angna Sibangna Sisitcanongna Suangna Sukangna Tibahangna Tsavingna Yangna

firs

g ve ial tradin merc om

tE uro pe

an v

isi Mission San Juan Capistrano to rs

Los Angeles County

Throop Polytechnic Institute of Pasadena Tournament of Roses

ns leav e

Mormo

Mormons arrive

1700–1850

Mt. Lowe Railway

S Bu outh tte e rfie rn Pa ld S cif tag ic Ra tel e li ilw eg rap ne ay h li ne

San Gabriel Mission (1771)

Early

San Francisco

nd par Rowla manWork

San Gabriel Mission (1775)

f ir s

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

se l

La Brea Woman

Los Angeles County New York Ventura County

San Bernardino County

Mt. Wilson Observatory

t l fligh nenta conti trans

Griffith Park

Urban Growth

San Bernardino County

Universal Studios

ilroad tinental Ra Transcon

nts igra imm ese ite Bu

Chin

iel ds

Orange County steamer to Ja

silver discovered

pan S.S. Missourian

St. Vincent's (Loyola-Marymount) Japan

ta ge lin e

Orange County

San Pedro Harbor

Riverside County

Riverside County San Diego

1851–1893

1894–1915

San Diego County

Panama

Minneapolis

Bloody Christmas

Ra m s

Los Angeles County Rose Bowl

Hollywood Bowl Hollywood Sign San Francisco

California Aqueduct

er dg Do

La ke rs

Ventura County

Burbank Airport Ventura County

Cleveland Brooklyn

San Bernardino County

New York

101

California Aqueduct

Watts Towers

Zoot Suit Riots

LAX

110 s jet

airl ink

Colorado River Aqueduct

Watts Riots

ic erv

Disneyland

Colorado River Aqueduct

Orange County Orange County

Riverside County

1916–1932

38.5 km

39.0 km

Riverside County

1933–1970

San Diego County

39.5 km

San Diego County

40.0 km

40.5 km

41.0 km

Colorado River Aqueduct 14

Sierra Pelona

San Gabriel Mountains

Ventura County

San Bernardino County Los Angeles County

118

San Fernando Valley

Sa n

170

Be rn

ard in

oM ou

Santa Monica Mountains National Recreational Area

California Aqueduct

nta

ins

Puente Hills 42

n Sa

a nic Mo

107

y Ba

earthquake

83 215

Chino Hills

105

ta wildfire

71 57

605 39

railways highways / freeways

Sa nt

aqueduct 56

river

Sa n

Pe dro

na M

ou nt a

ins

Sa nP ed

Ch an ne l

Orange County

ro B

1971â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2001

San Joaquin Hills

Riverside County

San Diego County

Ventura County

Los Angeles County San Bernardino County

Orange County

Riverside County

Future sources: www.losangelesalmanac.com Michael Jacob Rochlim, Ancient L.A. and Other Essays (Los Angeles: Unreinforced Masonry Studio, 1999)

San Diego County 41.5 km

42.0 km

42.5 km

43.0 km

44.0 km

Population of Los Angeles, 2000 rank 1 2 3 4 5 LOS ANGELES 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51

44.5 km

population city 3,694,820 Los Angeles 1,123,224 Unincorporated 461,522 Long Beach 337,977 Santa Ana 328,014 Anaheim 255,166 Riverside 194,973 Glendale 189,594 Huntington Beach 185,401 San Bernardino 165,196 Garden Grove 158,007 Ontario 151,088 Santa Clarita 149,473 Pomona 143,072 Irvine 142,381 Moreno Valley 137,946 Torrance 133,936 Pasadena 128,929 Fontana 128,821 Orange 127,743 Rancho Cucamonga 126,003 Fullerton 124,966 Corona 117,005 Thousand Oaks 115,965 El Monte City 112,580 Inglewood Comparisons 111,351 Simi Valley 108,724 Costa Mesa 107,323 Downey 105,080 West Covina 103,298 Norwalk 100,316 Burbank 96,375 South Gate 93,493 Compton 93,102 Mission Viejo 91,873 Rialto 89,730 Carson 88,207 Westminster 85,804 Alhambra 84,112 Hawthorne 84,084 Santa Monica 83,680 Whittier 79,345 Lakewood 78,282 Buena Park 75,837 Baldwin Park 72,878 Bellflower 70,032 Newport Beach 69,845 Lynwood 68,393 Upland 67,504 Tustin 67,168 Chino 64,029 Victorville 63,591 Redlands

45.0 km

45.5 km

county Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles Orange Orange Riverside Los Angeles Orange San Bernardino Orange San Bernardino Los Angeles Los Angeles Orange Riverside Los Angeles Los Angeles San Bernardino Orange San Bernardino Orange Riverside Ventura Los Angeles Los Angeles Ventura Orange Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles Orange San Bernardino Los Angeles Orange Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles Orange Los Angeles Los Angeles Orange Los Angeles San Bernardino Orange San Bernardino San Bernardino San Bernardino

46.0 km

rank 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103

population 63,428 63,261 62,582 62,150 61,891 61,348 60,051 58,974 58,918 58,812 57,746 57,716 57,077 56,287 55,266 54,978 53,505 53,054 51,488 49,415 47,662 46,837 46,783 46,488 46,229 44,712 44,605 44,054 41,207 41,145 41,063 39,804 38,816 37,403 36,929 36,664 36,189 35,716 35,410 35,110 34,980 33,998 33,852 33,826 33,784 33,377 33,049 31,711 31,638 31,415 30,004 28,928

46.5 km

city Pico Rivera Redondo Beach Hesperia Montebello Laguna Niguel Huntington Park Monterey Park La Habra Yorba Linda Hemet Gardena Temecula Camarillo Diamond Bar Paramount Fountain Valley Rosemead Arcadia Cerritos Glendora Colton Covina La Mirada Placentia Cypress Azusa Highland Bell Gardens Yucaipa Rancho Palos Verdes La Puente San Gabriel Culver City Stanton Monrovia Bell Perris West Hollywood Brea Dana Point San Dimas Claremont Manhattan Beach San Juan Capistrano Beverly Hills Temple Montclair Lawndale La Verne Moorpark Walnut Lake Elsinore

47.0 km

county Los Angeles Los Angeles San Bernardino Los Angeles Orange Los Angeles Los Angeles Orange Orange Riverside Los Angeles Riverside Ventura Los Angeles Los Angeles Orange Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles San Bernardino Los Angeles Los Angeles Orange Orange Los Angeles San Bernardino Los Angeles San Bernardino Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles Orange Los Angeles Los Angeles Riverside Los Angeles Orange Orange Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles Orange Los Angeles Los Angeles San Bernardino Los Angeles Los Angeles Ventura Los Angele Riverside

50 11

125

111 101

25 116

146

137

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115 153 128 152

50.0 km

154

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133 86

134

136

105 127

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103

26 45

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19 71 78 77 �� 34 83 69 149 47 92 100 8 �� 93 89 148 97 37 �� 68 23 43 73 17 �� 96 118 98 �� 114 ��10 �� 28 �� 58 �� 72 �� 51 12 �� 1 �� 130 39 �� 150 82 �� 55 �� 49 �� 84 102 151 �� 129 �� 141 65 �� 57 104 �� 156 �� 5 �� 24 �� 87 79 52 �� 40 �� 106 145 �� 107 120 �� 122 �� 31 46 27 �� 14 �� 38 159 �� 59 �� 94 �� 138 �� 60 74 29 �� 90 �� 32 66 44 155 �� 99 62 20 119 �� 75 �� 21 121 42 � �� 15 �� 70 41 �� 123 �� 53 35 � �� 4 �� 88 �� 117 �� 140 76 � �� 135 124 157 � 85 9 18 131 �� 139 126 2 108 36 �� 147 48 67 �� 81 3 �� 158 7 13 ��

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80 132

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144

There were millions of LAs, an infinite fan of superimposed cities, each one thrown out from somebody’s perception and memory. Every bit of town, every sunny facade and piece of street litter and palm frond, had to be illuminated by personal significance, to seem to collude in someone’s fate somehow, or else never get noticed at all, never in some sense exist. Jim Paul, Medieval in LA: A Fiction (Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, 1996), 23.

47.5 km

48.0 km

48.5 km

49.0 km

49.5 km

��

109

20 Miles

112

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110

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0 2 4 6 8 10

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142 143

50.0 km

Population of Los Angeles, 2000 (continued) rank population city 104 28,083 Maywood 105 24,292 South Pasadena 106 24,208 Cudahy 107 24,157 Norco 108 24,157 Seal Beach 109 23,779 San Jacinto 110 23,727 Laguna Beach 111 23,564 San Fernando 112 23,562 Banning 113 21,486 Duarte 114 21,144 South El Monte 115 20,537 Agoura Hills 116 20,318 La CaĂąada Flintridge 117 20,046 Lomita 118 18,681 Loma Linda 119 18,566 Hermosa Beach 120 17,438 Santa Fe Springs 121 16,380 Artesia 122 16,033 El Segundo 123 15,408 La Palma 124 14,779 Hawaiian Gardens 125 13,643 Fillmore 126 13,340 Palos Verdes Estates 127 12,945 San Marino 128 12,575 Malibu City 129 12,568 Commerce Comparisons 130 11,626 Grand Terrace 131 11,536 Los Alamitos

LOS ANGELES

county Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles Riverside Orange Riverside Orange Los Angeles Riverside Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles San Bernardino Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles Orange Los Angeles Ventura Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles San Bernardino Orange

rank 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159

population 11,384 10,578 10,218 9,333 8,934 8,368 8,342 7,676 5,999 5,712 5,438 5,125 3,127 2,155 1,875 1,871 1,446 855 777 ----------

city Beaumont Sierra Madre Crestline Signal Hill Lake Arrowhead Westlake Village Woodcrest Rolling Hills Estates Villa Park La Habra Heights Big Bear Lake Running Springs Avalon Arlington Hidden Hills Rolling Hills Irwindale Bradbury Industry Vernon Point Dume Topanga Devore Winchester Venice Wilmington San Pedro Watts

county Riverside Los Angeles San Bernardino Los Angeles San Bernardino Los Angeles Riverside Los Angeles Orange Los Angeles San Bernardino San Bernardino Los Angeles Riverside Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles San Bernardino Riverside Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles

The total population of Los Angeles is 13,100,768 source: U.S. Census 2000 (www.census.gov)

50.5 km

51.0 km

51.5 km

52.0 km

52.5 km

53.0 km

How big is the population of Los Angeles compared to other major metropolitan areas? London x 1.8 Amsterdam x 8.2 Hong Kong x 1.9 Paris x 6.1

Madrid x 4.6

��

Taipei x 2.7

Barcelona x 8.7

��

Chicago x 4.5

��

Philadelphia x 8.6

��

Sydney x 3.2 Phoenix x 9.9

Caracas x 3.8 Brasilia x 6.6

Agglomeration Comparisons

��

Houston x 6.7

sources: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2001 (New York: World Almanac Books, 2001) U.S. Census 2000 (www.census.gov)

57.0 km

It has often been confidently predicted that Los Angeles will eventually become the first “world city,” both in its techno-economics and in the mosaic of its population and culture, what Mayor Richard Riordan calls “the capital city of the future.” But it may be a future like none ever envisaged in America. In the apparently unbridgeable gap between the people on the streets and barrios, and those in the picture-window suites, Los Angeles bears worrisome resemblances to Caracas and Singapore, to Warsaw and Seoul, and, until recently at least, to Hong Kong. The elites behind those picture windows have more in common with their offshore counterparts than they do with their compatriots down below and beyond the gates. Peter Schrag, Paradise Lost: California’s Experience, America’s Future (New York: The New Press, 1998), 279–80.

53.5 km

54.0 km

54.5 km

55.0 km Claremont

55.5 km

56.0 km

56.5 km

68.5 km

57.5 km

58.0 km

58.5 km

LOS ANGELES

34 59.0 km

59.5 km

60.0 km

60.5 km

61.0 km

61.5 km

62.0 km

62.5 km

63.0 km

63.5 km

64.0 km

64.5 km

65.0 km

65.5 km

66.5 km

67.0 km

66.0 km

67.5 km

68.0 km

69.0 km 69.5 km

70.5 km

70.0 km

71.0 km

71.5 km

72.0 km

72.5 km

Sao Paulo

Tokyo

LOS ANGELES

New York City

Agglomeration Comparisons

Mexico City

Bombay

73.0 km

73.5 km

74.0 km

74.5 km

75.0 km

75.5 km

Lagos Shanghai

Los Angeles

Agglomerations around the globe, 2001 rank population 1. 26,444,000 2. 21,199,865 3. 18,131,000 4. 18,066,000 5. 17,755,000 6. 13,427,000 7. 13,100,768 8. 12,918,000 9. 12,887,000 10. 12,560,000

city Tokyo New York City Mexico City Bombay São Paulo Lagos Los Angeles Calcutta Shanghai Buenos Aires

projected population (2015) 26,444,000 29,043,815 19,180,000 26,138,000 20,397,000 23,173,000 21,139,700 17,252,000 14,575,000 14,076,000

projected rank (2015) 2 1 9 3 7 4 5 11 13 14

source: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2001 (New York: World Almanac Education Group, Inc., 2001)

Buenos Aires

Los Angeles is a new addition to the list of world cities—a city that hardly existed in the middle of the nineteenth century, which is on course to become the largest in the United States, a key focus of the Pacific economy, a city that is still growing with the frenetic speed of the Third World. Equally, it is a city that is peculiarily geared to the fragmented shape of the post-industrial economy, a place which is a key centre simultaneously for low-skilled, low-wage manufacturing and the highest of high technology, as well as for what some at least would say is the most important of all, that is the Hollywood image manufacturing industry, with its power to tap deep-seated emotional responses to the Los Angeles way of life.

Calcutta

Deyan Sudjic, The 100 Mile City (New York: Harvest Books, 1993), 265–66.

76.0 km

76.5 km

77.0 km

77.5 km

78.0 km

78.5 km

79.5 km

79.0 km

LOS ANGELES

82.0 km

82.5 km

80.0 km

80.5 km

81.0 km

81.5 km

San–San Megalopolis

Los–Las Megalopolis

Boston–D.C. Megalopolis

(San Francisco to San Diego)

(Los Angeles to Las Vegas)

(Boston to Washington, D.C.)

Population 14,866,019 1. Apple Valley, California 2. Baker, California 3. Barstow, California 4. Hesperia, California 5. Los Angeles, California 6. Riverside, California 7. San Bernardino, California 8. Victorville, California 9. Henderson, Nevada 10. Las Vegas, Nevada

Population 42,004,111 1. Bridgeport, Connecticut 2. New Haven, Connecticut 3. Norwalk, Connecticut 4. Stamford, Connecticut 5. Washington, D.C. 6. Wilmington, Delaware 7. Baltimore, Maryland 8. Boston, Massachusetts 9. Lowell, Massachusetts 10. Worchester, Massachusetts 11. Atlantic City, New Jersey 12. Jersey City, New Jersey 13. Newark, New Jersey 14. Trenton, New Jersey 15. Brooklyn, New York 16. New York City, New York 17. Queens, New York 18. Staten Island, New York 19. White Plains, New York 20. Allentown, Pennsylvania 21. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 22. Lancaster, Pennsylvania 23. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 24. Reading, Pennsylvania 25. York, Pennsylvania 26. Providence, Rhode Island

Population 29,016,756 1. Bakersfield 2. Concord 3. Dana Point 4. Encinitas 5. Escondido 6. Fresno 7. Gilroy 8. Hanford 9. Lancaster 10. Lompoc 11. Long Beach 12. Los Angeles 13. Los Banos 14. Madera 15. Merced 16. Modesto 17. Monterey 18. Moorpark 19. Napa 20. Oakland 21. Oceanside 22. Oxnard 23. Palmdale 24. Palo Alto 25. Porterville 26. Riverside 27. Sacramento 28. Salinas 29. San Bernardino 30. San Diego 31. San Francisco 32. San Jose 33. San Luis Obispo 34. Santa Barbara 35. Santa Clarita Megalopolis 36. Santa Cruz Comparisons 37. Santa Maria 38. Santa Monica 39. Santa Rosa 40. Stockton 41. Thousand Oaks 42. Tulare 43. Tustin 44. Vacaville 45. Vallejo 46. Visalia 47. Woodland

83.0 km

83.5 km

source: U.S. Census 2000 (www.census.gov)

84.0 km

10 9

San–San Megalopolis

Los–Las Megalopolis

Boston–D.C. Megalopolis

45 8

24 32 36

1 19 16 12

19 16 12

43 3

21 22 25

3 5

30 29

3 21 4

85.0 km

85.5 km

86.0 km Monterey Park

86.5 km

87.0 km

41 12

17 15

423

41 38

9 21 35

10 34

2 1

1 25 23

1 38

6 8

84.5 km

17 15

87.5 km

23 6

If considered among states, Los Angeles would be the 5th most populous in the nation. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

LOS ANGELES

California Texas New York Florida Los Angeles

33,871,648 20,851,820 18,976,457 15,982,378 13,100,768

1. California

2. Texas

3. New York

4. Florida

5. Los Angeles Agglomeration

88.5 km

88.0 km

Among states, the population of Los Angeles equals 1.1 Pennsylvanias 1.1 Illinoises 1.2 Ohios State 1.3 Michigans Comparisons 1.6 Georgias 1.6 New Jerseys 1.6 North Carolinas 1.9 Virginias 2.1 Massachusetts 2.2 Indianas 2.2 Washingtons 2.3 Missouris 2.3 Tennessees

2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.9 2.9 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.8 3.8 3.9 4.5

Wisconsins Marylands Arizonas Minnesotas Alabamas Louisianas Colorados Kentuckys South Carolinas Oklahomas Oregons Connecticuts Iowas

4.6 Mississippis 4.9 Arkansas 4.9 Kansas 5.9 Utahs 6.6 Nevadas 7.2 New Mexicos 7.2 West Virginias 7.7 Nebraskas 10.1 Idahos 10.3 Maines 10.6 New Hampshires 10.8 Hawaiis 12.5 Rhode Islands

14.5 16.7 17.4 20.4 20.9 21.5 22.9 26.5

Montanas Delawares South Dakotas North Dakotas Alaskas Vermonts District of Columbias Wyomings

source: U.S. Census 2000 (www.census.gov)

89.0 km

89.5 km

90.0 km

90.5 km

91.0 km

91.5 km

Among countries, the population of Los Angeles equals 1.2 1.2 1.3 1.3 1.3 1.3 1.5 1.8

Cubas Greeces Belgiums Czech Republics Hungarys Portugals Swedens Switzerlands

1.5 2.5 3.2 3.4 3.5 4.7 47.5

Finlands Denmarks Singapores New Zealands Irelands Panamas Icelands

Country Comparisons

Los Angeles vs. the ten most populous countries in the world

93.0 km

rank 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

country China India United States of America Indonesia Brazil Russia Pakistan Bangladesh Japan Nigeria

60. Los Angeles

population 1,261,832,482 1,014,003,817 275,562,673 224,784,210 172,860,370 146,001,176 141,553,775 129,194,224 126,549,976 123,337,822 13,100,768

or how many L.A. agglomerations 96 77 21 17 13 11 10 9 9 9 or one Ecuador or Guatemala

source: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2001 (New York: World Almanac Books, 2001)

Guatemala

Ecuador

Los Angeles Agglomeration

92.0 km

92.5 km

93.5 km

94.0 km

94.5 km

Los Angeles among nationsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a short population sketch

Country Comparisons 2

1 2

10 1 20 15 4 918 2 7 313

4 6 16

6 11 13

14 15

95.5 km

96.0 km

16 97.0 km

95.0 km

97.5 km 96.5 km

The Netherlands Population 15,892,237

Los Angeles Population 13,100,768

1. Delfzijl 2. Groningen 3. Assen 4. Leeuwarden 5. Zwolle 6. Arnhem 7. Utrecht 8. Amsterdam 9. Den Helder 10. The Hague 11. Rotterdam 12. Terneuzen 13. Dordrecht 14. Tilburg 15. Eindhoven 16. Maastricht

1. Los Angeles 2. Long Beach 3. Santa Ana 4. Anaheim 5. Riverside 6. Glendale 7. Huntington Beach 8. San Bernardino 9. Garden Grove 10. Ontario 11. Santa Clarita 12. Pomona 13. Irvine 14. Moreno Valley 15. Torrance 16. Pasadena 17. Fontana 18. Orange 19. Rancho Cucamonga 20. Fullerton

98.0 km

LOS ANGELES

5 8

14 13

1 2

3 4 6

9 7

13 6

2 11

4 5 6

4 9

10 8

7 9

12 8

15 14

19 18

14 15

98.5 km

Switzerland Population 7,262,372

Belgium Population 10,241,506

1. Schaffhausen 2. Frauenfeld 3. Liestal 4. Delemont 5. Biel 6. NeuchĂ˘tel 7. Bern 8. Lucerne 9. Sarnen 10. Zug 11. Saint Gallen 12. Glarus 13. Altdorf 14. Grindelwald 15. Thun 16. Lausanne 17. Geneva 18. Zermatt 19. Locarno 20. Lugano 21. St. Moritz

1. Zeebrugge 2. Ostend 3. Bruges 4. Ghent 5. Kortrijk 6. Brussels 7. Antwerp 8. Hasselt 9. LiĂ¨ge 10. Namur 11. Bastogne 12. Charleroi 13. Mons

100.5 km 99.0 km Downtown Los Angeles

99.5 km

100.0 km

106.0 km Jefferson Park

LOS ANGELES

Sprawl

101.0 km

Jogging in the dark on Halloween of 1988, on the unfinished interstate leading out of Forney, of Forney, Texas, Texas, Grant Grant was was called called by by thethe moon. moon. NotNot that that he he hadn’t hadn’t been been ready ready to to go— go— he’d been thinking a lot about Los Angeles, anyway. He’d applied to the Art Center in Pasadena in Pasadena asas a kind a kind ofof dare dare toto himself. himself. But Butuntil untilthat thatparticular particularnight, night,hehedidn’t didn’tbelieve believe he would go. He doesn’t really even want to say this, as it’s strange, but that night he seemed actually to feel the moon drawing him westward, beyond Dallas, beyond Abilene, all the way to LA. L.A. 101.5 km

JayPaul, Gummerman, Chez Chance (Berkeley: of 1996), California Jim Medieval in LA: A Fiction (Washington, D.C.:University Counterpoint, 109. 102.0 km

102.5 km

Press, 1997). 103.0 km

103.5 km

The westward movement of national population centers, 1800–2000

��

source: www.census.gov (U.S. Census 2000)

104.0 km

104.5 km

105.0 km

105.5 km

107.0 km

Top 10 “sprawlers” and the in per-capita wth gro th n w o o r ti sources of sprawl ula to g pop ted la to l re ted raw ption ela r p l s m f raw % o consu f sp d %o lan

LOS ANGELES

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

city Atlanta 36 Houston 30 Sprawl New York City 100 Washington, D.C. 53 Philadelphia 89 Los Angeles 0 Dallas-Fort Worth 0 Tampa 15 Phoenix 0 Minneapolis-St. Paul 49

64 70 0 47 11 100 100 85 100 51 source: Sprawl City (www.sprawlcity.org)

106.5 km

107.5 km

108.0 km

108.5 km

109.0 km

109.5 km

Population density change, 1990–1997

above 1,000 501-1,000 1-500 decline

source: Southern California Association of Governments (www.scag.ca.gov)

110.0 km

110.5 km

I remember the day I found the other end. It was a moody, rainy morning in the spring of 1990, and I braved the freeways for three-plus hours in my thirteen-year-old Honda Civic to go to Moreno Valley in Riverside County. Skidding across the wet lanes of the freeway—Southern Californians are terrible wet-weather drivers, treating every rainstorm as if it were a blizzard—I traveled through suburb after suburb, past shopping center after shopping center and tract after tract. Camarillo. Calabasas. Woodland Hills. Sherman Oaks. Studio City. Glendale. Pasadena. Duarte. San Dimas. Pomona. Corona. The suburban monotony was so continuous that it was numbing. 111.0 km William Fulton, The Reluctant Metropolis: The Politics of Urban Growth in Los Angeles

(Point Arena, Ca.: Solano Press Books, 1997), 1-2. 111.5 km

112.0 km

112.5 km

113.0 km

113.5 km

116.0 km

121.0 km

114.0 km Culver City

114.5 km

115.0 km

116.5 km

117.0 km

117.5 km

118.0 km

121.5 km

122.0 km

122.5 km

123.0 km

125.5 km

126.0 km

126.5 km

127.0 km

LOS ANGELES

48 127.5 km

128.0 km

130.0 km

128.5 km

129.0 km

129.5 km

130.5 km

115.5 km

118.5 km Marina Del Rey

123.5 km

119.0 km

119.5 km

120.0 km

120.5 km Santa Monica

124.0 km

124.5 km

125.0 km

131.0 km

Two general kinds of rhetoric can be distinguished, then. One is a kind of hyperbolic exceptionalism. In this case, Los Angeles has been treated as the big exception in the history of urbanismâ&#x20AC;Ś. The other tradition puts Los Angeles into a context of paradigmatic normalcy. In this case, Los Angeles has been assumed to be the future model for all citiesâ&#x20AC;Ś. Roger Keil, Los Angeles (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998), xiv.

photos 50-54: B. Kalpin

NATURAL HABITAT

S. Zukowski

NATURAL HABITAT

Desert

Natural Disaster: Earthquakes

Flora

Natural Disaster: Wildfires

Ecological Footprint

Fauna

Ocean

Temperature

Rivers & Lakes

Precipitation

Mountains

Wind

Natural Disaster: Landslides

NATURAL HABITAT

“Oh, I love L.A.,” the twenty-seven-year-old flack gushed over lunch at the Lido Buffet. “You’ve got the mountains, you’ve got the ocean, you’ve got the desert. Not that I ever go to any of these places, but it’s nice to know they’re there.” Dennis Hensley, Misadventures in the ( 213 ): A Novel (New York: Rob Weisbach Books, 1998), 12.

Paranoia about nature, of course, distracts attention from the obvious fact that Los Angeles has deliberately put itself in harmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s way. For generations, market-driven urbanization has transgressed environmental common sense. Historic wildfire corridors have been turned into view-lot suburbs, wetland liquefaction zones into marinas, and floodplains into industrial districts and housing tracts. Monolithic public works have been substituted for regional planning and a responsible land ethic. As a result, Southern California has reaped flood, fire, and earthquake tragedies that were as avoidable, as unnatural, as the beating of Rodney King and the ensuing explosion in the streets. In failing to conserve natural ecosystems it has also squandered much of its charm and beauty. Mike Davis, Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster (New York: Metropolitan Books, 1998), 9.

NATURAL HABITAT

34˚ latitude Osaka, Japan

Los Angeles

Columbia, S.C.

118˚ longitude

Los Angeles is located at 34˚ north latitude and 118˚ west longitude. 34˚ north latitude is also home to: Osaka, Japan Columbia, South Carolina Casablanca, Morocco Beirut, Lebanon

Los Angeles sits like a car-seat cover, carefully strapped across the elevations of the Santa Monica and San Gabriel Mountains, tugged in at the coastline and open towards the north and east where the deserts begin. Underneath the cover, the big story of California history is played out in suprahuman intensity and temporality. It is a story of plate tectonics and earthquakes. Compression and strike-slip motion set the slow but unhaltable pace for the constant reshaping of Southern Californian landscapes. Undead at all times, the seat under the cover is good for many a surprise eruption and certain shifts that measure times in eternities. Yet, many features of today’s Southern Californian landscape are witnesses of a more tangible and recent change. The dramatic shift of the mouth of the Los Angeles River from where the International Airport is today and to its current Long Beach location in 1825 after catastrophic flooding in the San Gabriel Mountains, is among them. Nothing under and above the seatcover of built and natural environments in Southern California is stable, nothing but change itself. Roger Keil, Los Angeles (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998), xiii.

Casablanca, Morocco

Beirut, Lebanon

Los Angeles

Ecological Footprint

Peru

Los Angeles comprises 450 square miles. The ecological footprint of Los Angeles comprises 521,000 square miles, or the size of Peru. Ecological footprint: That area of productive ecosystems outside its borders that is appropriated for resource consumption and waste assimilation. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;World Resources Institute sources: Southern California Association of Governments (www.scag.gov) The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2001 (New York: World Almanac Books, 2001)

S. Moon

NATURAL HABITAT

Ocean

J. Rocholl

K. MÃ¼ller

M. Lipson

S. Moon

J. Rocholl

S. Moon

M. Lipson

Beach Report Card, 2000 Dry weather grade A 66% B 14% C 6% D 8% F 6%

NATURAL HABITAT

M. Lipson

Wet weather grade (days of recorded rainfall and following 3 days) A 12% B 11% C 8% D 4% F 65% Heal the Bay’s Beach Report Card™ Card is the only comprehensive examination of coastal water quality in Southern California. The report grades local beaches on an A-F scale based on daily and weekly water-quality monitoring data collected by various county and city public agencies throughout Southern California. Beach Report Card grades are based only on biological pollution— Ocean the report card does not include data on the amount of trash or toxins found at local beaches. Water quality drops dramatically during and immediately after a rainstorm, but often rebounds to its previous level within a few days. For this reason, wet weather data is analyzed separately in order to avoid artificially lowering a location’s grade for the entire month. source: Beach Report Card, Card Heal the Bay (www.healthebay.org)

S. Moon

Malibu Beach & Pier Old Joe’s Malibu Colony

Point Dume

Topanga Paradise Cove Latigo Canyon

Sunset Boulevard Lighthouse Jetties Santa Monica Palisades Paciﬁc Ocean Park Toes Over the Jetty

Santa Monica Pier Venice Marina del Rey Playa del Rey D&W

El Segundo Manhattan Beach King Harbor Redondo Beach Breakwater

Hermosa Beach

$100,000

Haggerty’s

$113,750

Palos Verdes Cove Lunada Bay Resort Point Abalone Cove

Middle’s Avalanche

Portuguese Bend Royal Palms San Pedro Cabrillo Beach

Long Beach Naples Seal Beach Seal Beach Pier Surfside Jetty Sunset Beach Bolsa Chica State Park

$ being invested by state on sand replacement and research

$3.9 million $255,250

Surfside Beach

Beach name

Huntington Beach & Pier Santa Ana Rivermouth

$40,250

Balboa

Huntington Beach State Park Newport Beach

Corona Del Mar Jetty Cameo Shores Cove

Scotchman’s Cove Rockpile

Laguna Beach Victoria Cove

Aliso Creek

Dana Point Doheny Beach State Park

Salt Creek Killer Capo

San Clemente Pier The Riviera The Depot Trafalgar St. Upper Trestle San Clemente State Park Lower Trestle Cotton’s Point San Onofre San Onofre State Park

source: The Office of Governor Gray Davis map source: Allan “Bank” Wright, Jr., Surfing California (Redondo Beach, Ca.: Mountain & Sea Publishing, 1985)

S. Moon

They talked politely for a while about the smog, about the decline in property values, and the tendency of people to hide away in their own gated neighborhoods. “There won’t be any public land left. We already haven’t got any parks. This city is shameful on parks.” “We’ve got beaches.” “You got beaches. Browns and blacks are marooned inland.” “Maybe the Big One will come along and move the shoreline inland a few miles.” John Shannon, The Concrete River (Salem, Ore.: John Brown Books, 1996), 157. photos: A. Scott

Major rivers There are 465 miles of river in Los Angeles, requiring 4,621 square miles of drainage area (an area 10 times the size of Los Angeles). river Los Angeles Rio Hondo San Gabriel Santa Clara Santa Ana

length (miles) 97 20 59 75 214

drainage area (miles2) 830 125 350 1,616 1,700

sources: www.losangelesalmanac.com City of Redlands (www.ci.redlands.ca.us)

NATURAL HABITAT

photos 64-67: S. Callis

Rivers & Lakes

Sierra Pelona Pacoima Reservoir

ima Little Paco

n Gab riel

Lower Van Norman Lake Hansen Dam

Arroyo Seco

Devils Gate Reservoir

Cogswell Reservoir

Sepulveda Dam Hollywood Reservoir Silverlake Reservoir

Cajon Wash e Cr eek

Cajon Summit

Forks Reservoir Cedar Springs Dam Silverwood Lake Lake Arrowhead Lake Gregory

San Gabriel Reservoir Morris Big Dalton Reservoir Reservoir San Dimas Santa Fe Reservoir Dam Puddingston Reservoir

INO

H on

R io

Point Dume

Puente Hills Prado Flood Control Basin

Irvine Lake (Santiago Reservoir)

Pe te

Point Fermin

San Pedro Channel San Pedro Bay

n ta Sa

r ive aR An

Carbon Canyon Reservoir Yorba Linda Reservoir Tem e s ca l Wa Peters Canyon sh Reservoir

Ca ny on Wa sh

San G r a briel Rive

Santa Monica Bay

Los Ang eles Riv er

Chino Hills Brea Reservoir Fullerton Reservoir

San Joaquin Hills

Mockingbird Lake Lake Mathews

Lake Perris Perris Dam

Mo un ta in s

Dana Point

dams rivers 100 year flood 200 year flood historical flood

From its beginning in the suburbs of the San Fernando Valley to its mouth at the Pacific Ocean, the river’s bed and banks are almost entirely concrete. Little water flows in its wide channel most of the year, and nearly all that does is treated sewage and oily street runoff. Chain link fence and barbed wire line the river’s fifty-one-mile course. Graffiti mark its concrete banks. Discarded sofas, shopping carts, and trash litter its channel. Weeds that poke through cracks in the pavement are the only plants visible along most of its course. Fish larger than minnows are rare even where the river does contain water. Feral cats, rats, and human transients are the dominant animal life on its shores. For much of its history, the Los Angeles River has been little more than a local joke. Though millions of people cross it every day on more than a hundred bridges, many do not even realize that the concrete conduit that passes under or alongside some of the nation’s busiest highways is, in fact, the bed of a river. Blake Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River: Its Life, Death and Possible Rebirth (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1999), 1.

Big Bear Lake

MO UN

TA INS

Whittlet Narrows Dam

Santa Monica Mountains

Encino Reservoir Stone Canyon Reservoir

L yt l

reek nC ajo l ec

San Fernando Valley

Fish Fork

Ly t

Chatsworth Reservoir

San Gabriel Mountains

h nga Was

E. F or k S a

Big Tuju

NATURAL HABITAT

Rivers & Lakes

Few people in L.A. noticed the natural features that were still there beneath the grid of streetsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;like the slope a mile north at Rose that had been the north bank of the floodplain. He had once enjoyed knowing things like that, the broken geography under the asphalt and the lost flora and fauna, it was like getting a leg up on the massive denial that the city feasted on, but he was becoming tired of knowing too many things that did him no good. John Shannon, The Concrete River (Salem, Ore.: John Brown Books, 1996 ), 47.

There used to be enough water to irrigate with nearly all year-round around here. Where did it go? Literally, where did it go? go Now thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just the Technical Advisory Board of Friends of the Los Angeles River trying to figure out how much of it has been lost. Lewis MacAdams, The River: Books One & Two (San Francisco: Blue Press, 1998).

Lowest point in L.A.

Highest point in L.A.

Southern California 3,651 ft.

14,110 ft. 14,433 ft.

14,309 ft.

Pikes Peak

Mt. Elbert

Uncompahgre Uplift

12,510 ft.

Mountains

Snowmass Mountain

Sea Level 5,183 ft.

Pacific Ocean

Denver Basin

Mojave Desert

10,064 ft.

2,238 ft.

1,470 ft. 0 ft.

â&#x20AC;&#x201C;9 ft.

NATURAL HABITAT

Mt. San Antonio

Los Angeles Basin

Palos Verdes Hills

Wilmington

239 ft.

2,125 ft.

Whittier Fault

Santa Catalina

photos: E. Kozma

Elevation comparison

Colorado

K. Hirt

Over the years, the Santa Monicas have drawn to them a unique collection of self-styled mountain people, mystics, misanthropes, environmentalists, ardent slow-growth suburbanites, and wealthy executives posing as simple rural folk. In the fifteen or so miles before the flats open up again in Thousand Oaks, these people have dotted the landscape with an eclectic collection of hillside hideaways, ostentatious gated subdivisions, ersatz horse farms, and ordinary tract homes that brush up against natureâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;all of which they protect from flatland interlopers like West Virginia moonshiners trying to fend off federal agents with a few rusty shotguns. William Fulton, The Reluctant Metropolis: The Politics of Urban Growth in Los Angeles (Point Arena, Ca.: Solano Press Books, 1997), 177â&#x20AC;&#x201C;78.

K. Hirt

top photos: S. Smith

Desert

NATURAL HABITAT

bottom photos: S. Moon

Today, the physical manifestations ofâ&#x20AC;Śhuman pressures have become evident across the entire desert landscape: over 100 communities, ranging in type from one-person mining settlements to resorts; large industrial mining operations and thousands of speculative digs; canal-fed agricultural valleys; nine military bases and testing grounds; 1.1 electrical power generating plants; 3,500 miles of high-capacity power transmission lines; 12,000 miles of oil and gas pipelines; over 100 communication sites on ridges and mountaintops; 15,000 miles of paved and maintained roads; and thousands more miles of roads and ways cut solely by motorized vehicles. The California Desert Conservation Area Plan 1980 (amended 1999), California Bureau of Land Management, www.ca.blm.gov

photos: S. Smith

Desert

NATURAL HABITAT

The California deserts were cooler and moister places in the past. Prior to the end of the last Ice Age, Joshua trees, pinyon pines, sagebrush, and junipers extended across broader expanses than they do today. A subsequent drying trend caused these plant communities to retreat to higher elevations, leaving small enclaves of white fir forests on mountaintops and species like the creosote bush to dominate the lowlands. This trend toward increasing dryness is evident in rainfall records kept since the last century. Today, parts of the Sonora Desert receive less water than any other place in the United States. The California Desert Conservation Area Plan 1980 (amended 1999), California Bureau of Land Management, www.ca.blm.gov

K. MĂźller

Flora

NATURAL HABITAT

In the artificial landscape that is contemporary Los Angeles, where even the palm trees were importedâ&#x20AC;Ś Blake Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River: Its Life, Death and Possible Rebirth (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press), 3.

M. Lipson

Just then it was the complex smell of the side streetâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;cut grass, oleander, and gardenia scent in the hot, slightly metallic air, a particular LA infusionâ&#x20AC;Ś. Jim Paul, Medieval in LA: A Fiction (Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, 1996), 40.

photos below: J. Fleischmann

photos below: J. Rocholl

photos below: J. Fleischmann

S. Moon

Flora

NATURAL HABITAT

photos below: J. Fleischmann

S. Moon

Native

abrams’ dudleya, abrams’ alumroot, abrupt-beak sedge, acton’s encelia, adobe popcornflower, adobe yampah, african mustard, agrimony, ajamete, alabaster plant, alaska rein orchid, albert’s creeping zinnia, alkali heath, alkali jimmyweed, alkali mallow, alkali mariposa lily, alkali milk-vetch, alkali muhly, alkali phacelia, alkali sacaton, alkali weed, alpine everlasting, alpine gooseberry, alpine groundsel, alpine mountain-sorrel, alpine pyrrocoma, alpine shooting star, alvord’s oak, amblyopappus, ambrosia-leaved burbush, american alpine speedwell, american dogwood, american parsley fern, american rocket, american speedwell, american trailplant, american tule, american vetch, anderson’s lupine, anderson’s thistle, andro-

sace monkeyflower, angel trumpets, angled-stem buckwheat, annual burrweed, annual coastal plantain, annual desert milk-vetch, annual mountain dandelion, annual muhly, annual pearlwort, annual phlox, annual psathyrotes, annual stillingia, annual tule, annual woolly sunflower, antelope bitterbrush, annual hairgrass, apache plume, aparejo grass, appressed muhly, argus bedstraw, argus blazing star, arizona brome, arizona centaury, arizona cymopterus, arizona cypress, arizona ephedra, arizona herba impia, arizona honeysweet, arizona hymenoxys, arizona lupine, arizona popcorn flower, arizona sandmat, arizona skyrocket, arizona thistle, arrowhead butterweed, arrow-weed, arroyo lupine, arroyo willow, artemisia-leaved chaenactis, ashen milk-vetch, ashey silk tassel, ash-gray indian paintbrush, ashy spike-moss, autumn willowweed, aven nelson’s scorpionweed, baby blue eyes, bailey’s buckwheat, baja birdbush, baja desert thorn, baja navarretia, baja pectocarya, baldwin lake desert trumpets, ball saltbush, ballona cinquefoil, baltic rush, banana yucca, barneby’s phacelia, baron flats horkelia, basin butterweed, basket rush, bastardsage, beach evening-primrose, beach morning-glory, beach pinecoulter pine, beach shieldpod, beach-bur, beaked penstemon, beaked rattle-weed, beaked spikerush, bearded cryptantha, bearded flatsedge, bearded melic, beautiful rock-cress, beaver monolepis, beavertail cactus, bee balm, beetle spurge, bent spikerush, biennial cinquefoil, big bear valley phlox, big bear valley sandwort, big bear valley woollypod, big bulrush, big sagebrush, big saltbush, big squirreltail, big-berry manzanita, bigcone spruce, bigelow corssosoma, bigelow’s blue grass, bigelow’s coreopsis, bigelow’s desert four-o’clock, bigelow’s linanthus, bigelow’s monkeyflower, bigelow’s nolina, bigleaf crownbeard, bigleaf lupine, big-leaf maple, big-pod ceanothus, big-seed alfalfa dodder, bindweed, bioletti’s cudweed, birch-leaf mountain mahogany, bird-foot checkerbloom, birdnest buckwheat, bird’s-foot fern, birdsfoot trefoil, bishop pine, bitter cherry, bitter dogbane, bitter gooseberry, bitter root, black brush, black elderberry, black flatsedge, black grama, black sage, black sagebrush, black sedge, black-foot gayophytum, bladder fern, bladderpod, blairs’ cliffaster, blazing star, blochman’s dudleya, blow-wives, blue dicks, blue elderberry, blue field-gilia, blue grama, blue oak, blue sage, blue toad-flax, blue wildrye, blue-berry dwarf-mistletoe, blueblossom, blue-eyed grass, blue-podded rock-cress, blue-stemmed keckiella, blue-witch nightshade, bluish spike-moss, bluntleaf yellow-cress, bog alkaligrass, bog yellow-cress, boisduvalia, bolander’s blue grass, bolander’s quillwort, bolander’s sedge, bolander’s skullcap, booth’s sun cup, bracted blazing star, bracted popcorn flower, bracted verbena, branched woolly sunflower, branching gilia, branching phacelia, brandegee’s woolstar, brand’s phacelia, braunton’s milk-vetch, brewer’s angelica, brewer’s rock-cress, brewer’s aster, brewer’s bitter-cress, brewer’s calandrinia, brewer’s cliff-brake, brewer’s fleabane, brewer’s lupine, brewer’s miterwort, brewer’s monardella, brewer’s monkeyflower, brewer’s mountain-heather, brewer’s ragwort, brickellia-leaved hazardia, bridges’ campion, bridges’ gilia, bright green buckwheat, bright-white, bristle-fruit sedge, bristly langloisia, bristly sedge, bristly spermolepis, brittle spineflower, brittlebush, broad-fruited combseed, broad-leaf arrowhead, broad-leaf gilia, broadleaved lotus, broad-liped twayblade, broad-seeded rock-cress, broad-toothed monkeyflower, brook cinquefoil, brook saxifrage, broom baccharis, broom groundsel, broom snakeweed, brown dogwood, brown sedge, browneyes, brown-head sedge, brown-headed rush, brownspined pricklypear, buck brush, bugle hedgenettle, bull clover, burhead, burlew’s onion, bur-marigold, burro grass, burrobrush, bush arrowleaf, bush muhly, bush poppy, bush-loving cryptantha, bushrue, bushy cryptantha, bushy spikemoss, butter n’ eggs, butterfly mariposa, button encelia, calabazilla, california adder’s-tongue, california allseed, california amaranth, california ayenia, california barberry, california barrel cactus, california beardtongue, california bedstraw, california black oak, california blackberry, california box-thorn, california brickellia, california brome, california broomrape, california broomshrub, california buckeye, california buckwheat, california buttercup, california caltrop, california chicory, california cloak fern, california coffeeberry, california copperleaf, california cord grass, california croton, california dandelion, california ditaxis, california dodder, california encelia, california evening-primrose, california everlasting, california fagonia, california false-indigo, california fan palm, california fescue, california fiddleleaf, california figwort, california four o’clock, california geranium, california gilia, california goldenbanner, california goosefoot, california grass of parnassus, california groundcone, california heathgoldenrod, california hedgenettle, california herba impia, california hesperochiron, california horkelia, california jointfir, california juniper, california lace-fern, california laurel, california lomatium, california loosestrife, california maiden-hair, california matchweed, california melic, california milkweed, california mountain geranium, california mountain-ash, california muhly, california mustard, california oatgrass, california peony, california plantain, california polypody, california ponysfoot, california poppy, california pricklyphlox, california ragwort, california rayless butterweed, california red fir, california saltbush, california sandwort, california sawgrass, california saxifrage, california scarlet campion, california seablite, california sealavender, california shieldpod, california spear-leaved brickellia, california spineflower, california stickseed, california sun cup, california sunflower, california sweet-cicely, california sword fern, california sycamore, california tea, california tule, california valerian, california waterleaf, california waterwort, california wild grape, california wild rose, california willowherb, california yerba santa, california orcutt grass, caltha-leafed phacelia, camphor weed, cane beardgrass, canyon birdsfoot trefoil, canyon bog orchid, canyon clarkia, canyon dodder, canyon dudleya, canyon live oak, canyon sunflower, capitate sandwort, carolina geranium, carved-seed, cascade onion, catalina ceanothus, catalina crossosoma, catalina ironwood, catalina island mountain mahogany, catalina mariposa lily, catalina nightshade, catchfly prairie-gentian, catclaw acacia, catclaw horsebrush, cattle saltbush, ceanothus, chaffbush, chaffweed, chalk lettuce, chamise, changeable phacelia, chaparral beard-tongue, chaparral blazing star, chaparral broomrape, chaparral bush mallow, chaparral clematis, chaparral currant, chaparral gilia, chaparral heathgoldenrod, chaparral honeysuckle, chaparral lotus, chaparral pea,

Flora

chaparral prickly-pear, chaparral snapgrgon, chaparral whitethorn, chaparral yucca, charleston sandwort, charming centaury, checkerbloom, chia sage, chick lupine, chickweed, chicory-leaved stephanomeria, child’s collinsia, chilean clover, chilean cudweed, chilean lotus, chilean waterwort, chinese caps, chinese houses, chinook brome, chocolate lily, chokecherry, christmas berry, chuckwall pectocarya, chuparosa, cima milk-vetch, cithara buckwheat, clammy clover, clasping-bract sedge, clasping-leaved caulanthus, clementine sun cup, cleveland sage, cleveland’s beardtongue, cleveland’s bush monkeyflower, cleveland’s cryptantha, cleveland’s horkelia, cleveland’s lipfern, cleveland’s tobacco, cliff brake, cliff cinquefoil, cliff fern, cliff spurge, cliff sword fern, cliff-aster, climbing bedstraw, clockwise gilia, clokey’s cryptantha, clokey’s gilia, club-haired mariposa, cluster rose, clustered blazing star, clustered broomrape, clustered field sedge, clustered tarweed, coast allocarya, coast cryptantha, coast dudleya, coast live oak, coast prickly-pear, coast range brome, coast range triplet-lily, coast range western flax, coast sagebrush, coast tarweed, coast wild cucumber, coastal agave, coastal brookfoam, coastal bush lupine, coastal cholla, coastal gilia, coastal goldfields, coastal gumweed, coastal lipfern, coastal lotus, coastal mugwort, coastal sagewort, coastal tidytips, coastal woodfern, cobwebby hedge-nettle, cocklebur, coffee fern, cold-desert phlox, colorado desert buckwheat, colorado desert marigold, colorado desert mistletoe, colorado desert phacelia, colorado four o’clock, colorado riverhemp, colubrina, columbia cutleaf, common bladderwort, common blennosperma, common bluecup, common bog rush, common california-aster, common cryptantha, common duckweed, common eucrypta, common fish-hook cactus, common goldenstar, common grapefern, common gumplant, common hareleaf, common linanthus, common lomatium, common madia, common mares-tail, common monolopia, common nemacladus, common pacific pea, common pepper-grass, common phacelia, common pussypaws, common rabbitbrush,

NATURAL HABITAT

common reed, common rock-cress, common rush, common spikerush, common spikeweed, common sun-rose, common tule, common verbena, common water weed, common woodland star, common yarrow, common yellow chaenactis, common yellow

monkeyflower, condensed phlox, congested snakelily, contura creek spurge, coon’s tail, cooper’s dogweed, cooper’s box-thorn, cooper’s goldflower, cooper’s jewel-flower, cooper’s paper-daisy, cooper’s rein orchid, cooper’s rush, cottonheads, cotton-thorn, coulter’s snapdragon, coulter’s fleabane, coulter’s jewel-flower, coulter’s matilija poppy, coulter’s saltbush, coulter’s spiderling, coves’s cassia, coville’s gayophytum, coville’s lipfern, coville’s rush, cow parsnip, cowbag clover, cows clover, coyote brush, coyote gilia, coyote melon, coyote tobacco, cream cups, creamy ladies-tresses, creeping sibbaldia, creeping snowberry, creeping spikerush, creeping spurge, creeping wild-rye, creosote bush, crested milk-vetch, crownscale, crum’s monolopia, cryptantha, cuchion cryptantha, cupped monolopia, curled starwort, cursed crowfoot, curved-spine beavertail, curve-flowered skullcap, curvenut combseed, curve-nut cryptantha, cushenbury milk-vetch, cushion buckwheat, cut-leaved daisy, cycladenia, dainty gilia, dark red onion, davidson’s buckwheat, davidson’s bush mallow, davidson’s phacelia, davidson’s stonecrop, davis’ desertdandelion, davis pitted onion, deane’s wirelettuce, death valle ephedra, death valley phacelia, death valley spurge, death valley sun cup, deceiving gayophytum, deep canyon snapdragon, deer brush, deergrass, deerweed, delicate buttercup, delicate clarkia, delicate muhly, deltoid balsam-root, dense boisduvalia, dense false gilyflower, dense mistletoe, dense sedge, denseflower indian paintbrush, dense-flowered rein orchid, dense-fruited monkeyflower, depressed fiddleleaf, desert agave, desert almond, desert apricot, desert bird’s beak, desert blazing star, desert brickellia, desert broomrape, desert bush nettle, desert calico, desert candle, desert ceanothus, desert centaury, desert christmas tree, desert collinsia, desert columbine, desert cymopterus, desert dandelion, desert death-camas, desert dicoria, desert dodder, desert eucrypta, desert five-spot, desert golden poppy, desert gooseberry, desert goosefoot, desert holly, desert horsepurslane, desert lantern, desert lavender, desert lily, desert linanthus, desert locust, desert lotus, desert lupine, desert mariposa, desert milkweed, desert milkwort, desert mistletoe, desert mountain mahogany, desert mouse-tail, desert needlegrass, desert nest straw, desert noseburn, desert oak, desert olive, desert pale gilia, desert panicgrass, desert peach, desert penstemon, desert pepper-grass, desert pincushion, desert pine, desert plantain, desert portulaca, desert princesplume, desert red maids, desert sage, desert sand verbena, desert sand-parsley, desert sandwort, desert scrub oak, desert snowberry, desert star, desert star-vine, desert sunflower, desert syringa, desert thornapple, desert tobacco, desert trumpet, desert unicorn-plant, desert wing-fruit, desert-bells caterpillar phacelia, deserthollyhock, desertspike-moss, devil cactus, devil’s lettuce, devil’s spineflower, diffuse gayophytum, diffuse spineflower, digger pine dwarf-mistletoe, ditch grass, dobiepod, double bladderpod, double honeysuckle, douglas’ coreopsis, douglas fiddleneck, douglas’ knotweed, douglas phacelia, douglas’ sandwort, douglas’ sedge, douglas’ silverpuffs, douglas violet, downy dalea, drug snowbell, dry goosefoot, dubius rush, dudleya, dudley’s clarkia, dune bush lupine, dune tansy, dunedelion, durango root, duran’s rush, dusky onion, dusky willow, dwarf ash, dwarf athysanus, dwarf brodiaea, dwarf evax, dwarf hawksbeard, dwarf herba impia, dwarf indian mallow, dwarf pepper-grass, dwarf rush, dwarf spikerush, dwarf white milk-vetch, ear drops, early onion, east mojave rock cress, eastern mojave buckwheat, eastwood manzanita, eastwood’s fiddleneck, eastwood’s nemophila, eaton’s aster, eaton’s penstemon, elderberry, eldorado larkspur, elegant blazing star, elegant rock-cress, elegant silverpuffs, elephant tree, elk thistle, elkclover, elmer’s golden-eyed grass, emory’s baccharis, emory’s indigo-bush, emory’s rock-daisy, engelmann oak, engelmann’s hedgehog cactus, english wintergreen, entire-leaved thelypodium, eschscholtz’s buttercup, estuary seablite, evening-snow, evergreen violet, everlasting cudweed, eyed gilia, false buffalo-grass, false daisy, false goldenaster, false monkeyflower, false neststraw, false rosinweed, fendler’s meadow-rue, fendler’s spurge, fernleaf ironwood, fern-leaved fleabane, ferris horsetail, few-flowered clematis, few-flowered hetercodon, few-flowered larkspur, few-flowered spikerush, few-flowering meadow-rue, few-leaved dock, field horsetail, fiesta flower, finebranched popcornflower, fine-flower gilia, finger-leaved gourd, fingertips, fir dwarf-mistletoe, fir mistletoe, fire reedgrass, fire-following campion, fish-hook cactus, fitch’s tarweed, five-angled dodder, five-eye chamaesaracha, five-fingered fern, fivewing spiderling, flaccid cryptantha, flannel bush, flat sagebrush, flatcrown buckwheat, flat-seeded spurge, flat-topped buckwheat, flax, flax-flowered linanthus, flax-like monardella, fleshy lupine, floating marsh-pennywort, floating pondwed, floating water-primrose, floriferous monkeyflower, flowering quillwort, fluff grass, foothill ash, foothill clover, foothill gooseberry, foothill larkspur, foothill penstemon, foothill pine, forest clarkia, forest goosefoot, forest madia, forest sedge, forked buckwheat, forked hareleaf, fort mojave buckwheat, fowl mannagrass, fox sedge, foxtail cactus, foxtail muhly, fragrant evening-primrose, fragile sheath sedge, fragrant bitter-weed, fragrant flatsedge, fragrant pitcher sage, fragrant snakeroot, freckled milk-vetch, fremont barberry, fremont box-thorn, fremont pincushion, fremont silk tassel, fremont’s bush mallow, fremont’s death-camas, fremont’s goosefoot, fremont’s groundsel, fremont’s indigo-bush, fremont’s phacelia, fringe pod, fringed amaranth, fringed brome, fringed linanthus, fringed onion, fringed redmaids, fringed spineflower, frosted mint, frosted paintbrush, fuchsia-flowered gooseberry, galleta, gambel’s dwarf milk-vetch, gambel’s yellowcress, gamble weed, gaping goosefoot, gaping keckieilla, germander, geyer’s willow, giant cactus, giant chain fern, giant coreopsis, giant duckmeat, giant eriastrum, giant four o’clock, giant needlegrass, giant wild-rye, giant woolstar, gilman’s milk-vetch, gilman’s springparsley, glandular buckwheat, glandular ditaxis, glandular threadplant, gold-back fern, golden currant, golden dock, golden fleece, golden goodmania, golden linanthus, golden sedge, golden snakecactus, golden violet, golden yarrow, golden-bowl mariposa, goldendesert-snapdragon, goldenhead, golden-rayed pentachaeta, goldfields, goodding’s black willow, goosefoot violet, graceful bedstraw, graceful clover, grand ammania, grand mountain dandelion, grape lupine, grassland stebbinsoseris, grass-leaf pondweed, grassnut, gravel cryptantha, gravel milk-vetch, gravel-ghost, gray monardella, gray’s lovage, grean-leaf manzanita, great basin eriastrum, great basin gilia, great basin langloisia, great basin muilla, great basin wild rye, great valley buttercup, great valleyphacelia, greata’s aster, green monardella, greenbark ceanothus, greene’s liveforever, greensheath sedge, greenspot nightshade, green-stipuled lupine, grey oak, grinell’s beardtongue, guadalupe cryptantha, guadalupe island lupine, gum-leaved brickellia, hairy ceanothus, hairy desert-sunflower, hairy flax, hairy goldenaster, hairy gumweed, hairy milkweed, hairy owl’s clover, hairy rock-cress, hairy wood rush, hairy woollygrass, hairy yerba santa, hairy-flowered buckwheat, hairyleaf redberry, hairy-podded pepper-grass, hall’s bedstraw, hall’s caulanthus, hall’s purple bush, hall’s willowherb, harford melic, harlequin lupine, harsh allocarya, hartweg’s iris, heartleaf jewel-flower, heartleaf sun cup, heart-leaved arnica, heart-leaved keckiella, heart-leaved pitcher sage, heath-leaved chaetopappa, heckard’s indian paintbrush, heermann’s buckwheat, heermann’s lotus, heliotrope phacelia, hemlock, herniaria, heterogaura, hickman’s checkerbloom, hilend’s bedstraw, hill lotus, hillside gooseberry, hoary aster, hoary bowlesia, hoary buckwheat, hoary chaenactis, hoary coffeeberry, hoary-leaved ceanothus, hoffmannseggia, hog potato, holboell’s rock-cress, holly-leaf cherry, hollyleaf gilia, holly-leaf navarretia, hollyleaf redberry, holly-leaved burbush, honeysuckle, hooded ladies-tresses, hood’s sedge, hooked buttercup, hooked navarretia, hooker’s manzanita, hoover’s downingia, hop tree, hop-sage, horned pondweed, horned seablite, horseweedcoulter’s horseweed, hot-springs fimbristylis, howell’s onion, howell’s blue grass, howell’s quillwort, humboldt’s lily, hummingbird monardellalittle monardella, hummingbird sage, hummingbird trumpet, hyacinth broaiaca, hybrid encelia, idaho bentgrass, idaho bittercress, idaho blue-eyed grass, imbricte phaceliaIve’s phacelia, incense cedar, incense-cedar mistletoe, indian breadroot, indian clover, indian hemp, indian milkweed, indian paintbrush, indian ricegrass, indian thistle, indian tobacco, indian warrior, indigobush, inland gilia, inland scrub oak, intermediate sun cups, inyo county star-tulip, iodine-bush, iris-leaved rush, ironwood, island broom, island buckwheat, island bush monkeyflower, island gooseberry, island jepsonia, island morning-glory, island oak, island poppy, island redberry, island rush-rose, island sagebrush, island snapdragon, island tarplant, island wallflower, ivy-leafed tomatillo, jackass clover, jacumba milk-vetch, jaeger’s halimolobos, jeager’s mousetail, jeffrey pine, jepson’s bedstraw, jepson’s button-celery, johnny jump-up, johnston’s rock cress, johnston’s bedstraw, johnston’s monkeyflower, jojoba, jolon brodiaea, jones’ blazing star, jones’ linanthus, jones’ popcorn flower, jones’ sedge, jones’ false cloak-fern, joshua tree, jumping cholla, junegrass, jurupa hills sun cups, keck’s blue grass, keeled bulrush, kelley’s lily, kellogg’s snapdragon, kellogg’s dwarfrush, kellogg’s tarweed, kennedy’s buckwheat, kern county sun cup, kern tarweed, kidney-leaf buckwheat, kingcup cactus, king’s snapdragon, king’s bladderpod, kingston mtns. ivesia, knapp’s brickellia, knobcone pine, knot grass, knotroot bristlegrass, knotted rush, knotweed spineflower, lady’s mantle, laguna beach dudleya, laguna mountains jewel-flower, lakebed sun cup, lance-leaf lippia, lane mtn. milk-vetch, large false-solomon’s seal, largeflower scorpionweed, large-flowered chaenactis, large-fruited lomatium, large-headed rock-daisy, large-leaf avens, large-leaved filaree, larger mountain monkeyflower, lateral sedge, laurel sumac, lavender eriastrum, lavender sage, layne’s milk-vetch, leafcover saltweed, leafy buckwheat, leafy burrobrush, leafy desert dandelion, leafy fleabane, leafy-stemmed coreopsis, leather oak, leather root, leather spinflower, lemmon campion, lemmon’s needlegrass, lemmon’s rock cress, lemmon’s wild ginger, lemmon’s canarygrass, lemmon’s linanthus, lemmon’s phacelia, lemmon’s sedge, lemmon’s vinegarweed, lemmon’s willow, lemon lily, lemonade berry, leopard lily, lesser paintbrush, lesser panicled-sedge, letterman’s needlegrass, lewis’s evening-primrose, limber pine, limestone beardtongue, limestone daisy, limestone phacelia, limestone phacelia, linear-leaved stillingia, lippia, little bladderpod, little desert buckwheat, little false-solomon’s seal, little gilia, little grapefern, little mountain knotweed, little prince’s pine, little san bernardino mtns. gilia, little spring beauty, little tarweed, little wiry sun cup, littlefoot nemophila, little-leaf bentgrass, little-leaf horsebrush, little-leaved brickellia, little-leaved mountain mahogany, liverleaf wintergreen, lobed ground-cherry, long evening-primrose, long-antlered rush, longbeak streptanthella, longflower threadplant, long-flowered rabbitbrush, long-fruit suncup, long-leaf bush lupine, long-leaf fagonia, long-leaf paintbrush, long-leaf plantain, long-leafed ephedra, long-leaved aster, long-leaved hawksbeard, long-leaved pondweed, long-leaved rush, long-spurred plectritis, long-styled rush, long-tubed iris, lott’s gilia, lousewort, low everlasting, low gayophytum, low ipomopsis, low mountain bedstraw, low sagebrush, lyon’s phacelia, lyon’s pygmydaisy, lyon’s ragwort, macdonald’s oak, macnab’s cypress, maiden clover, male fern, malva rosa, manyflower deserttrumpets, many-flowered eriastrum, many-ribbed sedge, manystem liveforever, marine water nymph, mariposa sedge, maritime plantain, marsh gumplant, marsh jaumea, marsh milk-vetch, marsh sandwort, marsh-pennywort, mason nest straw, mat muhly, matthew’s bedstraw, meadow barley, meadow lupine, meadow sweet, meadow woollyheads, mecca-aster, menzie’s fiddleneck, menzies’ campion, merten’s rush, mesa dropseed, mexicali onion, mexican bladdersage, mexican dock, mexican flannelbush, mexican lovegrass, mexican malacothrix, mexican manzanita, mexican panicgrass, mexican rush, mexican sprangletop, michael’s rein orchid, midoc gilia, milk maids, milk-vetch, milkwort knotweed, mill creek alumroot, minature gilia, miner’s lettuce, miniature eriastrum, miniature lupine, mint-leafed vervain, minute-flowered cryptantha, mission manzanita, mission star, mistletoe, modoc hawksbeard, moistbank pimpernel, mojave beardtongue, mojave cleomella, mojave desert star, mojave dwarf, mojave fish-hook cactus, mojave flower, mojave hole in the sand plant, mojave horsebrush, mojave indian paintbrush, mojave indigo-bush, mojave linanthus, mojave lomatium, mojave lupine, mojave milk-vetch, mojave milkweed, mojave monkeyflower, mojave phacelia, mojave prickly-pear, mojave ragwort, mojave red sage, mojave sage, mojave saltbush, mojave sand verbena, mojave seablite, mojave spikemoss, mojave spineflower, mojave spurge, mojave stillingia, mojave sun cup, mojave tarplant, mojave thistle, mojave woollysunflower, mojave yucca, monkey-flower savory, monkshood, monterey cypress, monterey pine, moose-horn violet, mormon needle grass, mormon tea, mosquito bills, mosquito fern, mosquito waterwort, moss gentian, moss rush, moth combseed, mountain blazing star, mountain blue penstemon, mountain bog bulrush, mountain bulrush, mountain butterweed, mountain carpet clover, mountain collomia, mountain fritillary, mountain gooseberry, mountain goosefoot, mountain hemlock, mountain holly fern, mountain monardella, mountain mule ears, mountain nest straw, mountain peony, mountain pepper-grass, mountain phacelia, mountain pink currant, mountain prickly phlox, mountain pride, mountain snowberry, mountain strawberry, mountain sweetcicely, mountain tansy-mustard, mountain tarweed, mountain timothy, mountain whitethorn, mountainbalm, mountain-loving blazing star, mouse’s eye, mouse-tail, mousetail eveningprimrose, mrs. cooper’s lipfern, mt. gleason indian paintbrush, mud nama, mud-midget, mugwort, mule-fat, munz’s onion, munz’s bedstraw, munz’s cholla, musk monkeyflower, mustang clover, mustang mint, naked broomrape, naked buckwheat, naked mariposa, naked plantain, naked-stemmed daisy, narrow-leaf sun cup, narrow-fruit sedge, narrowleaf bur-reed, narrow-leaf cattail, narrowleaf ditaxis, narrowleaf goldenbush, narrowleaf goosefoot, narrowleaf gromwellspreading loeflingia, narrowleaf milkweed, narrow-leaf sandpaper-plant, narrow-leaved bedstraw, narrow-leaved cryptantha, narrow-leaved water chickweed, narrow-leaved yerba santa, narrow-leved cottonwood, navajo fleabane, navajo muhly, nebraska sedge, needle & thread grass, needle grama, needle spikerush, needleleaf navarretia, net

pepper-grass, nettle-leaf giant hyssop, net-veined viguiera, nevada bitter root, nevada blue-eyed grass, nevada broomshrub, nevada cryptantha, nevada ephedra, nevada gilia, nevada indigo-bush, nevada lomatium, nevada onion, nevada polistera, nevada rush, nevin’s barberry, nevin’s bird’s beak, nevin’s brickellia, nevin’s gilia, nevin’s woolly sunflower, new mexico ditaxis, new mexico muhly, new mexico thistle, new york mtns crytantha, newberry’s lipfern, newberry’s velvet mallow, nightshade, nine-awned pappus grass, nodding brome, nodding fescue, nodding melica, nodding needlegrass, nodding oatgrass, nodding trisetum, north coast dudleya, northern starwort, northwest cinquefoil, northwest territory sedge, northwestern paintbrush, nutall’s sandwort, nutall’s sunflower, nuttall willow, nuttall’s snapdragon, nuttall’s alkali grass, nuttall’s coldenia, nuttall’s linanthus, nuttall’s poverty weed, nuttall’s quillwort, nuttall’s scrub oak, oak mistletoe, oblong-leafed four o’clock, ocean bluff milk-vetch, oceanspray, oligomeris, one-flowered fringed gentian, one-seeded pussypaws, one-sided blue grass, onespike oatgrass, oniongrass, onyxflower, orcutt’s aster, orcutt’s bordiaes, orcutt’s brome, orcutt’s deserttrumpets, orcutt’s quillwort, oregon ash, oregon bentgrass, oregon cliff fern, oregon fireweed, oregon grape, oregon oak, oreja de liebre, pacific blazing star, pacific dogwood, pacific eel-grass, pacific foxtail, pacific madrone, pacific mountain onion, pacific oenanthe, padre’s shooting star, paiute mountain pincushionplant, paleface, pale-yellow sun cup, palmer’s abutilon, palmer’s amaranth, palmer’s ceanothus, palmer’s coldenia, palmer’s dudleya, palmer’s goldenbush, palmer’s mariposa, palmer’s milk-vetch, palmer’s sun cup, palomar monkeyflower, palrmer’s buckwheat, palrmer’s grapplinghook, panamint indian parsnip, panamint mountain buckwheat, panamint phacelia, panamint rock-goldenrod, pancake prickly-pear, parish wheatgrass, parish’s needlegrass, parish’s onion, parish’s rock cress, parish’s bedstraw, parish’s bluecurls, parish’s brittlescale, parish’s broomrape, parish’s buckwheat, parish’s bush mallow, parish’s california tea, parish’s campion, parish’s chaenactis, parish’s daisy, parish’s desert-thorn, parish’s flatsedge, parish’s larkspur, parish’s monkeyflower, parish’s penstemon, parish’s pickleweed, parish’s popcorn flower, parish’s poppy, parish’s puncturebract, parish’s purple nightshade, parish’s scorpionweed, parish’s spikerush, parish’s spurge, parish’s tauschia, parish’s viguiera, parish’s yampah, parly everlasting, parry manzanita, parry pinyon pine, parry’s fringed onion, parry’s buckwheat, parry’s collinsia, parry’s green-gentian, parry’s jepsonia, parry’s lipfern, parry’s lomatium, parry’s mallow, parry’s marina, parry’s nolina, parry’s pussypaws, parry’s rabbitbrush, parry’s rush, parry’s saltbush, parry’s scorpionweed, parry’s spineflower, parry’s spurge, parry’s stephanomeria, parry’s tarweed, patagonia plantain, payson’s wild cabbage, pearlwort, pebble pincushion, peck’s stylocline, pedicellate phacelia, peirson’s morning-glory, pellitory, pencil cactus, peninsular spineflower, pennsylvania pellitory, perennial rock-cress, perfoliate spineflower, phantom orchid, philadelphia fleabane, phlox-leaved bedstraw, pickleweed, pigmy bitter root, pillwort, pincushion cactus, pine cryptantha, pine dwarf-mistletoe, pine forest larkspur, pine green-gentian, pine violet, pine-bush, pinedrops, pinegrove gayophytum, pineland buckwheat, pine-mat manzanita, pine-woods fritillary, pink alumroot, pink butter n’ eggs, pink cudweed, pink sand verbena, pink teddy bear cholla, pink velvet mallow, pink woodland star, pink-flowered bush mallow, pinkray fremontsgold, pinyon blazing star, pinyon gayophytum, pinyon rock cress, pioneer violet, pit-seed goosefoot, pitted onion, piute morning-glory, plain mariposa, plantainleaf buttercup, plicate coldenia, plummer’s baccharis, plummer’s cliff fern, plummer’s mariposa lily, pointed rush, poison sanicle, poisonoak, pomona milk-vetch, ponderosa pine, poodle-dog bush, popcorn flower, port orford cedar, poverty rush, poverty rush, poverty three-awn, powell’s amaranth, prairie rush, prairie wedge grass, preuss’s milk-vetch, prickly cryptantha, prickly hawkweed, prickly poppy, pride-of-california, primrose monkeyflower, prince’s pine, pringle’s monardella, pringle’s woolly sunflower, prostrate hutchinsia, prostrate pepper-grass, prostrate pigweed, prostrate pincushionplant, prostrate spineflower, providence milk-vetch, puff-calyx gilia, pumice hulsea, punch-bowl godetia, punctuate rabbitbrush, purple bird’s beak, purple clarkia, purple cymopterus, purple everlasting, purple false gilyflower, purple mat, purple monkeyflower, purple navarretia, purple needlegrass, purple nightshade, purple owl’s clover, purple sage, purple sanicle, purple spikerush, purple three-awn, purple-root cryptantha, purple-spot gilia, pursh’s milk-vetch, pussypaws, pygmy linanthus, pygmy poppy, pygmy pussypaws, quaking aspen, quick’s phacelia, racemose pyrrocoma, radishroot woodsorrel, ragged-leaf bahia, ragweed, rainbow manzanita, rattan’s monkeyflower, rattlesnake plantain, rattlesnake weed, rayless arnica, rayless ragwort, rayless shaggy fleabane, red alder, red baneberry, red bush-monkeyflower, red elderberry, red fescue, red goosefoot, red grama, red hollybush, red monkeyflower, red sage, red sand-verbena, red shanks, red sierra onion, red sprangletop, red triangles, red willow, redberry, red-fruited mahonia, redowski’s stickseed, red-rayed hulsea, redseed plantain, red-seeded sandwort, red-skinned onion, red-spotted clarkia, redstemmed spring beauty, reflexed blazing star, rein orchid, reveal’s buckwheat, ribbed cryptantha, rice cutgrass, richardson’s geranium, rigid bird’s beak, ripley’s gilia, riverside spineflower, rixford’s rock-wort, robinson’s monardella, robust sun cup, rock creek broomrape, rock gilia, rock ivesia, rock phacelia, rock spiraea, rocky mountain bee-plant, rocky mountain bulrush, rocky mountain maple, rocky mountain rush, rolled-leaf spurge, rose and white buckwhet, rosette thistle, rosilla, ross’ sedge, rosy everlasting, rosy gilia, rothrock sagebrush, rothrock’s keckiella, rothrock’s nama, rough desert olive, rough vervain, rough-fruited allocarya, rough-leaved aster, rough-seed cryptantha, round-fruit sedge, round-fruit yellow-cress, roundleaf leatherroot, round-leaf loco-weed, round-leafed phacelia, round-leaved boykinia, royal goldfields, royal larkspur, royal rein orchid, rubberweed, rue, rusty-haired popcorn flower, rydberg’s horkelia, saber bogmat, sacred thornapple, sago pondweed, saline toad rush, salt marsh baccharis, salt marsh bird’s beak, salt marsh fleabane, salt sandspurry, salt spring checkerbloom, saltgrass, saltmarsh dodder, salton milk-vetch, saltscale, saltsedge, saltwort, san benito thorn mint, san bernardino aster, san bernardino beardtongue, san bernardino blue grass, san bernardino grass -of- parnassus, san bernardino larkspur, san bernardino milk-vetch, san bernardino mountain onion, san bernardino mtn alumroot, san bernardino mtns. monkeyflower, san bernardino mtns. owl’s clover, san bernardino ragwort, san bernardino scopionweed, san bernardino sun cup, san clemente island brodiaea, san clemente island bush mallow, san clemente island indian paintbrush, san clemente island milk-vetch, san clemente island triteleia, san diego birdsfoot trefoil, san diego ceanothus, san diego fiesta flower, san diego goldenstarcrowned muilla, san diego milk-vetch, san diego sedge, san diego tarweed, san diego wild cabbage, san felipe dogweed, san francisco campion, san francisco manzanita, san gabriel beardtongue, san gabriel bedstraw, san gabriel bluecup, san gabriel deserttrumpets, san gabriel manzanita, san gabriel mtn liveforever, San gabriel ragwort, san jacinto bluecurls, san jacinto buckwheat, san jacinto lupine, san jacinto prickly phlox, san joaquin blazing star, san joaquin milk-vetch, san mateo woolly sunflower, san miguel island milk-vetch, san miguel savory, sand dropseed, sand linanthus, sand lupine, sand pygmyweed, sand spikerush, sandbar willow, sandbar willow, sand-blossoms, sandcarpet, sanddune wallflower, sandhill amaranth, sandpaper plant, sand-spurrey, sandy soil sun cup, santa barbara bedstraw, santa barbara milk-vetch, santa catalina figwort, santa catalina island manzanita, santa cruz island fringepod, santa cruz island rock cress, santa cruz island sun cup, santa lucia rush, santa susana tarplant, santolina chaenactis, sapphire eriastrum, satintail, saucer plant threelobe puncturebract, saw-toothed goldenbush, scale-bud, scalloped moonwort, scallopleaf sage, scaly cloak fern, scapellote, scarlet bugler, scarlet four o’clock, scarlet fritillary, scarlet gaura, scarlet gilia, scarlet larkspur, scarlet lupine, scarlet milk-vetch, scarlet monkeyflower, scarlet paintbrush, scarlet spiderling, scattered blazing star, scented cryptantha, scented shooting star, schott’s calico, schott’s indigo-bush, schott’s sedge, scouler’s surfgrass, scribner’s grass, scrub gilia, scullcap, sea muilla, sea-cliff buckwheat, searls’ prairie clover, sea-scale, seashore bentgrass, seaside arrowgrass, seaside calandrinia, seaside daisy, seaside fiddleneck, seaside heliotrope, seaside woolly sunflower, seawrack, self-heal, service-berry, shadscale, shaggy milk-vetch, shaggy-haired alumroot, sharp-leaf ground cherry, sharp-nut cryptantha, sharp-toothed sanicle, sheep sedge, shelton’s violet, shining blazing star, shining chickweed, shining mule ears, shining peppr-grass, shining pondweed, shining willow, shiny-leaf sandpaper-plant, shockley’s goldenhead, shockley’s rock-cress, shockley’s prickleleaf, shoregrass, short-awn foxtail, short-flowered buckwheat, short-flowered monkeyflower, short-leaved baccharis, short-lobed phacelia, short-rayed alkali aster, short-seed waterwort, short-sepaled lewisia, short-spike hedge-nettle, shortspike watermilfoil, short-spurred plectritis, shortstalk stinkweed, short-stem gilia, showy gilia, showy linanthus, showy penstemon, shrubby brickellia, shrubby coldenia, shrubby ragwort, shy gilia, sidebells wintergreen, side-oats grama, sierra arnica, sierra blue grass, sierra checkerbloom, sierra chinquapin, sierra coffeeberry, sierra finged gentian, sierra gooseberry, sierra ivesia, sierra larkspur, sierra mariposa, sierra milkwort, sierra mint, sierra morning-glory, sierra nemacladus, sierra nemophila, sierra nevada lotus, sierra rush, sierra sanicle, sierra star, sierra tansy-mustard, sierra tidy-tips, sierra tiger lily, sierra waterwort, sierran stickseed, sierran wild-cucumber, silky california broom, silky dalea, silky deerweed, silky lupine, silky raillardella, silver birds-foot trefoil, silver bush lupine, silver lake daisy, silver puffs, silver wormwood, silver-back fern, silverhair mousetail, silverscale saltbush, silver-weed cinquefoil, single-headed pyrrocoma, single-leaf pinyon pine, siskiyou rock-cress, six-weeks three-awn, skullcap speedwell, sky lupine, sky-blue phaelia, slender allocarya, slender blazing star, slender buckwheat, slender cleomella, slender cottonweed, slender cryptantha, slender hairgrass, slender lipfern, slender muhly, slender penstemon, slender popcornflower, slender poreleaf, slender spiderling, slender sunflower, slender tarweed, slender threadplant, slender triplet-lily, slender water nymph, slender wheatgrass, slender whitlow grass, slender wild cabbage, slender woodland star, slender woolly marbles, slender-beak sedge, slenderflower sun cup, slenderhorn spinyherb, slenderleaf collomia, slender-lobed four o’clock, slender-petaled thelypodium, slim tridens, slimjim bean, slimstem willowweed, small fescue, small pondweed, small white violet, small wirelettuce, smallflower sandverbana, small-flower western flax, small-flowered androstephium, small-flowered bluecurls, small-flowered collinsia, small-flowered evening-primrose, small-flowered lotus, small-flowered meconella, small-flowered melica, small-flowered milk-vetch, small-flowered monkeyflower, small-flowered morning-glory, small-flowered needlegrass, small-flowered rice grass, small-flowered soaproot, smallleaf palo verde, small-leaved nama, small-rayed goldfields, small-seeded spurge, small-wing sedge, smoke tree, smooth boisduvalia, smooth flatsedge, smooth greasewood, smooth mountainmahogany, smooth rock-cress, smooth scouring rush, smooth-beak sedge, smoothe willowhervb, smoothseed pygmyweed, snake’s head, snapdragon campion, sneezeweed, snow-plant, so. california whitlowgrass, soap plant, soft mountain tansy-mustard, solitary-leaved alkali goldenbush, sonoran nest straw, sonoran spurge, south coast saltscale, southern bearclover, southern bush monkeyflower, southern california black walnut, southern california dudleya, southern california grape, southern cattail, southern gilia, southern goldenrod, southern hawkweed, southern honeysuckle, southern jewel-flower, southern maiden-hair, southern mountain phlox, southern mountain-monardella, southern sierra phacelia, southern silk tassel, southern skullcap, southern squaw root, southern tauschia, southern waternymph, southern wild-cucumber, southern wyethia, southwestern mock vervain, soutwestern gilia, sow-thistle malacothrix, spanish needle, spear oracle, spearleaf, spearleaf mountain dandelion, spear-leaved brickellia, spearleaved northern daisy, spearscale, speckled clarkia, sphansima, spider lupine, spike bentgrass, spike dropseed, spike fescue, spike trisetum, spineless horsebrush, spiny caper, spiny cocklebur, spiny desert olive, spiny greasebush, spiny horsebrush, spiny saltbush, spiny senna, spiral ditchgrass, splendid gilia, splendid mariposa, split-awn sedge, spotted buckwheat, spotted coralroot, spreading fleabane, spreading navarretia, spreading phlox, spur lupine, spurry buckwheat, squaw root, squaw spurge, squawbush, squirreltail, squirreltail barley, st. catherine’s lace, staghorn cholla, star duckweed, star gilia, star green-gentian, star-flowered bedstraw, stemless mudwort, stephen’s beardtongue, sticktight, sticky currant, sticky fagonbush, sticky geranium, sticky gold-back fern, sticky liveforever, sticky monkeyflower, sticky phacelia, sticky sandspurry, sticky snakeweed, stickywilly, stinging lupine, straight-leaved rush, stream orchis, streambank birdsfoot trefoil, streambank springbeauty, strigose lotus, striped horsebrush, sturdy sedge, sugar bush, sugar pine, sugar pine dwarf-mistletoe, sugar-stick, suksdorf’s brome, suksdorf’s monkeyflower, sulphur buckwheat, summer clover, summer lilac, summer-holly, sun cup, sunflower, swamp sedge, swamp smartweed, swamp whiteheads, sweet brickelbush, sweet-scented bedstraw, sweet-scented phacelia, swollen duckweed, sword fern, sylvan scorzonella, tahquitz mousetail, tall brome, tall mannagrass, tall melica, tall stephanomeria, tangled milk-vetch, tangled nest straw, tangled snapdragon, tanoak, tansy-leafed phacelia, tapertip flatsedge, tarragon, tarweed fiddleneck, tauschia, teal lovegrass, tecate cypress, tecate tarplant, tecopa bird’s beak, tehachapi ragwort, tejon cryptantha, telegraph weed, texas bergia, texas filaree, texas paintbrush, thick-leafed phacelia, thick-leaved yerba santa, thick-pod milk-vetch, thick-stemmed caulanthus, thimble clover, thimbleberry, thistle sage, thomas’ buckwheat, thompson’s beardtongue, thorn of christ, thorny skeleton-plant, thread deserttrumpets, thread-leaf sedge, thread-leaved brodiaea, threadplant, three-hearts, three-petaled bedstraw, three-pointed blazing star, three-square, three-stamened rush, threetooth blazing star, thurber’s bentgrass, thurber’s beardtongue, thurber’s buckwheat, thurber’s pepper-grass, thurber’s pilostyles, thyme-leafed spurge, ticklegrass, tidestrom’s milk-vetch, tiny mousetail, tiny sun cup, toad lily, toad rush, tobacco brush, tomcat clover, toothed downingia, toothed wild onion, torrey’s box-thorn, torrey’s collinsia, torrey’s cryptantha, torrey’s hybrid oak, torrey’s popcorn flower, torrey’s rush, torrey’s surfgrass, trailing four o’clock, trailing st. johnswort, trans-montane gilia, trans-montane sand verbena, trask’s cryptantha, trask’s island broom, triangular-fruit sedge, tricolor gilia, triple-ribbed milk-vetch, truncate-leaf lupine, tuber anemone, tubered starwort, tuberous sanicle, tucker’s oak, tufted eschscholzia, tufted hair-grass, tufted lovegrass, tule potato, tulip pricklypear, turkey mullein, turkish rugging, turpentine broom, turpentine-brush, twinberry, twisted cleomella, two-lipped bush monkeyflower, two-needle pinyon pine, two-tooth sedge, upright mannagrass, urn-flowered alumroot, utah agave, utah arrowgrass, utah fleabane, utah juniper, utah mortonia, utah penstemon, utah service-berry, utah vine milkweed, vahl’s fimbristylis, vail lake ceanothus, valdivia duckweed, valley arrowhead, valley broomrape, valley oak, valley popcornflower, valley sedge, valley tassels, valley vinegar-weed, varied-leaved water-starwort, vari-nerved sedge, vasey’s prickly pear, veatch’s blazing star, velvet ash, velvet stickseed, velvet turtleback, ventura marsh milk-vetch, venus looking-glass, vernal barley, vernal water-starwort, vinegarweed, violet, virgin river cryptantha, virgin river encelia, virgin’s bower, viscid lipfern, volcanic gilia, wallace’s woolly daisy daisy, wand buckwheat, wandering fleabane, wartleaf ceanothus, warty spurge, washoe phacelia, water birch, water buttercup, water chickweed, water jacket, water mudwort, water parsnip, water plantain, water smartweed, watercress, water-leaf phacelia, water-pimpernel, water-sedge, watersheild, waterthread pondweed, watson’s amaranth, watson’s saltbush, watson’s spike-moss, watson’s spineflower, wavy-leaf paintbrush, wavy-leaved ceanothus, wax currant, wax-myrtle, waxy checkermallow, weak-leaved burweed, weasel scorpionweed, wedgeleaf goldenbush, wedge-leaf horkelia, wedgeleaf whitlowgrass, weed’s mariposa, western azalea, western bistort, western blue flag, western blue flax, western burning bush, western chamomile, western columbine, western cow-bane, western dichondra, western dog violet, western dwarf-mistletoe, western false rue anemone, western false-indigo, western fescue, western flat-topped goldenrod, western hackberry, western hawksbeard, western hedge bindweed, western hemicarpha, western juniper, western lupine, western marsh cudweed, western meadow aster, western miterwort, western mojave buckwheat, western morning-glory, western mountain aster, western needlegrass, western panicum, western polypody, western poppy, western prickly pear, western ragweed, western raspberry, western redbud, western sea-purslane, western sedge, western serviceberry, western sky pilot, western spleenwort, western spring beauty, western stinging nettle, western sweetroot, western tansy-mustard, western thistle, western water hemlock, western water weed, western white pine, western yellow cress, wheeler’s blue grass, wheeler’s cinquefoil, wheeler’s spineflower, wheelscale, whisker-brush, whispering bells, white alder, white bear poppy, white bog orchid, white bursage, white collinsia, white easter-bonnets, white fairy lantern, white fiesta flower, white fir, white hawkweed, white layia, white mallow, white rhatany, white sage, white tackstem, white-flowered goldenbush, white-flowered willowherb, white-flowering currant, white-headed cudweed, white-leaf monardella, whitemargin puncturebract, white-margined beardtongue, white-margined everlasting, white-margined green-gentian, white-stemmed blazing star, white-stemmed milkweed, whitetip clover, white-veined wintergreen, whitewater crowfoot, white-woolly stemodia, whitlowgrass, whitney’s milk-vetch, whitney’s sedge, whorled marsh-pennywort, wicker buckwheat, wide-throated yellow-monkeyflower, wiggin’s cholla, wilcox’s eriastrum, wild canterbury bells, wild licorice, wild parsley, wild pepper-grass, wild petunia, wild rhubarb, willow dock, willow weed, willowherb, winding mariposa, wind-poppy, winged cryptantha, winged pectocarya, winged water-starwort, wing-fruit sun cup, wing-nut cryptantha, wing-seed blazing star, winter fat, wirelettuce, wire-weed, witchgrass, wolf’s cholla,

Coastal Southern California…lies between two major groups of flora: a southern group woolly brickellia, woolly bur-sage, woolly galleta, woollymar- represented by drought-tolerant plants characteristic of northern Mexico, and woolly sedge, woolly sunflower, woolly tidestromia, woolly yerba a northern group represented by moisture-loving plants typical of the Sierra Nevada fern, wreathplant, wright’s beebrush, wright’s bedstraw, wright’s and California’s north coastal ranges.… Once established, many of these species brush, xantus’ chaenactis, xantus’s clarkia, yellow bee-plant, remained in protected niches even as the climate turned unfavorable for them. cups, yellow desert evening-primrose, yellow gilia, yellow nutgrass, yellow pepper-grass, yellow stonecrop, yellow Some survived unchanged; others evolved into unique forms. Some are present yellow-flowered eriastrum, yellow-head, yellowray fremonts- today only in very specific habitats.

wolf’s trisetum, wood rose, wood rush sedge, woodland clarkia,

woodland pterostegia, woodland spurge, woodland star, wood-

land strawberry, woolly amsonia, woolly angelica, woolly bluecurls,

bans, yerba buena, yerba desierto, yerba mansa, yosemite

sedge, yosemite woolly sunflower, yucca buckwheat, yuma ditaxis,

yuma spurge, zigzag larkspur

Jerry Schad, Afoot and Afield in Los Angeles County County, 2nd. ed. (Berkeley, Ca.: Wilderness Press, 2000), 6. source: Calflora Database (www.calflora.org)

bles, woolly marigold, woolly mountain-parsley, woolly seablite, santa, woolly-fruited lomatium, woolly-leaf ceanothus, wooton’s lace spiderling, wrinkled rush, wrinkled spineflower, wyoming paintyellow blazing star, yellow bleeding heart, yellow cryptantha, yellow yellow

mariposa,

yellow

nightshade

ground

cherry,

tackstem, yellow willow, yellow-eyed lupine, yellowflower tarweed, gold, yellow-rayed goldfields, yellow-stem bush mallow, yellow-tur-

B. Kalpin

K. Hirt J. Fleischmann

Flora

NATURAL HABITAT

Nonnative

african asparagus fern, african bristlegrass, african daisy, african prickle grass, alfalfa, alligator weed, alsike clover, american pokeweed, american sea rocket, andes grass, angled pea-vine, annual blue grass, annual ragweed, annual wall rocket, apple mint, arizona caltrop, asian mustard, athel tree, australian bluebells, australian brass-buttons, australian brome, australian cheesewood, australian filaree, australian saltbush, baby sun rose, baby’s tears, balfour’s touch-me-not, barbgrass, beancaper, bee balm, beet, beggar-ticks, bermuda buttercup, bermuda grass, biennial sagewort , bird vetch, bird’s-eye

speedwell, bird’s-foot trefoil, bitter dock, black locust, black medick, black mustard, black nightshade, blackwood acacia, bladder senna, bladderflower, blessed thistle, blood-flower, blue foxtail, blue gum, blue panicgrass, blue-eyed african daisy, bluegrass, bluegreen saltbush, blueweed, boccon’s sand-spurrey, brake fern, brass-buttons, brazilian water weed, bristly ox-tongue, bristly plantain, broad-leaved pepper-grass, buffalo berry, buffelgrass, bukhara fallopia, bulbous blue grass, bull mallow, bull thistle, bur-chervil, burclover, butterfly bush, california burclover, camel thornwhite garlic, canada thistle, canarian sea-lavander, canary island date palm, canarygrass, cardoon, carolina bristle mallow, carolina canarygrass, carolina horse-nettle, carpet-weed, castor bean, catnip, cedar wattle, chain speedwell, cheatgrass, cheeseweed mallow, chicory, chilean beard grass, chilean chess, chinese elm, chinese grass, chinese tamarisk, clammy goosefoot, clasping heliotrope, clustered dock, clustered yellow-tops, coast sandbur, coastal wattle, common campion, common chickweed, common dandelion, common eveningprimrose, common fig, common flax, common gorse, common groundsel, common iceplant, common knotweed, common mallow, common mediterranean grass, common mullein, common oats, common plantain, common red sage, common salttree, common sheep sorrel, common soliva, common sow thistle, common st. johnswort, common vetch, common wheat, common wild geranium, cone campion, cootamundra wattle , coppery mesemb, coriander, corncockle, cornish mallow, crabgrass, creeping bentgrass, crested dogtail, crossflower, crown daisy, crows-foot grass, cupgrass, curly dock, curly pondweed, cut-leaved goosefoot, dallis grass, darnel, date palm, dayflower, desert crested wheatgrass, devil’s thorn, diffuse knapweed, ditch beard grass, dog rose, dog-fennel, domestic buckwheat, domestic rice, drurmmond’s gaura, dwarf nettle, english ivy ivy, english plantain, english rye-grass, english violet, english walnut, european beach grass, european foxtail fescue, european mountain rowan, european sea rocket, eyebane, fall panicgrass, false foxtail fescue , false garlic, feather finger grass, ferngrass, fetid marigold, field bindweed, field clover, field madder, field mustard, field pennycress, field sowthistle, fine-leaved fumitory, five-horn bassia, floating water-primrose, flower-of-an-hour, foothill filaree, forest red gum, fountain grass, four-leaved allseed, fowl blue grass, foxtail, foxtail barley, french broom, french tamarisk, fringed rue, fuller’s teasel, garden celery celery, garden morning-glory, garden nasturtium, garden parsnip, garden pelargonium, garden sweet pea, garden tomato, german ivy, giant bentgrass, giant ragweed, giant reed, giraffe head, gladiolus, golden thistle, golden wattle, goldentop, goose grass, goosefoot, gopher plant, grape, grasslike starwort, gray ground-cherry, greater burdock, green bentgrass, green foxtail, green wattle, gulf cockspur grass, gum rockrose, hairy golden-eye, hairy rattail fescue, hairy sand-spurrey, hairy vetch, hairy whitetop, halogeton, harding grass, hare’s ear mustard, heart-leaf four o’clock, hedge mustard, hedypnois, herb of grace, herb sophia, himalaya-berry, hoary cress, hollyfern, hollyhock bindweed, hood canarygrass, hooked bristlegrass, horehound, husk tomato, hyssop loosestrife, ice plant, india mustard, indian hedge mustard, indian plantain, italian gladiolus, italian rye-grass, italian thistle, ivy morning-glory, japanese brome, japanese cheesewood, japanese honeysuckle, jerusalem oak, jimson weed, johnsongrass, jointed goatgrass, jungle rice, jupiter’s beard, kangaroo thorn, kenilworth ivy, kentucky blue gras, kikuyu grass, klamath pepper-grass, knotted hedge-parsley, la plata sandspurry sandspurry, ladder brake, lance-leaf bupleurum, lantana, large-fruited amaranth, lavender-cotton, leafy spurge, leavenworth’s sedge, lehmann lovegrass, lemon-scented gum, lens-podded hoary cress, lesser swine cress, licorice, lily of the valley, little hogweed, little lovegrass, little marigold, little plantain, little quaking grass, little-bell morning-glory, little-podded falseflax, little-seed canarygrass, london rocket, loomis thimblehead, louisiana

wild-lettuce,

madagascar

periwinkle,

marsh-parsley,

mat

sandbur,

meadow

fescue,

mediterranean

cabbage,

mediterranean

grass,

mediterranean

lineseed,

mexican

evening

primrose, mexican palo verde, mexican tea, milk thistle, missouri lambsquarters, moraccan toad-flax, moth mullein, mouse barley, mouse-ear chickweed, musk thistle, musky marshpennywort, namma gum, napa star thistle, narrowleaf cottonrose, narrow-leaf four o’clock, nettle-leaved goosefoot, new zealand spinach, ngaio tree, night-flowering campion, nightshade, nit grass, north african knapweed, nutgrass, oak-leafed pelargonium, oak-leaved goosefoot, ocean-blue morning-glory, oleaster, olive, onionweed, orangeberry, orchard-grass, osage-orange, oval-leaf sedge, pale starwort, pampas grass, paulsen’s russian thistle, pennsylvania blackberry, pennyroyal, peppermint, peregrine saltbush, perennial sweet pea, perennial veldt grass, perennial wall rocket, periwinkle, peruvian pepper tree, petty spurge, pineapple weed, pine-needle toad-flax, pistachio, plume acacia, poison hemlock, pomegranate, pond water -starwort, portuguese broom, pouzin’s purple star-thistle, prickly lettuce, pride of madeira, prostrate spurge, puncture-vine, purple african nightshade, purple false-brome, purple ragwort, purple vetch, quackgrass, queen anne’s lace, quilete, rabbitsfoot grass, ramtilla, rattail fescue, red clover, red iron bark, red oxalis, red river gum, red sandspurry, redstem filaree, regal pelargonium, rescue grass, rhodes grass, ripgut brome, rocket, rose campion, rose clover, rosy ice plant, rough barnyard grass, rough cat’s ear, rough pigweed, roundleaf cancerwort, russian knapweed, rye, rye brome, safflower, saint augustine grass, salsify, saltcedar, salvation echium, sanfoin, scarlet pimpernel, scotch broom, sea fig, sharpleaf cancerwort, shasta daisy, shepherd’s purse, shepherdsneedle, shoal-grass, short-leaf spikesedge, shortpod mustard, siberian elm, siberian pea tree, sickle grass, silver hairgrass, silver wattle, silverleaf nightshade, silver-sheath knotweed, skeleton weed, slender meadow foxtail, slender pigweed, slender sow thistle, slender wild oats, slender-leaved ice plant, small bugloss, small-flowered gaura, smilo grass, smooth brome, smooth cat’s ear, smooth crabgrass, smooth distaff thistle, smooth hawksbeard, smutgrass, soft brome, sorghum, south american horseweed, south american mock vervain, southern sandbur, spanish brome, spanish broom, spanish cockle, spanish false-fleabane, spiny amaranth, split-lip toadflax, spotted knapweed, spotted ladysthumb, spotted spurge, spring vetch, squarestem butterfly bush, star acacia, starhair groundcherry, statice, stickseed, sticky snakeroot, stinkgrass, strawberry blite, sugargum, swamp grass, sweet alyssum, sweet fennel, tall fescue, tall oatgrass, tall wheatgrass, tamarisk, tangier pea, tenweeks stock, thatching grass, three-flowered nightshade, thyme-leaf sandwort, timothy, tomatillo, trailing lantana, treasure-flower, tree tobacco, tree-of-heaven, tri-colored daisy, tropical horseweed, tropical woodsorrel, tumble mustard, tumbleweed, tumbling oracle, tuna cactus, umbrella plant, upright veldt grass, variable flatsedge, vasey’s grass, velvet mesquite, velvet-leaf, Virginia plantain, wall bedstraw bedstraw, wallflower tumble mustard, wand mullein, wart weed, warty caltrop, waryleaf beeblossom, washerwoman, water hyacinth, water speedwell, watergrass, water-lily, wavy-leaved thistle, wayside pepper-grass, weeping willow, white clover, white goosefoot, white mignonette, white willow, whitestem filaree, wild oats, wild radish, windmill pink, winged pigweed, winged thistle, winter vetch, woodland geranium, yellow britlegrass, yellow devil’s claw, yellow horned-poppy, yellow mignonette, yellow salsify, yellow sorrel, yellow star-thistle, yellow sweetclover, yellow-spined thistle, zigzag jointvetch source: Calflora Database (www.calflora.org)

Jacarandas bloom in early May, before the new leaves show. The horn-shaped flowers are the color of the sky at late dusk—a pure, translucent purple. That color is held overhead on the thin branches of the tree’s new growth. Thousands of small flowers fall soon after blooming, covering the sidewalk and lawn with purple in a fifty-foot circle. None of the city’s trees are as exotic as the jacarandas, which are native to the Amazon basin. There were no trees here when the land was farmed, except a stand of eucalyptus planted near the field office of the Montana Land Company. These trees now shade the water department office and the city’s print shop. Eucalyptus trees are native to Australia. By ordinance, every house must have a city tree planted in front of it. The tree is planted in the rectangle of land, seven feet wide and thirty feet long, which is the city’s right of way in front of each house. None of the city’s street trees is native to California. D. J. Waldie, Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996), 55.

acorn woodpecker, allen’s hummingbird, american avocet, american bittern, american coot, american crow, american kestrel, american robin, american white pelican, american pigeon, anna’s hummingbird, antelope ground squirrel, arboreal salamander, ash-throated flycatcher, audubon’s cottontail, badger, band-tailed pigeon, banded sand snake, barn owl, barn swallow, belted kingfisher, bewick’s wren, bighorn sheep, black bear, black phoebe, black oystercatcher black skimmer, black storm-petrel, black turnstone, black-bellied plover, black-bellied slender salamander, black-chinned hummingbird, black-crowned night heron, black-headed grosbeak, black-legged kittiwake, blacknecked stilt, black-tailed deer, black-tailed gnatcatcher, black-tailed jackrabbit, black-throated sparrow, blue whale, blue-winged teal, bobcat, bonaparte’s gull, botta’s pocket gopher, bottlenose dolphin, brandt’s cormorant, brewer’s blackbird, brewer’s sparrow, broadhanded mole, brown creeper, brown pelican, brown-headed cowbird, brush rabbit, bufflehead, bullfrog, bullock’s oriole, burro, burrowing owl, bushtit, cactus wren, california chorus frog, california condor, california gray whale, california ground squirrel, california gull, california legless lizard, california meadow vole, california mountain kingsnake, california newt, california quail, california thrasher, california towhee, california whip snake, calliope hummingbird, canada goose, canyon wren, caspian tern, cassin’s finch, chipmunk, chipping sparrow, cinnamon teal, clapper rail, clark’s grebe, clark’s nutcracker, cliff swallow, coachwhip, coast horned lizard, colorado river toad, common chuckwalla, common dolphin, common king snake, common loon, common nighthawk, common poorwill, common raven, common yellowthroat, cooper’s hawk, costa’s hummingbird, couch’s spadefoot toad, coyote, dark-eyed junco, desert banded gecko, desert collared lizard, desert horned lizard, desert iguana, desert kangaroo rat, desert slender salamander, desert spiny lizard, desert tortoise, double-crested cormorant, dowitcher, downy woodpecker, dunlin, eared grebe, elegant tern, elephant seal, elf owl, ensatina salamander, evening grosbeak, forster’s tern, fox sparrow, fringe-toed lizard, gadwall, gambel’s quail, gilbert’s skink, glossy snake, golden eagle, golden-crowned sparrow, golden-mantled ground squirrel, goldfinch, gopher snake, granite night lizard, granite spiny lizard, gray fox, great blue heron, great egret, great horned owl, great plains toad, greater roadrunner, green heron, green-tailed towhee, green-winged teal, ground snake, ground squirrel, hairy woodpecker, harbor porpoise, harbor seal, heerman’s gull, hermit thrush, hooded oriole, horned grebe, horned lark, house finch, house sparrow, house wren, hutton’s vireo, island night lizard, killdeer, killer whale, kit fox, ladder-backed woodpecker, lark sparrow, lazuli bunting, leaf-toed gecko, least sandpiper, least tern, lesser nighthawk, lincoln’s sparrow, loggerhead shrike, long-billed curlew, long-nosed leopard lizard, long-nosed snake, long-tailed brush lizard, long-tailed weasel, lowland leopard frog, lyre snake, mallard, marbled godwit, marsh wren, merriam’s kangaroo rat, mojave rattlesnake, mountain bluebird, mountain chickadee, mountain lion, mountain quail, mountain yellow-legged frog, mourning dove, night snake, northern flicker, northern harrier, northern mockingbird, northern pintail, northern pygmy-owl, northern shoveler, nuttall’s Fauna NATURALwoodpecker, oak titmouse,, olive-sided flycatcher, orange-crowned warbler, orange throated whiptail, osprey, pacific chorus frog, pacific goldenHABITATplover, pacific loon, pacific pond turtle, pacific white-sided dolphin, pallid bat, phainopepla, pie-billed grebe, pika, pine siskin, pink-footed shearwater, pinyon jay, pocket mouse, prairie falcon, pronghorn, pygmy nuthatch, raccoon, racer, red-breasted merganser, red-breasted nuthatch, red diamond rattlesnake, red-legged frog, red-necked phalarope, red-shouldered hawk, red-spotted toad, red-tailed hawk, red-winged blackbird, redhead, ring-billed gull, ring-necked duck, ringneck snake, ring-tailed cat, risso’s dolphin, rock dove, rock wren, rosy boa, rubber boa, ruby-crowned kinglet, ruddy duck, ruddy turnstone, rufous hummingbird, sage grouse, sage thrasher, sagebrush lizard, sanderling, sandhill crane, sapsucker, savannah sparrow, say’s phoebe, scaup, sea lion, sea otter, semipalmated plover, sharp-shinned hawk, shrew, side-blotched lizard, sidewinder, snow goose, snowy egret, snowy plover, song sparrow, sooty shearwater, sora, southern alligator lizard, southern flying squirrel, southern grasshopper mouse, southwestern toad, speckled rattlesnake, spotted leaf-nosed snake, spotted owl, spotted sandpiper, spotted skunk, spotted towhee, starling, steller’s jay, striped skunk, surfbird, surfscoter, swainson’s hawk, tricolored blackbird, tricolored heron, turkey vulture, two-striped garter snake, verdin, violet-green swallow, virginia opossum, virginia rail, wandering tattler, warbling vireo, western blind snake, western bluebird, western diamond-back ratttlesnake, western fence lizard, western gray squirrel, western grebe, western gull, western harvest mouse, western kingbird, western meadowlark, western patch-nose snake, western rattlesnake, western sandpiper, western screech-owl, western scrub-jay, western shovel-nosed snake, western skink, western spadefoot toad, western tanager, western terrestrial garter snake, western toad, western whiptail, western wood-pewee, whimbrel, whip-poor-will, white-breasted nuthatch, white-crowned sparrow, white-footed mouse, white-headed woodpecker, white-tailed (black-shouldered) kite, white-throated swift, white-winged dove, willet, wilson’s phalarope, wilson’s warbler, woodhouse toad, woodrat, wrentit yellow warbler, yellow-bellied marmot, yellow-headed blackbird, yellow-rumped warbler, yellowleg, yucca night lizard, zebra-tailed lizard

source: Southern California Natural History, History Biology Department, Loyola Marymount University (www.bio.lmu.edu/socal_nat_hist/contents.htm)

C. Chung

D. Grey

Malibu will always protect its own image. Recently, roof rats were discovered in the Colony, a gated community of the real superstars on the beach just south of the village center. I saw one of the rats, and there was no doubt in my mind that it was a rat. But when I asked a resident about it, a matronly figure who was no doubt the wife of someone famous, she drew herself up and replied, “My dear, Malibu does not have rats. Those are badgers.” “They sure don’t look like badgers,” I said. Without blinking, she said, “Even our badgers are unique.” Al Martinez, City of Angles: A Drive-by Portrait of Los Angeles (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996), 44–45.

January 2000: week 1

January 2000: week 3

February 2000: week 1

Average temperatures, 2000 (in degrees Fahrenheit) Burbank-GlendalePasadena J 51 46 63 59 51

F 51 48 63 60 53

M 53 49 65 60 52

A 58 58 67 64 58

M J 64 65 61 63 82 83 75 75 63 63

J A 67 69 64 71 83 84 80 78 65 70

S 66 64 77 74 65

Ontario O 60 58 71 66 59

N 52 48 68 61 52

D 50 47 67 60 51

midnight 6 a.m. noon 6 p.m. midnight

J 50 49 63 58 51

Fullerton

NATURAL HABITAT

J 50 47 64 59 51

April 2000: week 1

F 52 49 63 61 54

M 55 52 64 60 53

A 59 58 70 65 47

M J 62 66 60 65 78 79 70 73 62 65

F 58 55 68 63 60

M 59 56 68 61 58

A 63 61 70 65 61

M J 62 64 60 64 67 73 66 73 62 64

J A 66 69 66 68 79 82 74 76 66 69

S 68 66 79 73 67

O 62 59 73 67 61

N 51 48 67 60 51

D 50 47 65 59 51

midnight 6 a.m. noon 6 p.m. midnight

July 2000: week 1

F 53 51 63 60 55

M 55 53 63 58 53

A 57 60 69 63 59

M J 61 65 60 64 74 74 68 69 61 65

J A 65 69 66 69 73 77 69 71 65 68

S 67 67 73 68 65

O 63 62 70 65 62

N 56 51 67 61 55

D 54 51 64 57 55

midnight 6 a.m. noon 6 p.m. midnight

F 53 51 65 59 54

M 55 51 63 60 55

A 60 59 68 64 58

M J 62 66 61 65 75 76 69 72 62 66

J A 66 69 66 68 75 78 70 72 66 69

S 68 55 77 70 66

O 62 62 71 65 62

N D 53 52 midnight July 2000: week 3 52 50 6 a.m. 69 64 noon 60 57 6 p.m. 54 53 midnight

October 2000: week 1

F 54 51 62 58 56

M 55 53 66 64 55

A 60 60 66 65 58

M J 61 64 60 64 68 71 64 66 61 63

M J 63 65 60 62 85 87 76 77 63 63

J A 66 69 63 67 86 88 80 81 65 69

S 66 64 80 74 66

O 59 57 71 66 59

N 52 49 68 61 52

D 51 48 67 61 51

F 50 49 66 61 52

M 50 48 65 61 50

A 57 56 69 66 55

M J 61 65 59 62 87 89 78 78 61 63

J A 66 69 62 66 89 90 81 82 65 69

S 66 63 82 73 65

O 59 56 71 67 58

N 48 46 70 60 46

D 47 44 69 60 46

Temperature

May 2000: week 1

Santa Monica J -51 68 58 --

F -53 65 60 --

M -54 66 60 --

A -62 71 66 --

M J -- -62 68 73 76 69 73 -- --

J A -- -67 70 79 81 74 74 -- --

S -65 75 68 --

O 60 60 68 64 60

N 55 52 65 59 54

D 52 50 63 55 52

J -49 64 56 --

F -51 65 59 --

M -51 62 57 --

A -59 68 62 --

M J -- -59 64 72 77 65 69 -- --

J A -- -64 67 76 78 72 71 -- --

S -64 74 68 --

O -59 71 64 --

N -50 68 58 --

D -51 64 56 --

J A 66 68 63 66 85 86 80 81 64 70

S 66 64 78 73 64

O 59 57 73 66 59

N 51 46 68 60 51

D 49 47 66 60 50

August 2000: week 1

11 Van Nuys J A 67 70 67 69 76 78 74 75 66 69

S 67 67 76 69 65

O 61 59 70 65 61

N 52 49 67 59 53

D 51 50 61 56 51

midnight 6 a.m. noon 6 p.m. midnight

J 50 44 62 59 50

F 52 47 63 59 52

M 51 48 65 61 52

A 57 56 66 53 57

M J 63 65 59 63 83 84 77 77 62 62

-- = data not available

Los Angeles J 56 51 63 58 56

A 59 57 67 64 55

10 Torrance

Long Beach J 52 49 64 59 53

J 49 45 65 59 50

April 2000: week 3

Santa Ana J 52 50 63 58 53

M 51 49 63 60 51

Riverside

Hawthorne J 58 55 68 62 59

F 50 49 63 60 53

J A 64 69 65 69 73 75 67 69 64 67

S 67 66 72 67 64

O 63 62 69 64 62

N 56 52 66 61 56

D 57 52 63 57 55

midnight 6 a.m. noon 6 p.m. midnight

October 2000: week 3 source: National Climatic Data Center (www.ncdc.noaa.gov)

November 2000: week 1

February 2000: week 3

March 2000: week 1

March 2000: week 3

Weather stations 11

7 9 6

3 2 10

May 2000: week 3

June 2000: week 1

June 2000: week 3

August 2000: week 3

September 2000: week 1

September 2000: week 3

Yet Southern California at least by Lyellian standards is a revolutionary, not a reformist landscape. It is Walden Pond on LSD. As in other Mediterranean and dryland environments, the “average” is merely an abstraction. Indeed, nothing is less likely to occur than “average rainfall.” At Los Angeles City Hall, where the annual precipitation is pegged at 15.3 inches, that mark has been hit only a few times in the 127-year history of measured rainfall. Indeed, only 17 percent of years approach within 25 percent of the historical average. The actual norm turns out to be seven- to twelve-year swings between dry and wet spells. The graph of historical rainfall oscillates over the decades like a seismograph recording the successive shocks of a major earthquake. Sometimes the annual average rainfall is delivered during a single week-long Kona storm, as happened in 1938 and 1969; or even, incredibly, in a single 12-hour deluge, as in Bel Air on New Year’s Day 1934. During droughts, on the other hand, it may take two or even three years to achieve the mean. Mike Davis, Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster (New York: Metropolitan Books, Inc., 1998), 16.

November 2000: week 3

December 2000: week 1

December 2000: week 3

Precipitation in Los Angeles, 2000 Burbank Hawthorne Fullerton Santa Ana Long Beach Los Angeles Ontario

January February

NATURAL HABITAT

1.7(6)

1.45(2) 1.45

.62(3) .62

.74(3) .74

.51(5) .51

.65(6) .65

.83(4) .83

Riverside Santa Monica Torrance Van Nuys .68(5) .68 1.28(8) .92 1.28 .92(5) 1.17(9) 1.17

7.35(12) 4.93 4.93(10) 4.01(5)

4.65(13) 2.86 4.65 2.86(11) 4.71 4.71(10) 8.78 8.78(13) 2.95 2.95(12) 7.6 7.6(14)

4.53(11) 5.71 5.71(13)

March

2.72(6)

1.95(4) 1.95

1.55(2)

1.7(4) 1.7

1.7(6) 1.7

2.4(6) 2.4

2.92(5) 2.92

1.63(6) 1.63

3.0(5) 3.0

2.79(4) 2.79

1.95(6) 1.95

April

2.75(3)

2.68(2) 2.68

2.55(2) 2.55

.82(2) .82

1.15(3) 1.15

1.88(2) 1.88

2.55(4) 2.55

.65(2) .65

1.85(3) 1.85

1.11(2) 1.11

2.27(2) 2.27

May

.06(1) .06

.03(1) .03

.75(3) .75

.01(1) .01

.08(2) .08

June

July

August

.15(2)

.01(1) .01

.03(1) .03

.01(1) .01

.11(1) .11

.30(1) .30

September

.22(1)

.06(1) .06

.03(1) .03

.15(1) .15

.11(1) .11

.10(3) .10

October

1.36(6) 1.36

2.3(5) 2.3

1.12(6) 1.12 (6)

.47(5) .47 (5)

1.84(7) 1.84

2.29(6) 2.29

1.69(4) 1.69

November

.05(1) .05

December

.02(2)

.07(2) .07

.02(1) .02

Precipitation

source: National Climatic Data Center (www.ncdc.noaa.gov)

inches (number of days of rain)

Rain is one of our more consistent natural disasters. It rarely just rains in L.A. It storms…tropically. This may not seem like a big deal in Miami or New Orleans or Corpus Christi, but when you figure a mattress in Lane Three can effectively paralyze the world’s most complicated freeway system, rainfall is a major problem. Streets flood, bridges collapse, hillsides slide, roads are closed, and mud fills houses up to their built-in bars, especially in Malibu, where everything miserable seems to focus.… A bridge collapsed, hillsides slid, roads were closed, and mountains of mud filled very expensive homes, the same as always. And, as always, the residents of Malibu, both famous and not famous, emerged from the muck proclaiming they would not live anywhere else in the world, no matter what, and sang as they shoveled the gluck from their living rooms. Al Martinez, City of Angels: A Drive-by Portrait of Los Angeles (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996), 29–30.

Santa Ana winds

Dry air from the interior of the U.S. moves southwest towards Southern California. As this air flows down into the Los Angeles Basin through the low gaps in the mountains (notably Cajon Pass on the east end of the San Gabriel Mountains and Soledad Pass south of Palmdale), it compresses and warms about five degrees Fahrenheit for every 1,000 feet that it descends. Though these winds are much cooler high in the mountains, they assume gale force as they descend and are often the source of air turbulence for airliners on approach to Los Angeles International Airport. map source: www.cnn.com/US/9610/22/wildfires.update/index.html chart source: Climate Data and Climate Files, Teaching Architecture & Energy, Washington University, St. Louis (http://dell2002.cap.utk.edu/ecodesign/ecocurriculum)

high

wind from desert

compression

velocity 55

Wind velocity range, 1998

50 45

Wind

40 35 30

record high average high mean average low record low

25 20 15 10 5 0 J

The seasons have been wronged; July Santa Ana winds railroaded into January. The warm swaggering air. Saturday night is heated by the bracing force that causes trees to stagger. Leafy bushes gangsta-lean and stand eight-count straight again. Pinecones and twigs street-race down Degnan. The block is hot. A baritone whir presses against room-temperature windows, whispers under panes. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the theme that calls couples from the bedroom to the center of hardwood floors. Many lights are low when the Santa Anas hit town. Michael Datcher, Raising Fences: A Black Manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Love Story (New York: Riverhead Books, 2001), 260.

Major landslides 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

year 1934 1956 1983 1993 1994

slide La CaĂąada Debris Flow Portuguese Bend Slide Big Rock Mesa Slide Anaheim Hills Slide Northridge Slides

land area 1,920 acres 270 acres 200 acres 60 acres 2,560 acres

deaths 84 people -----

damage --$100 million $4 million $60 million

K. Hirt

-- = data not available

NATURAL HABITAT

Mudslides

photos: T. Morrison

# of acres moved 10+ acres 100+ acres 2

1,000+ acres

high landslide event moderate landslide event

map source: Michael Dear & Heidi Sommer, eds., Atlas of Southern California, vol. 2 (Los Angeles: Southern California Studies Center, University of Southern California, 1998)

Never was humanity’s symbiotic relationship more revealing than in Topanga Canyon, where aging hippies left over from the sixties live in cabinlike structures down the road from yuppie film moguls and furniture store owners in million-dollar estates. When torrential rains sent hillsides slipping, rich joined with the poor in filling sandbags and digging drainage ditches to shore up hillsides and divert the rushing water. Bottles of vintage Châteauneuf-du-Pape were passed round like Budweiser during breaks in the hard work, and I personally heard one aging hippie ask a movie director, “Can you buy this stuff at Pic ‘n’ Save?” Al Martinez, City of Angles: A Drive-by Portrait of Los Angeles (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996), 31.

photos 92-97: L. Hammerness

The big ones date 1. December 1812 2. March 1933 3. February 1971 4. October 1987 5. January 1994

name San Juan Capistrano-Wrightwood Long Beach Earthquake Sylmar Earthquake Whittier Narrows Earthquake Northridge Earthquake

Faults in Los Angeles 1. 2. NATURAL3. HABITAT 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29.

Cabrillo Fault Chatsworth Fault Chino Fault Clamshell-Sawpit Canyon Fault Cucamonga Fault Zone Eagle Rock Fault El Modeno Fault Elsinore Fault Zone Hollywood Fault Los Alamitos Fault Malibu Coast Fault Newport-Inglewood Fault Zone Northridge Fault Palos Verdes Fault Zone Peralta Hills Fault Raymond Fault Red Hill Fault Redondo Canyon Fault San Andreas Fault Zone San Antonio Fault San Gabriel Fault San Jacinto Fault Zone San Jose Fault Santa Monica Fault Santa Susana Fault Zone Sierra Madre Fault Zone Stoddard Canyon Fault Verdugo Fault Whittier Fault

length 13 miles 13 miles 13 miles 11 miles 19 miles 7 miles 6 miles 112 miles 9 miles 7 miles 21 miles 47 miles 16 miles 50 miles 6 miles 16 miles 16 miles 7 miles 746 miles 13 miles 87 miles 131 miles 11 miles 15 miles 24 miles 47 miles 11 miles 13 miles 25 miles

fault San Andreas Newport-Inglewood San Fernando Elysian Park Northridge Thrust

magnitude 7.5 6.4 6.6 5.9 6.7

probable magnitude 6.0-6.8 6.0-6.8 6.0-7.0 -6.0-7.0 --6.5-7.5 5.8-6.5 -6.0-7.1 6.5-7.4 -6.0-7.0 -6.0-7.0 6.0-7.0 -6.8-8.0 ---6.0-6.5 6.0-7.0 6.5-7.3 6.0-7.0 --6.0-7.2

-- = data not available sources: www.losangelesalmanac.com Southern California Earthquake Data Center (www.scecdc.scec.org)

damage Earthquakes casualties -40 $50 million 120 $553 million 65 $358 million 8 $12.5 billion 57

San Andreas Fault Zone

Santa Susana Fault Zone

San Gabriel Fault

3 Northridge Hills Fault

San Antonio Fault

Chatsworth Fault

Sierra Madre Fault Zone Clamshell-Sawpit Canyon Fault

San Fernando Fault Zone

Verdugo Fault Eagle Rock Fault Hollywood Fault

Malibu Coast Fault

Stoddard Canyon Fault

Red Hill Fault

Cucamonga Fault

Raymond Fault

San Jacinto Fault Zone

San Jose Fault Santa Monica Fault

Whittier Fault

Newport-Inglewood Fault Zone

Chino Fault

Los Alamitos Fault Redondo Canyon Fault

Peralta Hills El Modeno Fault Elsinore Fault Zone

Cabrillo Fault

Newport-Inglewood-Rose Canyon Fault Zone

fault line magnitude 1–6 magnitude 6.1–7

2 Palos Verdes Fault Zone

magnitude 7.1+

Ah, Los Angeles! Truckers call it Shakey Town, heartsick celebs call it Splitsville. When it comes to earthquakes, we’re like a rat in the jaws of a rottweiler—no fun for the rat, right? Well, wait just a New York minute. Without earthquakes, this town wouldn’t be half as exotic as it is. Mudslides? Yawn. Movie stars? Pass the Prozac. Drive-bys? Been there, done that. No, we live under a tectonic death sentence called the Big One, and by golly, that’s exciting. Not just anybody can happily go about their business knowing that today’s cozy Craftsman cottage could be tomorrow’s gaping hole. Bill Moseley, “Ready to Rumble: What’s Cool About Quakes,” Glue Magazine (November/December 1998), 15.

Earthquakes

NATURAL HABITAT

But I am not summoning Armageddon. Despite the wishful thinking of evangelicals impatient for the Rapture or deep ecologists who believe that Gaia would be happiest with a thin sprinkling of hunter-gatherers, megacities like Los Angeles will never simply collapse and disappear. Rather, they will stagger on, with higher body counts and greater distress, through a chain of more frequent and destructive encounters with disasters of all sorts; while vital parts of the regionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s high-tech and tourist economies eventually emigrate to safer ground, together with hundreds of thousands of its more affluent residents. Mike Davis, Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster (New York: Metropolitan Books, 1998), 54â&#x20AC;&#x201C;55.

Earthquakes

NATURAL HABITAT

Top 10 largest fires date 1. October 1933 2. November 1961 3. October 1978 4. September 1979 5. November 1980 6. 1993 7. October 1993 8. October 1993 9. October 1993 10. August 1999

name Mineral Wells Canyon Fire Bel Air Fire Agoura-Malibu Fire Los Angeles National Fire Panorama Fire 21 wind-driven fires Kinneloa Fire Laguna Fire Topanga Fire Willows Fire

NATURAL HABITAT

cause acres burned unknown 40 unknown 6,090 arson 31,000 forest fire 31,000 arson 23,600 unknown 189,000 campfire 5,485 arson 14,437 arson 18,000 brush fire 63,486

structures destroyed -484 186 -325 1,260 196 441 323 19

damage deaths -36 -0 -50 $20 million 90 -4 Wildfires $1 billion+ 4 -1 -0 -3 $11 million --

-- = data not available

sources: California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (www.fire.ca.gov) Michael Dear and Heidi Sommer, eds., Atlas of Southern California, Volume 2, 2 (Los Angeles: Southern California Studies Center, University of Southern California, 1998)

J. McKnight

4 M. Lipson

L. Hammerness

10 7

6 1

3 6

acres burned 100–6,999 7,000–18,999 19,000–59,999

60,000+

8 6 6

7 8 9

10 L. Hammerness

photos 100-103: K. Brooke

Wildfires NATURAL HABITAT

100

Wildfires

NATURAL HABITAT

102

Fire meant the end of immunity, the window of advantage gone, the biosphere so essential to Southern California taking revenge, or the non-white hidden world claiming its place. The mood after 1965 sparked national bestsellers about the end of L.A., like Richard Lillardâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s remarkable Eden in Jeopardy (1966), or Curt Gentryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s The Last Days of the Late, Great State of California (1968). Journalist Lawrence Powell wrote this about a fire in Malibu: What next? Cliff slippage? Earthquake? Drought? Plague? War? All have visited the earth at some time in history. Southern California should not expect immunity forever. Speaking of not knowing which immunity is which: landscape specialists tell me that even the horrific Malibu fire of 1994, gruesome as it was, will fertilize the soil and clear the land for chaparral, which is the basis of the entire food chain. However, developers often level the native brown and purple chaparral anyway, on the grounds that it is not green enough. Then plants and trees from other climates are inserted as ornamental exotica, which also inhibit the natural growth. Norman M. Klein, The History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory (London and New York: Verso, 1997), 83.

photos 104-109: S. Zukowski

MAN-MADE HABITAT

104

MAN-MADE HABITAT

106

Built Mass & Land Use

MAN-MADE HABITAT

108

Parks & Public Lands

Resources & Consumption

Resources & Consumption: Water

Resources & Consumption: Energy

Resources & Consumption: Food

Resources & Consumption: Waste

Air Travel

Rail Travel

Road Travel

Air Quality

MAN-MADE HABITAT

110

There are at least a dozen streets in Los Angeles named Central. From an urban-planning standpoint, this defeats the very idea of the plaza, the city square, the convergence of far-flung neighborhoods into a single place. Naming more than one street Central is like calling all of your children Fred. Bernard Cooper, Guess Again (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), 185.

Our blocks, which were like small, self-contained towns, were now territories to be defended as though the avenues and streets had natural resources or religious significance. Notions of self defense, of preemptive strikes, the need to never be caught slipping, became a way of life. It was inevitable, or so it seemed, that sooner or later we all were going to die some stupid, embarrassing death. Jervey Tervalon, Living for the City (San Diego: Incommunicado Press, 1998), 21.

J. Rocholl

K. MÃ¼ller

Built Mass & Land Use

MAN-MADE HABITAT

112

J. Rocholl

B. Moss

J. Rocholl

The tinted halogen streetlamps of Anaheim cast the world before Eastman in the eerie, filtered light of a perpetual sunset—everything was easier to see yet harder to tell apart. A haphazard collection of motels and low-rise hotels, gas stations and coffee shops, had long ago superseded the horizon; in fact, their garish signs were so numerous, no one of them made any sense—they had run together into a huge, illumined billboard that shamelessly promoted chaos. The whole scene made Eastman wonder where in this landscape the permanent residents lived—there really wasn’t much space left for them to occupy, he thought— and when he craned his head upward, to the sky, he saw it was empty, even of stars, there was so much light being reflected back off its surface. Jay Gummerman, Chez Chance (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 31–32.

photos: B. Kalpin

Built Mass & Land Use

MAN-MADE HABITAT

114

The light around here is quite remarkable, isn’t it? In fact, I gave the matter some thought on my walk home this evening. And it seems to me, actually, that there are four—or, anyway, at least four—lights in L.A. To begin with, there’s the cruel, actinic light of late July. Its glare cuts piteously through the general shabbiness of Los Angeles. Second comes the nostalgic, golden light of late October. It turns Los Angeles into El Dorado, a city of fool’s gold. It’s the light William Faulkner—in his story “Golden Land”—called “treacherous unbrightness.” It’s the light the tourists come for— the light, to be more specific, of unearned nostalgia. Third, there’s the gunmetal-gray light of the months between December and July. Summer in Los Angeles doesn’t begin until mid-July. In the months before, the light can be as monotonous as Seattle’s. Finally comes the light, clear as stone-dry champagne, after a full day of rain. Everything in this light is somehow simultaneously particularized and idealized: each perfect, specific, ideal little tract house, one beside the next. And that’s the light that breaks hearts in L.A. Don Waldie, quoted in Lawrence Weschler, “L.A. Glows,” The New Yorker (23 February & 3 March 1998): 96–97.

residential recreational commercial industrial

map sources: San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District (www.sbvmwd.com) Southern California Association of Governments (www.scag.ca.gov) Michael W. Donley, Atlas of California (Culver City, Ca.: Pacific Book Center, 1979)

urbanized land developable land slope greater than 15% public lands parks farmlands biologically sensitive areas wetlands

Rick had been searching for the Pillingsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; address for over twenty minutes, and the hungrier he became, the harder it was to concentrate on the dimly lit street signs, the six-digit numbers stenciled on curbs. Westgate Village was a planned community an hour away from the downtown loft where Rick lived, its street names a variation on the same bucolic phrase: Valley Vista Circle, Village Road, Valley View Court. Each one-story ranch house looked nearly the same except for the color of its garage door, and Rick, whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d skipped lunch, began to wonder if the entire suburb was a hunger-induced hallucination. Bernard Cooper, Guess Again (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), 93.

K. Lubas

MAN-MADE HABITAT

116

Parks & Public Lands

photos: J. Fleischmann

Angeles National Forest

San Bernardino National Forest Santa Monica Mountains National Recreational Area

city parkland

Chino Hills State Park

public land

Cleveland National Forest

Acreage of urban parkland in Los Angeles 13,100 acres, or 21 square miles, or 570,600,000 square feet, or 44 square feet per person

Acreage of state and national forest land in direct vicinity of Los Angeles 2,040,780 acres, or 3,189 square miles, or 88,900,000,000 square feet, or 6,800 square feet per person source: National Park Service

When it comes to parkland, Los Angeles is like a man who squandered an inherited fortune and must now scrounge for coins to maintain a semblance of respectability. The greed that drove the city’s development devoured so much of an uncommonly beautiful landscape that the city today has less than one-fourth the national average of four acres of parkland per 1,000 residents. It is dead last among major cities. James Ricci, “Metropolis: All We Need Is a Little Space to Breathe,” Los Angeles Times Magazine, Magazine 1 April 2001, 5.

M. Lipson

MAN-MADE HABITAT

118

K. MÃ¼ller

Resources & Consumption

Amid the tumult of California’s electricity ordeal, an important fact often is lost: Energy is far from the worst of the state’s long-term infrastructure problems. Policy experts from all over the political spectrum agree that there are greater threats to California’s economy and quality of life over the next 20 years. Strained water supplies, overcrowded airports, jammed freeways, poor schools and costly housing could prove much more complicated to tackle than keeping the lights on. The challenge will be enormous considering that, by an important federal measure, the state ranks last nationally in infrastructure spending per capita. Though California may be able to import electricity from other states or countries to ease its power squeeze, it can’t send its kids to classrooms in Oregon or divert flights to Arizona airports.…How did California, home of concrete-pouring visionaries such as William Mulholland and Pat Brown, become the poster child for infrastructure neglect? Observers point to a variety of nuts-and-bolts factors, starting with the way projects are funded. With the exception of gasoline taxes for highways, there is no dedicated revenue stream for infrastructure flowing into state coffers. The anti-tax revolution sparked by Proposition 13 in 1978 still makes bond issues problematic. Some say term limits haven’t helped matters, encouraging legislators to think short-term. What’s more, public officials sometimes simply guessed wrong about the future. Gov. Gray Davis’ own infrastructure committee—the Commission on Building for the 21st Century—neglected to single out electricity as a major trouble spot when it began meeting in 1999.

K. Hirt

But the biggest change in the last quarter-century, historians and policymakers say, is the entire zeitgeist surrounding California’s spectacular growth. After pouring vast sums into public works well into the 1970s—starting with Mulholland’s aqueducts and then Gov. Brown’s freeways—Californians saw their state being overrun and became ambivalent about the path it was on. Officials scaled back spending on huge new projects. Postwar optimism that spending on world-class universities and highways would benefit the economy and society gave way to concerns about the population explosion that accompanied it. Now, amid ever-present worries about overcrowding, some see little to gain by promoting costly improvements that will only bring more development…. But as a strategy to put the brakes on growth, scaling back on infrastructure has been a bust. Investment in infrastructure, as a percentage of state spending, has shrunk from nearly 20% in the late 1960s to around 3%. By one estimate, the state’s highway capacity grew by only 7% between 1978 and 1998, yet the state’s population jumped more than 40% during the same period. Translation: a lower quality of life…. Apart from the coming population pressures, maintaining existing infrastructure is proving to be an enormous challenge. Spending of inflation-adjusted dollars to operate state facilities has climbed from $100 per capita in 1930 to around $550 by 1996, according to analysis by the Public Policy Institute…. The Texas Transportation Institute estimates that traffic jams cost L.A. drivers more than $12.4 billion annually in wasted time, fuel and other costs. That’s nearly $1,400 for every person of driving age. The region’s airports, whose cargo handling is crucial to the economy, face a crunch of their own. Barring expansions, Southern California’s commercial air hubs could be pushed beyond their capacity sometime between 2010 and 2015, based on current projections for growth in passenger and cargo traffic. If you combined the seven major commercial airports in the Los Angeles and San Diego areas, they would cover just over 8,000 acres—one-quarter the expanse of Denver International Airport. What’s more, Southern California’s historic bugaboo, the water supply, is dwindling. Estimates show that if rainfall follows its normal pattern over the next two decades, the reserves of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California— a cooperative supplying 26 water districts in the region—will sink from 35% of current demand now to a perilous 5%. Marla Dickerson and Stuart Silverstein, “New Crises Loom in State’s Aging Infrastructure,” Los Angeles Times, Times 18 February 2001, A1, A26.

J. Rocholl

Rate of water consumption B. Kalpin

2,584,300 acre-feet per year, or 1,800,000,000 gallons a day, or 11,432 Olympic-sized swimming pools a day

Sources for consumption MAN-MADE HABITAT

120

Governor Edmund G. Brown California Aqueduct 444 miles long Colorado River Aqueduct 242 miles long Los Angeles Aqueduct 226 miles long Second Los Angeles Aqueduct 137 miles long

Water

California Aqueduct

Silverwood Lake

ive r

ngele s R

3 1 Lake Mathews

i ve r

aqueduct

Lake Perris

na R

Colorado River Aqueduct

ta A

watershed boundaries rivers/creeks

S an

S. Smith

filtration plant location

Los A

groundwater basin/sub-basin

Lake Elsinore

lakes

4 Skinner Reservoir

Groundwater basins and filtration plants 1. Diemer Plant 2. Jensen Plant 3. Mills Plant 4. Skinner Plant 5. Weymouth Plant

sources: Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (www.mwd.dst.ca.us.com) San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District (www.sbvmwd.com) Municipal Water District of Orange County (www.mwdoc.com) Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (www.ladwp.com)

Of all of these commodities, none is so precious and valuable as water. Like most of the American West, Southern California is a desert. Not a true desert, climatologically speaking, but a semi-arid region that suffers from an annual six-month summer drought and volatile winter rainfall. In a wet year, the region might see twenty to twentyfive inches of rain; in a dry year only six or seven. On average, Los Angeles gets about fifteen inches of rain per year. That’s a quarter of Miami’s rainfall, a third of New York’s, and less than half of Chicago’s. Despite an extensive system of natural underground water basins, it cannot support a fast-growing metropolitan area of fifteen million people or more. William Fulton, The Reluctant Metropolis: The Politics of Urban Growth in Los Angeles (Point Area, Ca.: Solano Press Books, 1997), 104.

S. Smith

MAN-MADE HABITAT

122

Energy

J. Rocholl

Energy Los Angeles consumes per year 3% of total U.S. consumption, or 8% of total world consumption, or 100% of total consumption of Michigan, or the power of 8,221,000 tons of TNT

Energy consumption by sector per year Residential Commercial Industrial Transportation

18% 16% 30% 36%

Energy sources consumed per year Coal Natural Gas

1,067 thousand short tons 974 billion cubic feet

Petroleum 299,011 thousand barrels or

Electricity Biomass Other Total

10,315,238,115 kWh or

or 25 trillion Btu or 991 trillion Btu or the reserves of Hungary or 1/2 the reserves of New Zealand 1,641 trillion Btu or the reserves of Thailand or 3 times the reserves of The Netherlands 352 trillion Btu or 171,920,635 60-watt light bulbs 87 trillion Btu 164 trillion Btu 3,260 trillion Btu per year

sources: Energy Information Administration (www.eia.doe.gov) California Energy Commission (www.energy.ca.gov) The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2001 (New York, World Almanac Education Group, Inc., 2001)

K. Hirt

Even though government and the business community are beginning to recognize the impressive technological advances made in renewable energy as well as its bright (long-term) financial prospects, the technologies remain vastly underutilized, and their installed capacity is growing far too slowly to substantially reduce global warming. John Berger, Charging Ahead: The Business of Renewable Energy and What It Means for America (Berkeley; University of California Press, 1998).

Watts and what they can power 1 watt 100 watts 1,000 watts 100,000 watts 1,000,000 watts 100,000,000 watts 1,000,000,000 watts 10,000,000,000 watts

1 Christmas-tree light 1 standard lightbulb, 1 computer without printer, or 5 plug-in vibrators 2 refrigerators, or 100 electric toothbrushes 25 homes with air conditioner at peak demand, or 1 McDonaldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s restaurant 1 ten-story office building, or 1/6 of the National Gallery of Art 10 server farms of 100,000 to 200,000 square-feet each 100 factories, or 1 Seattle 35 Nicaraguas, or 1 Los Angeles source: Wired Magazine (July 2001): 125

MAN-MADE HABITAT

124

Energy

C. Chung

Power plants that feed Los Angeles 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

Big Creek Hydroelectric System Castaic Power Plant Oregon Columbia River Power System, Oregon Harbor Station Haynes Generating Station 3 Hoover Dam, Nevada Intermountain Power Project, Utah Mohave Generating Station, Nevada Navajo Generating Station, Arizona Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, Arizona San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) Scattergood Station Valley Station

7 Nevada

Utah California

6 9

8 13

12 5

Arizona

A. Scott

Los Angeles consumes Dairy per year 310,488,200 gallons of milk 167,689,829 pounds of butter 407,433,884 pounds of cheese 326,209,123 pounds of ice cream 113,321,643 pounds of cream 3,157,285,088 eggs

per day 13,610,958 glasses of milk 1,837,808 sticks of butter 8,930,000 grilled-cheese sandwiches 223,450 scoops of ice cream 709,714 cans of whipped cream 8,650,096 eggs

Fruits and vegetables per year 1,745,022,297 pounds of fresh fruit 2,115,774,032 pounds of processed fruit 2,431,502,540 pounds of vegetables 5,925,477,366 pounds of processed vegetables

MAN-MADE HABITAT

per day 7,649,315 fresh-fruit salads 6,182,648 cans of fruit salad 10,657,534 garden salads 17,315,068 cans of vegetables

Meat per year 1,514,448,780 pounds of red meat 896,092,531 pounds of poultry 193,891,366 pounds of seafood

126

per day 22,798 cows 818,349 chickens 4,249,500 fish sticks

Other per year 390,402,886 pounds of salad/cooking oil 335,379,660 pounds of baking/frying fats 1,961,184,969 pounds of wheat flour 302,627,740 pounds of corn product 255,464,976 pounds of rice 2,018,828,348 pounds of sugar

per day 2,139,178 cups of oil 114,849 gallons of fat 229,253,333 flour tortillas or 3,583,333 loaves of bread 414,558 ears of corn or 9,954,000 corn tortillas 11,200,000 rice bowls 531,000,000 sugar cubes

sources: Agriculture Fact Book 2000 (www.usda.gov) 1997 Economic Census (revised 15 May 2000), U.S. Census (www.census.gov)

T. Morrison

photos: S. Zukowski

Food

photos: J. Kung

Tons of waste generated in 2000

MAN-MADE HABITAT

128

Paper Glass Metal Plastic Food Other organic materials Construction Hazardous waste Other Total

household 1,546,471 227,376 260,665 430,269 1,125,005 1,410,044 252,311 18,211 295,301 5,565,653

commercial 2,602,670 213,861 512,708 702,753 1,320,496 967,637 663,280 79,466 463,728 7,526,599

Grand total of 13,092,252 tons 12,509,294 tons buried in landfills 582,958 tons burned and transformed into energy $21,002,715 in waste-management fees

source: Solid Waste Characterization Database, California Integrated Waste Management Board (www.ciwmb.ca.gov/wastechar)

photos: K. MĂźller

Waste

During a recent two-day cleanup of the river sponsored by a local environmental group, two volunteers pulled a Jacuzzi from its channel in the Glendale Narrows. Other exotic items removed from the river included a VCR, a camper shell, a telephone, a putter, a moped, a five-foot-tall childâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s basketball goal, a Christmas tree still in its stand, and an American Flag. Blake Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River: Its Life, Death and Possible Rebirth (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1999), 238.

M. Lipson

Global transportation through LAX, 1999 Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) ranks third among the world’s busiest airports. airport Atlanta (ATL) Chicago-O’Hare (ORD) Los Angeles (LAX) London-Heathrow (LHR) Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) Tokyo-Haneda (HND) Frankfurt/Main (FRA) Paris-Charles de Gaulle (CDG) San Francisco (SFO) Denver (DEN)

MAN-MADE HABITAT

132

total passengers domestic passengers international passengers non-U.S. citizens

# of enplaned passengers 78,092,940 72,609,191 67,303,182 62,263,365 60,000,127 54,338,212 45,838,864 43,597,194 40,387,538 38,034,017 average # of people per day 184,392 136,436 47,956 21,761 revenue $1,162,392,000 per year $3.2 million per day

Who flies to LAX? 76.00% 16.00% 2.00% 1.30% 1.12% .60% .60% .30% .30% .30% .30% .20% .20% .10% .09% .10% .09% .06% .02% .01%

Temporary visitors for pleasure Temporary visitors for business Students Temporary workers and trainees Other Exchange visitors Treaty traders and investors Intra-company transferees Spouses/children of transferees Spouses/children of temporary workers Transit aliens Foreign/government officials NAFTA workers Representatives of foreign information Media Spouses/children of exchange visitors Spouses/children of students Fiancés(ées) of U.S. citizens NATO officials International representatives sources: Airports Council International, as cited in the Los Angeles Times, Times 11 February 2001, C6. Los Angeles World Airports (www.lawa.org)

HKG

e int

tio rn a

nal =

4 8 ,0 0 0

people per day FRA CDG LHR

HND

SFO

DEN

LAX

ORD

JFK ATL

DFW MEX

Air Travel

tic

36,0

0 0 p e o ple p er

day

GRU

MEL

SYD

EZE

Where are they flying from?

photos: L. Pesce

46.00% 28.00% 12.00% 6.70% 4.00% 2.00% .60% .53% .09% .09%

Asia Europe Oceania Mexico South America Central America Africa Other Canada Caribbean

M. Lipson

MAN-MADE HABITAT

134

E. Hillard

Air Travel

E. Hillard

Airports in Los Angeles air

MAN-MADE HABITAT

136

por

ay er d 998 p 1 , s t e ligh lum ys way of f r vo # e g r un e nwa n f g u e o r a s r t f pas fee #o ave

1. Los Angeles International Airport 2. John Wayne-Orange County Airport 3. Ontario International Airport 4. Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport 5. Long Beach Airport 6. Santa Monica Municipal Airport 7. Hawthorne Municipal Airport 8. Compton Airport 9. Whiteman Air Park 10. Van Nuys Airport 11. Torrance Municipal Airport 12. Fullerton Municipal Airport 13. Brackett Field 14. Cable Airport 15. Mirofield (Rialto Municipal Airport) 16. Norton Air Force Base 17. Redlands Airport 18. Riverside Municipal Airport 19. Flabob Airport 20. March Air Force Base 21. Corona Municipal Airport 22. El Toro Marine Corps Air Station 23. Tustin Marine Corps Air Station 24. Chino Hills Airport

61,216 7,460 6,435 4,732 647 --------------------

2,133 1,291 429 498 1,375 596 35 164 412 1,520 579 262 672 241 343 -114 274 74 -205 --548 11,765

sources: Southern California Association of Governments (www.scag.ca.gov) www.airnav.com

photos: Z. Crosher

4 2 2 2 5 1 3 2 1 2 2 1 2 1 2 -1 2 1 -1 --3

42,397 8,587 22,398 12,918 30,299 4,987 11,115 7,340 4,120 12,001 8,000 3,121 8,500 3,865 7,150 -4,505 8,252 3,200 -3,200 --18,081

224,036

or 42.4 miles of runway

M. Lipson

9 10

4 16

13 3 6

19 24 1

7 8

Air Travel

18 21

23 2

There is nothing to match flying over Los Angeles by night. A sort of luminous, geometric, incandescent immensity, stretching as far as the eye can see, bursting out from the cracks in the clouds. Only Hieronymous Boschâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hell can match this inferno effect. The muted fluorescence of all the diagonals: Wilshire, Sunset, Santa Monica. Already, flying over San Fernando Valley, you come upon the horizontal infinite in every direction. But, once you are beyond the mountain, a city ten times larger hits you. You will never have encountered anything that stretches as far as this before. Even the sea cannot match it, since it is not divided up geometrically.â&#x20AC;Ś This one condenses by night the entire future geometry of the networks of human relations, gleaming in their abstraction, luminous in their extension, astral in their reproduction to infinity. Norman M. Klein, The History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory (New York: Verso, 1997), 112.

Los Angeles is now among the top 4 destination/departure points by rail in California, and is estimated to be the most popular station for boardings and alightings via high-speed rail.

Current inter-city travel via automobile, plane, and rail 35% 23% 14% 12% 9% 7%

MAN-MADE HABITAT

138

Major cities to the Central Valley L.A. region to San Diego Sacramento to San Francisco Bay Area L.A. region to San Francisco Bay Area Within the Central Valley Other Total number of trips: 154 million per year

Projected travel transferred to high-speed rail 61% 71% 7% 14%

of travel normally made by air of travel normally made by conventional rail of travel normally made by car of all travel

Projected high-speed rail travel in 2020 35% 16% 17% 11% 7% 5% 2% 7%

L.A. region to San Francisco Bay Area L.A. region or San Francisco Bay Area to Central Valley L.A. region to San Diego L.A. region to Sacramento San Diego to San Francisco Bay Area Sacramento to San Francisco Bay Area Within the Central Valley Other Total number of trips: 215 million per year Total number of passengers: 32.1 million per year Revenue: $889 million per year

High-speed rail statistics Average length of train: 10 cars accomodating 650 passengers, running every 15 minutes during peak periods Maximum speed: 100â&#x20AC;&#x201C;150 miles per hour 50-foot wide right-of way versus the 225-foot right-of-way necessary for a 12-lane freeway source: California High Speed Rail Authority (www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov)

Rail stations

47 27 39

2 20

31 24

16 15

32 36

17 8

ride ain e tr nut i 0-m 15

46 25

37 9

existing rail & stations

23 22

18 35 41

future rail & stations

rid

Rail Travel

1. Bakersfield 2. Concord 3. Dana Point 4. Encinitas 5. Escondido 6. Fresno 7. Gilroy 8. Hanford 9. Lancaster 10. Lompoc 11. Long Beach 12. Los Angeles 13. Los Banos 14. Madera 15. Merced 16. Modesto 17. Monterey 18. Moorpark 19. Napa 20. Oakland 21. Oceanside 22. Oxnard 23. Palmdale 24. Palo Alto 25. Porterville 26. Riverside 27. Sacramento 28. Salinas 29. San Bernardino 30. San Diego 31. San Francisco 32. San Jose 33. San Luis Obispo 34. Santa Barbara 35. Santa Clarita 36. Santa Cruz 37. Santa Maria e d i r n i a e tr m in u t 38. Santa Monica 39. Santa Rosa 40. Stockton 0 0 2 41. Thousand Oaks 42. Tulare 43. Tustin 44. Vacaville 45. Vallejo 46. Visalia 47. Woodland

3 21 4

There is probably no more peculiar feeling in all of Southern California than riding on a train. Traveling along the backsides of industrial buildings in Northridge, or slipping underneath downtownâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Wilshire Boulevard, or passing the county courthouse in troubled Compton, the feeling a rail rider gets is not fear or frustration, relief or relaxation, but sheer irrelevance. William Fulton, The Reluctant Metropolis: The Politics of Urban Growth in Los Angeles (Point Arena, Ca.: Solano Press Books, 1997), 125.

t inu -m

in ra

photos except as noted: B. Kalpin

Metrolink Metrolink is claimed to be the fastest growing commuter rail system in the nation. Service began in 1992, implemented by the Southern California Regional Rail Authority. Established for the Southern California region, Metrolink services the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Ventura. Its annual operating budget is $80 million, and 51.6% of its operating costs are covered by operation revenues. In its five years of operation, Metrolink has grown from 11 stations to 49 and from 24 weekday trains to 106. Daily ridership has grown from 2,400 to over 31,000. It maintains 416 route miles and has a total of 399 network grade crossings. The â&#x20AC;&#x153;Saturday Explorerâ&#x20AC;? serves recreational interests. 65% of Metrolink riders formerly drove alone, removing 22,048 auto trips a day. The average commute trip length is 36 miles, and 35% of riders make downtown Los Angeles their destination.

About Metrolink (as of 14 June 2001) MAN-MADE HABITAT

140

M. Perkins

22,048 8.5 36.7 miles 32,404 65.4 1/3 mile 35 44 mph 128 416 49 6

Number of auto trips removed per day Percent of freeway traffic removed on parallel freeways each peak hour Average commute trip length Average daily riders Percent of riders who formerly drove alone Average distance for a Metrolink train to stop Percent of riders that make downtown Los Angeles their destination Average system speed (with stops) Average trains operated per day Route miles Stations in service Number of routes source: Metrolink (www.metrolinktrains.com)

proposed high-speed rail and stations Metrolink commuter rail lines and stations metro rail transit lines and stations

Rail Travel

Beyond the arguments of efficiency, however valid, lies a larger question of civic identity. Public works of the magnitude of the MTA subway system cannot be judged in snapshots of time, including snapshots of temporary confusion. Is the vision of the generation that brought the subway project into being as a matter of legislation and finance…so totally misguided that its investment must now be abandoned? Are the anti-subway forces so confident in 1997 that they can see the effects of the subway (or the absence of the subway) in 2007, 2017, 2067 and the rest of the century to come? And what will the surviving fragment of the subway, already in operation, come to mean in that distant time, if the subway project is abandoned? Will it mean that a generation wised-up and corrected its mistakes? Or will it mean that a generation lost faith in itself, lost faith in the unforeseen gifts and legacies of great public works across time, lost faith in the City of Angels and stopped its future? Kevin Starr, “What MTA Debate Is Really About,” Los Angeles Times, Times 7 September 1997, M-6.

photos: E. Hillard

MAN-MADE HABITAT

144

There is no architectural element with which Los Angeles County is more closely identified than the 527-plus miles of curves, loops, and straightaways that make up the freeway system. Manhattan has its skyline, D.C. its monuments, Venice its canals: We’ve got the four-level interchange. Stealing water from the Owens Valley made metropolitan life in Southern California possible, but the Transportation Engineering Board’s Parkway Plan of 1939 shaped it. Los Angeles built the first freeway in the nation, the six-pointfive mile Arroyo Seco Parkway (later renamed the Pasadena), which opened in 1940. But unlike the Parisians, who adore their Eiffel Tower, or San Franciscans, who view the Golden Gate with affection, most Angelenos seem to hate their freeways with an unbridled passion. Celeste Fremon, “Freeway,” Los Angeles Magazine (December 2000): 160.

195

89 US

395

299

Highway destinations

1. Bakersfield 2. Concord 3. Dana Point 4. Encinitas 5. Escondido 6. Fresno 7. Gilroy 8. Hanford 9. Lancaster 10. Lompoc 11. Long Beach 12. Los Angeles 13. Los Banos 14. Madera 15. Merced 16. Modesto 17. Monterey 18. Moorpark 19. Napa 20. Oakland 21. Oceanside 22. Oxnard 23. Palmdale 24. Palo Alto 25. Porterville 26. Riverside 27. Sacramento 28. Salinas 29. San Bernardino 30. San Diego 31. San Francisco 32. San Jose 33. San Luis Obispo 34. Santa Barbara 35. Santa Clarita 36. Santa Cruz 37. Santa Maria 38. Santa Monica 39. Santa Rosa 40. Stockton 41. Thousand Oaks 42. Tulare 395 43. Tustin 44. Vacaville 45. Vallejo 46. Visalia 47. Woodland

interstate california

99 89 20 US

101 interstate california

47 27

19 45

2 20

120

interstate california

580

interstate california

280

680

24 32

Road Travel

15 14

17 1

8 198

101

2-hour 3-hour 4-hour 5-hour 6-hour-plus

190 US

395

highway drive zone from Los Angeles

4246

127 33 interstate california

interstate california

9 23

10 34 22

18 41 1

12 11

29 26 60

interstate california

405

interstate california

111

3 21 4

78 interstate california

30 188

Condition of urban highways S. Smith

e ir mil epa way of r h d g ar) i ee of c er h nn i p e f s i g l y ( n ndi hwa car spe hig per r n i y a t a a i p c rb re n re na t to of u rba ge lita cos a u o t e l p n g ua ra tro ce me ann ave per

Chicago Detroit Philadelphia New York Washington, D.C. San Francisco Boston Los Angeles Dallas

MAN-MADE HABITAT

44% 38% 35% 26% 22% 14% 13% 13% 4%

$ 37,560 26,088 45,090 28,227 65,488 88,178 83,658 65,104 38,309

$1,284 1,416 1,109 980 1,071 837 991 1,325 722

source: Southern California Association of Governments (www.scag.ca.gov)

146

I know it’s fashionable to speak of freeways as instruments of cultural isolation. It’s true, if one drives from Sherman Oaks to Pomona, one can breeze right by the housing projects of East L.A. and never acknowledge their existence. Moreover, freeways were the tool with which the ‘50s middle-class fantasy of suburbia was made manifest by land barons from the Westside, Palos Verdes, and the Valley out to build their fortunes. Without freeways, white flight would have proved inconvenient. On the other hand, as a result of freeway construction, the area of land within a 30-minute drive from L.A.’s civic center leapt from 261 square miles in 1953 to 705 square miles by 1962, a widening of purview that applied equally to anybody with a vehicle and some gas money. Celeste Fremon, “Freeway,” Los Angeles Magazine (December 2000): 160, 242.

K. Müller

5 210 118

170 US

Projected baseline freeway speeds, 2025

2 134

101

605

405

710

10 110

105

less than 20 mph

20 to 35 mph more than 35 mph

map source: Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority,

Road Travel

(www.mta.net)

There are…floating bottlenecks—freeway incidents—that haunt engineers’ thoughts. They are erratic and arrive without notice, and they account for one-half of the congestion in Los Angeles. In a city based on imagination, these incidents have no common trope. There are the flat tires and crashes due to speeding, the tickets due to speeding. There are the spills: Fuel-oil spill. Antifreeze spill. Orange spill. Lemon spill. Cattle spill. “We have had cows out there running loose on the freeway,” confirms a Caltrans dispatcher. The traffic backs up. Other animals run loose on the freeway. In the county’s northern precincts, across the 210 and the 118, coyote and deer cross the concrete unsuccessfully. The traffic slows. On July 5, traffic snarls after the county’s domestic animal population, spooked and unhinged by our county’s patriotism, runs onto the freeways and is killed in record numbers. Sometimes animals are deliberately introduced into the freeway network. Lacking rivers and bridges, owners of the city’s unwanted puppy litters leave them by medians in open bags to be killed. On mornings after cockfights, Caltrans work crews are sent out to recover trash bags of lacerated roosters that block lanes. The traffic backs up. Motorists dump trash into the lanes. They leave couches, chairs, refrigerators, stoves on the freeways. In the week after Christmas, Douglas firs sprout in groves across the network, complete with stands. The traffic slows. Other things are thrown away. Around February 14, the number of pedestrians jumping off bridges into the network spikes, jamming traffic. In the days following a well-publicized suicide, fatality crashes rise, copycat suicides using Chevrolet instead of Nembutal. Pedestrians drop bricks, bowling balls, pieces of the coastal range off overpasses. People are dropped into the network. Story told by a Caltrans dispatcher: “I had a friend of the family a long time ago. Someone I kind of grew up with. This was my first year in the district. I don’t know what happened to her, but she threw her kids off the freeway. Off an overpass of the 110. Two children. This is somebody I knew.” Dave Gardetta, “Hard Drive,” Los Angeles Magazine (April 2001): 68.

J. McKnight

Freeways and traffic Who’s on the roads? 36% of the population, or 4,671,279 people, driving solo 7% of the population, or 1,000,113 people, driving carpool

How many cars are in Los Angeles? 10,736,372 registered cars occupying 1,546,037,568 square feet of parking or 1/8 of the area in Los Angeles 6,731,705,244 gallons of gas consumed per year

How many cars are on the freeway during rush hour? 46,000

How many vehicle miles are traveled each day? MAN-MADE HABITAT

148

528,745,000 miles, or 2,937 cars circumnavigating the globe daily Vehicle-miles traveled is growing at a rate of 8% per year. L.A.’s travel-rate index is the highest in the nation at 1.55 during non-congested hours. The travel-rate index during peak-traffic hours is 2.06 (travel-rate index: miles to travel x index rate = travel time in minutes, i.e., during non-congested hours, 20 miles takes 31 minutes to travel)

Annual delay per person in Los Angeles 56 hours versus the national average of 36 hours

Annual fuel waste in Los Angeles 84 gallons per person or 901,855,248 gallons for entire agglomeration

Annual congestion cost in Los Angeles $1,000 per person or $10,736,372,000 for entire agglomeration

Most congested areas in the United States 1. Los Angeles 2. San Francisco-Oakland 3. Seattle-Everett 4. Washington, D.C. 5. Chicago-Northwestern Indiana source: Texas Transportation Institute 2001 Urban Mobility Report (mobility.tamu.edu)

Like a lot of people in LA, he was secretly fond of this solitary commute. He had no car phone, and in the slow traffic, he’d turn up the air-conditioning and feel insulated behind his shades, deliciously impossible to reach, disconnected from all of it for the moment and safe. He’d crank the tape player and sing, sealed in among other cars containing other drivers, some of them singing as well. A tide had flooded in, it felt like, covering the connections and leaving him on his own tiny, sunny island. Jim Paul, Medieval in LA: A Fiction (Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, 1996), 163.

illustrations: C. Chung

If 2,937 cars simultaneously drove once around the earth, they would drive as many miles traveled every day in Los Angeles. If those cars were Ford Excursion sports-utility vehicles, this caravan would consume 11.8 million gallons of gasoline at a cost of $20,009,000 a day. If those cars were economical Honda Civic hatchbacks, this caravan would consume 3.2 million gallons of gasoline at a cost of $5,407,840. If those cars were the environmentally sensitive Honda Insight, this caravan would consume 1.7 million gallons of gasoline at a cost of $2,858,430.

source: California Department of Motor Vehicles (www.dmv.ca.gov)

Road Travel

J. Rocholl

Parking is definitely a “thing.” Finding the right spot for your car at the right time. How do we do it? Where do we do it? Who can do without it? In this County of Los Angeles, population nine mil plus, there are four million cars and approximately 40,000 parking meters, 150,000 “No Parking” signs, 41,000 “No Stopping” signs and 40,000 time limit signs. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that there’s a shortage of parking and that this is no coincidence. The cities scattered through the County of Los Angeles handed out, at a rate of 45 tickets per officer per day, seven million parking tickets. At $28 a pop that’s $196 million dollars from the pockets of all of us. How do we deal with this highway robbery? How do we leave our houses and apartments everyday knowing there is little chance of finding a free parking place, let alone one to pay for? John D’Amico, “Doris Day Parking: Finding Your Personal Space In L.A.’s Asphalt Jungle,” Mondo L.A. (February 1994): 8.

s ard rds and t nda s a t s ity lity ual qua ir-q a r i l a te a der sta g fe ng n i i d e ed xce xce ys e ys e a a d d f f #o #o

Smog

MAN-MADE HABITAT

150

year 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999

210 222 191 190 207 206 217 196 216 211 184 183 191 185 165 154 151 141 114 118

167 180 149 152 173 158 164 160 178 157 130 130 143 124 118 98 90 68 62 41

pollutants Ozone Particulate Matter (PM10) Carbon Monoxide Nitrogen Dioxide

tons per day 2,300 357 5,826 1,208

toxic air contaminants Acetaldehyde Benzene 1,3-Butadiene Carbon tetrachloride Chromium (Hexavalent) Para-Dichlorobenzene Formaldehyde Methylene chloride Perchloroethylene Diesel PM

tons per year 2,749 9,712 1,668 2 865 686 8,116r 4,317 5,781 8,024

J.McKnight

primary source vehicles ple airborne particles from area peo n o li vehicles mil r1 e p vehicles ns atio plic m o th c re) eal xposu h f o e ility ime bab n lifet o r p o sed (ba 8 111 123 ---30 3 -720

sources: South Coast Air Quality Management District (www.aqmd.gov) California Air Resources Board, The 2001 California Almanac of Emissions and Air Quality (www.arb.ca.gov)

B. Moss

# of days state carbon-monoxide standard was exceeded (micrograms/cubic meter), 1999 0–10 11–20 21–30 31–40 41–50 51+ direction of ozone-concentration flows monitoring site stationary source

map sources: Michael W. Donley, Atlas of California (Culver City, Ca.: Pacific Book Center, 1979) 1993 Congestion Management Program: Countrywide Deficiency Plan Background Study, Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority South Coast Air Quality Management District (www.aqmd.gov)

Air Quality

Robert Irwin, one of the presiding masters of L.A.’s Light and Space artistic movement of the late sixties and early seventies, and a native Angeleno, concurred that there’s something extraordinary about the light of L.A., though he said that it was sometimes hard to characterize it exactly. “One of its most common features, however,” he suggested, “is the haze that fractures the light, scattering it in such a way that on many days the world almost has no shadows.” Lawrence Weschler, “L.A. Glows,” The New Yorker (February 23 and March 3, 1998), 90.

A. Freitag

MAN-MADE HABITAT

152

Air Quality

photos 154-159: J. Kung

PEOPLE

154

PEOPLE

156

PEOPLE

158

Ethnicity

Spirituality

Immigration & Migration

Death

Age

Language

Education

Civic Identity

100 People of Los Angeles

Body Beautiful

Homeless

PEOPLE

160 Notice, further, how some people in L.A. talk a great talk when it comes to cultural diversityâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;but have secret limits? They will donate money to refugees in China, yes, insist on fresh coffee from Kenya, profess delight in the miserable Bolivians who clutch tiny pockmarked instruments on our outdoor Promenades. Butâ&#x20AC;Świll they shower with them? Sandra Tsing Loh, A Year in Van Nuys (New York: Crown Publishers, 2001), 51.

In another sense, though, Mexico has redeemed L.A. to me. I’ve discovered a buried city there—a Latino L.A., warm and celebratory, where Spanish traces an invisible heart line deeper than place. In the course of my days I may encounter a man or woman hailing from Guanajuato or Jalisco or Oaxaca, and matters of truth and fullness of heart may pass between us, and much laughter: riches invisible to most of my other friends. I can trace Los Lobos riffs back to norteño bands that come through our part of Mexico: Los Tigres del Norte, Los Bukis. California street names and foods reveal their origins. Suddenly the century-old Anglo patina looks flimsy, conditional. Tony Cohan, On Mexican Time: A New Life in San Miguel (New York: Broadway Books, 2000), 116–17.

T. Morrison

According to the U.S. Census 2000, this photo is representative of Los Angeles.

PEOPLE

162

100 People of Los Angeles

1. Andrea Dunlop 2. Jennifer Dunlop 3. Tensho Takemori 4. Amy Owen 5. Todd Spiegel 6. Elijah Spiegel 7. Holly Spiegel 8. Ilana Spiegel 9. Ronald Hill 10. Gregory Valtierra 11. Koreen Valtierra 12. P. Max Hanson 13. Caroline Hanson 14. Rachel Penington Day 15. Natalie Lucia Valtierra Day 16. Monica Valtierra Day 17. Maria Arroyo Wauer 18. Dolores Villanueva 19. Maria Godoy 20. Jeffrey Wauer 21. Cooper Mayne 22. Blythe Alison-Mayne 23. Haden R. Guest 24. Maria Guest 25. Bob Day 26. Patrick M. Hanson 27. Vicki V. Hanson 28. Mark Valtierra 29. Grace E. Hodges 30. William Bryan Hodges 31. Denise Disney Hodges 32. Oliver Doublet 33. Karen Wolfe 34. Miles Wolfe 35. David Wolfe 36. Shaun Kozolchyk-Plotkin 37. Stephen Slaughter 38. Martha Deplazoala 39. Carolyn CastaĂąo 40. Ann Kneedler 41. David Fletcher 42. Cooper Gerrard 43. Angelica Lopez 44. Myra Gerrard 45. Donny Gerrard 46. Suzanne M. Lopez 47. Rachael Petru 48. Nancy Lambert Mullio 49. Perri Chasin 50. Ann Mullio 51. Darryl Hooks 52. David Plotkin 53. Ray Mullio

56 54

164

12 11

7% 8 8 7 8 15 16 13 4 3 6 4 1

race Caucasian Hispanic African American Asian Asian Indian Chinese Filipino Japanese Korean Vietnamese Other Native American Pacific Islander Multi-racial Other

age under 5 5 to 9 10 to 14 15 to 19 20 to 24 25 to 34 35 to 44 45 to 54 55 to 59 60 to 64 65 to 74 75 to 84 85 and over

41% 30 7 10 1 3 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 7 3

sources: U.S. Census 2000 (www.census.gov) Los Angeles Almanac (www.losangelesalmanac.com)

sex Male Female

49% 51%

PEOPLE

40 1

57 53

54. Cara Mullio 55. Adam Wheeler 56. Bill Mohline 57. Laurence Brockman Tighe 58. Shannah Field 59. Devin McIntire 60. Jennifer Doublet 61. Piper Olf 62. Jason Kerwin 63. Dwoyne Matthew Cortez Keith 64. Chiaki Kanda 65. Yumna Siddiqi 66. Janet Keith 67. Fredy Ernesto Gomez 68. Ana Mercedes Sagastume 69. John “Wade“ Keith III 70. Maria Mercedes Gomez 71. Joao Santomauro 72. Mateus Santomauro 73. Joana Santomauro 74. Daniela Getlinger 75. Hazel Beatriz Gomez 76. Mauricio Antonio Gomez 77. Christopher Hepburn 78. Heather Heimann 79. Justus Hepburn 80. Hilary Rhode 81. Eliza Hepburn 82. Tiffany Heimann 83. Desirée Trinidad 84. Ji Youn Yi 85. Yoon Kyoun Yi 86. Eui-Sung Yi 87. Garth Trinidad 88. Jeff Howell 89. Sara Yoshitomi 90. Stephen Brockman 91. Paul Yoshitomi 92. Masahiro Kusumoto 93. David Pakshong 94. Victoria Pakshong 95. Mark Weintraub 96. Nathaniel Joseph Brockman Vail 97. Jasper Pakshong 98. Evan Pakshong 99. James Wauer 100. Reanna Wauer

99 98

81 88 69

77 76

82 87

71 74

24 20

17 18

100 People of Los Angeles

photos 165-167: S. Latty

93 83

90 96

100

PEOPLE

166

these 100 people do the following for fun music art dance rollerblade swim hike snowboard party entertain run read fish camp bike play eat computer games basketball ski long drives church activities travel scooter garden movies t.v. theater visit friends shop sleep nursing work out boogie board go to the beach walk festivals relax organize sing jog cook surf make magnets architecture golf hockey motorcycle sew bake softball tennis remodel house skateboard draw museums volunteer for children opera make love watch soap operas watch football, soccer & basketball download music off the net cards stay up late

when they think of L.A., they think riot! cars freeways palm trees beach sprawl cost air home sweet home diversity of people, sights, sounds, activities cultural diversity economic trendsetter for the world entertainment capital major technology center sunshine smog Lakers healthy lifestyle melting pot Hollywood Disneyland anything is possible/opportunity movies progressiveness fresh air by the beach flavor racism congestion festivals traffic nice cars money anonymity family comfort image consciousness eclecticism celebrities sea city on the verge of greatness and then it can just piss you off Disney Concert Hall history weather art pollution fun best home in the world missed opportunities color/visual aesthetics horrible drivers in the rain heat Mexican culture

LAX fabulous talk radio I love L.A. great weather desert political problems Hollywood Hills driving plastic (surgery, credit cards, personalities) museums dynamism beautiful with surrounding mountains good colleges,churches, institutions vast boulevards convertibles swimming pools Rodeo Drive the Beach Boys the Doors Sunset Blvd. Hollywood Blvd. Melrose Ave. Venice Blvd. Marina Del Rey farmersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; markets The Getty gangster rap how big the city is land of opportunity races united in one region ---------------

100 People of Los Angeles

these 100 people do the following for a living student security senior manager owner post-production facility homemaker producer/writer optometrist infant/child realtor office manager chef toy tester festival evaluator sales architect Jewish Community Service Development political mobilizer (grassroots) pro golfer graduate student museum director landscape designer teacher landscape architect museum curator media management design environmental graphic designer musician/singer administrative assistant academic software developer psychotherapist author sales manager product manager sound mixer executive assistant artist loss-control manager business consultant dietitian television producer art and music independent contractor construction cook

G. Borjorquez

PEOPLE

168

photos: S. Latty

The bungalows were filled with kids (music-video production companies) but the rent was cheap. The girls had tattoos and rings through their tummies—through their friggin eyebrows eyebrows—and Jabba said you-know-where else. Maybe he should get one, Bernie thought, right through the nose, like a fuhcocktuh bull. Bruce Wagner, I’m Losing You (New York: Villard Books, 1996), 158.

G. Borjorquez

Body Beautiful

It seems that the only people on TV who donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t dye their hair these days are recently released captives. Of course, hostages are supposed to look tormented, but everyone else on TV from senators seems unable to stop at anything. This mentality, alas, is really bad in L.A., where the light is so pitiless. If you want to see all this striving against the ravages of being human in state-of-theart proportions, go to the Rodeo Gardens on any Saturday afternoon; it is there that body lifts, skin peels, fat suctioning, teeth bonds, and collagen flourish in the gracious noonday shade. It would almost look corrupt, except to be corrupt you have to have once not been, and nobody in this place was ever that. Eve Babitz, Black Swans (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1993), 17.

photos: M. Lipson

PEOPLE

170

photos: S. Latty

Ethnicity in Los Angeles, 2000 Caucasian Hispanic African American Asian Native American Pacific Islander Multi-racial Other

41.4% 29.9 7.1 10.3 0.8 0.2 7.6 2.7

5,423,718 3,917,130 930,155 1,349,379 104,806 26,202 995,658 353,720

Growth-rate projections Caucasian Hispanic African American Asian Native American

2000 - 6% 14% .4% 15% -2%

2005 - 3% 13% 3% 15% 1%

2015 4% 25% 14% 27% 13%

source: U.S. Census Bureau (www.census.gov)

PEOPLE

172 photos: T. Morrison

2025 5% 23% 14% 23% 13%

J. Rocholl

Ethnicity

White population densities Russian, Encino English, Pasedena

Russian, West Hollywood English, Palos Verdes

English, Long Beach

English, Newport Beach

Asian population densities Indonesian, Beverly Hills Thai, North Hollywood Indonesian, Encino Hills

China Town Little Tokyo Chinese, Monteray Park

Asian Indian, Granada Hills

Indonesian Asian Indian, Diamond Bar

Indonesian, Encino Hills

Korea Town

PEOPLE

174

photos: S. Latty

Indonesian, El Segundo Filipino, La Habra Heights

Hawaiian Japanese, Gardena

Korean, Fullerton

Korean Filipino Guamanian Samoan, Carson

Loatian, Anaheim

Asian Indian, Cerritos

Asian Indian, Anaheim Hills Cambodian, Long Beach

Vietnamese, Bolsa

Black population densities Jamaican Nigerian, Inglewood

Ethnicity

Hispanic population densities Belizean, Western Ave., Los Angeles Mexican, East Los Angeles

Mexican, Santa Ana

Mexican, Long Beach

sources: Southern California Association of Governments (www.scag.ca.gov) James P. Allen and Eugene Turner, The Ethnic Quilt: Population Diversity in Southern California (Northridge, Ca.: The Center for Geographical Studies, California State University, 1997).

My piece of east was this big: wide and deep enough to fit a mess of hoboes, boxers, nine-to-fivers, nutso church ladies, trigger-happy con men, knock-kneed Catholicschoolers, and a handful of sexy-walking women in a space about twenty-five miles back to front. Up on top is our old street, Fisher, a nice stretch of fixer-uppers decorated with dead lawns and chained-up dogs, and to the west there’s Eastern Ave where the homeless tip back Bird in the shadow of the 710 Freeway. Down south there’s the number streets where the super-low-renters squeeze five or six into kitchenette studios, and then turning to the east is Divine Drive, the richest block in town, where you’ll find the church ladies who stay busy barking at their maids and polishing their silverplate. Yxta Maya Murray, What It Takes to Get to Vegas (New York: Grove/Atlantic Inc., 1999), 3.

J. Rocholl

S. Moon

A. Scott

PEOPLE

176

J. Rocholl

S. Moon

Ethnicity T. Morrison

T. Morrison

A. Scott

S. Moon

I get in my 1980 Datsun 200 SX and head north on Crenshaw Boulevard to the Santa Monica Freeway. The farther I drive west, the lighter-skinned the people become in the cars alongside of me. By the time I reach the San Diego Freeway, not only have the people gotten more European-looking, but so have the cars. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a different world on the west side. Michael Datcher, Raising Fences: A Black Manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Love Story (New York: Riverhead Books, 2001), 76.

J. Rocholl

From 1990 to 1999, a net international migration of 1,254,303 people into the area accounts for 8% of todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s population.

Immigrants admitted through the portal of Los Angeles, 1998 European 817 Asian 11,902 African 402 Oceanian 552 North American 1,849 Canadian 10 Mexican 14 Caribbean 27 Central American 1,797 South American 359 Total 17,719

Immigrants admitted to the U.S. in 1998 who intend to reside in Los Angeles PEOPLE

178

European Asian African Canadian Mexican Caribbean Central American South American Other Total

2,371 26,631 385 622 31,222 417 8,179 1,804 13,107 71,631

9,513 aliens were deported in 1999 from Los Angeles. deportable aliens located 1992 12,921 1993 10,485 1994 7,229 1995 9,258 1996 9,309 1997 11,476 1998 8,691 1999 9,775

EUROPE 1,160 people ASIA 22,388 people

AFRICA

NORTH AMERICA Los Angeles

Immigration & Migration

Caribbean 892 people Mexico 36,457 people

AUSTRALIA Other 21,764 people

SOUTH AMERICA 432 people

ANTARCTICA

Immigrants naturalized in Los Angeles, 1999 European 2,895 Asian 36,107 Mexican 52,118 Central American 16,284 Caribbean 1,131 Other 27,810 Total 136,345 sources: Statistical Yearbook of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Service U.S. Department of Justice (www.ins.usdoj.gov) Eric Schmitt, “To Fill in Gaps, Shrinking Cities Seek a New Wave of Foreigners,” The New York Times, 30 May 2001.

photos: S. Latty

J. McKnight

Los Angeles now

10.7%: Age 65+

52.1%: Age 25–64 PEOPLE

182

10.5%: Age 18–24

20.6%: Age 5–17

6%: Age 0–4 source: U.S. Census (www.census.gov)

Los Angeles tomorrow

4% 2005 2% 2000

15% 2015

12% 2025

2% 2005 -2% 2000

31% 2025 22% 2015

Age 25–64

Age

Age 65+

Age 18–24

Age 5–17

9% 2025

Age 0–4 10% 2000

4% 2000

12% 2015 14% 2005

23% 2015 7% 2005

-5% 2000

23% 2015

16% 2025 4% 2005

20% 2025

J. McKnight

Languages spoken in Los Angeles

PEOPLE

184

Language

source: www.losangelesalmanac.com

J. Fleischmann

PEOPLE

186

sources: Educational Demographics Office, California Department of Education (www.cde.ca.gov/demographics) U.S. Census (www.census.gov)

Higher education in Los Angeles

University of California California State University private university college

Activities of Angelenos under 18 Education magazines read per month none 1–2 3–5 6–10 more than 10

(%) 13.9% 45.5% 34.7% 5% 5%

books read don’t read books 1–2 per year every few months monthly weekly

(%) 9.9 15.8 29.7 26.7 17.8

hours spent watching television per week less than one hour 1–2 3–5 6–10 11–15 16–20 21–30 more than 30

(%) 9.1 13.3 25.7 27 11.6 7.5 2.5 3.3

movies watched never rarely several times per year every other month once a month twice a month weekly several times a week

(%) .4 4.6 4.6 14.5 22 32.8 19.8 1.7

video games played never couple times per year couple times per month 1–2 hrs. per week 3–5 hrs. per week 6–10 hrs. per week 11–15 hrs. per week more than 20 hrs. per week

(%) 17.6 29.9 26.6 9.6 7 5 2 2.3

source: Los Angeles Times Magazine, 22 April 2001

S. Dimitrov

PEOPLE

188

At present, there is no dearth of significant stories being told about Los Angeles, although none of them is comprehensive enough to constitute an agreed-upon public identity. In building the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, the archdiocese is telling a story about Los Angeles being a profoundly Roman Catholic city. The Museum of Tolerance, meanwhile, suggests the city’s equally deep Jewish roots and consciousness. The completion of Disney Hall atop Bunker Hill points to Los Angeles’ century-old love affair with music, choral music especially, and the performing arts. The retrofitting of City Hall at the cost of tens of millions evokes a Los Angeles still possessed of the coherence of an urban body politic, despite secessionist mutterings all around. The Alameda Corridor and the debate regarding expansion of the Los Angeles International AirportCivic are chapters in a much longer narraIdentity tive, going back to the stagecoach and drayage wagons established by Phineas Banning in the 1860s and the creation of a deep-water port in the early 1900s: a story about Los Angeles as Crossroads City…. What will this new Los Angeles story be? What will it take to bring the citizens of this city once more into the public square as both a physical and symbolic place? Kevin Starr, “A City Desperately Seeking a Civic Identity,” Los Angeles Times, 13 August 2000, M-4. photos: S. Latty

K. Marchionno

PEOPLE

190

photos: S. Latty

What do I remember of those days in 1992? I remember standing on a rooftop along Sunset Boulevard and seeing the southern horizon filled with smoke. Some terrible excitement, some evil thrill, made me shiver at the destruction.… Many people said after those violent days that L.A. had killed itself, slammed open its soul on the street and left it to bleed on the pavement with all the broken glass. I knew people who left town, left L.A. for any place else. I knew people who would never again go downtown without feeling afraid of the stranger. But L.A. did not die. L.A. is too resilient. L.A. is filled with too many babies and teenage fathers and too many grandmothers who hope for the future. Sometimes I think that L.A. saw its future for Civic the first time during those terrible days ofIdentity late April and early May.… It was the worst moment for Los Angeles. It was also the first moment, I think, when most people in L.A. realized that they were part of the whole. The city that the world mocked for not being a city, for lacking a center, having only separate suburbs, separate freeway exits— L.A. realized that it was interconnected. In fear, people realized that what was happening on the other side of town implicated them. Richard Rodriguez, “Letter From 2042, an L.A. Memory,” Los Angeles Times, 27 April 1997, M-5.

J. McKnight

An estimated 261,400 homeless live in Los Angeles. Out of a national homeless population of 700,000, 38% live here.

PEOPLE

192

16% hispanic 17% black 61% white 30% have jobs 55% under age 18 79% under age 50 40% women 67% families with children sources: www.thedesertsun.com San Bernardino County, CA Consolidated Plan for 1995, Executive Summary U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Shelter Partnership (www.shelterpartnership.org) U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (www.hud.gov)

Homeless

Sleep under the freeway freeway.. Antonio had heard this phrase more than once in the weeks leading up to this humiliation, as the money in his wallet slowly disappeared and the prospect of eviction became a certainty. Sleep under the freeway. It was almost a refrain in the neighborhood. José Juan had said it once, just five days ago, when Mr. Hwang slipped the final, final eviction notice under their doorway. “Podemos Podemos dormir debajo del freeway.” It didn’t sound any better in Spanish. freeway. Elvira Gonzales, the elderly Mexican-American widow who lived down the hall, and who was now toward the back of the crowd staring at Antonio with a sad and disapproving motherly frown, had repeated it too. “Well, muchachos, if they throw you out, I guess you’ll have to sleep under the freeway. That’s what everybody else does. I guess it’s warmer there.” Héctor Tobar, The Tattooed Soldier: A Novel (Harrison, New York: Delphinium Books, 1998), 7.

photos: M. Lipson

S. Durant

PEOPLE

194

photos: S. Latty

It is unlawful to tell the future in my city. One of the oldest ordinances in the city code book, adopted when the city incorporated in 1954, lists the illegal practices by which the future may not be foretold. It is illegal to furnish any information “not otherwise obtainable by the ordinary processes of knowledge by means of any occult psychic power, faculty or force, clairvoyance, clairaudience, cartomancy, psychology, psychometry, phrenology, spirits, seership, prophecy, augury, astrology, palmistry, necromancy, mind-reading, telepathy, or by any other craft, art, science, talisman, charm, potion, magnetism, magnetized substance, gypsy cunning or foresight, crystal gazing, or oriental mysteries.” D. J. Waldie, Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir (New York: Buzz Books for St. Martin’s Press, 1997), 158.

J. Fleischmann

Spirituality

Things were so bad at the start of 1993 that a group associated with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi offered to save L.A. through Transcendental Mediation. It would cost the city only $165 million a year for five years. That would finance nine thousand “coherencecreated experts” who would seek deeper levels of consciousness through TM and radiate peace and goodwill into the troubled areas of the county, which is just about everywhere except the gated communities that hire guards and snarling dogs. A press agent for the group explained that it takes a thousand experts per million population to work. Al Martinez, City of Angles: A Drive-by Portrait of Los Angeles (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996), 77.

photos: C. Himmelstein

PEOPLE

196 Death Los Angeles buried the remains of an estimated 4,193 unclaimed and unidentified people in 2000. In Los Angeles, 1,182 deaths were attributed to homicide in 1999. sources: Lisa Leff, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Death Without a Ripple,â&#x20AC;? Los Angeles Times Magazine, Magazine 6 May 2001. U.S. Census (www.census.gov) California Crime Rate, 1999, 1999 CJSC Statitistical Table Site (http://justice.hdcdojnet.state.ca.us/cjsc_stats/prof99/00/11.pdf)

Death

Every year… several hundred men and women lose their identities when they die. Most are lucky enough to regain them within a few days or weeks after investigators from the coroner’s office find the medical records or fingerprints that match the body to the life it led. For others, months may go by before investigators can track down family members or friends and successfully reunite them with their names. Between 85% and 90% of the… John and Jane Does eventually are identified. But in a handful of cases, investigations can stretch on for years, remaining officially open, if not active, long after the dead have been cremated. In the most confounding cases, the ashes will be consigned to an unmarked common grave at the cemetery where Los Angeles buries its poor, its abandoned and its nameless dead. Lisa Leff, “Death Without a Ripple,“ Los Angeles Times Magazine, 6 May 2001, 18.

J. Kung

MONEY

198

M. Lipson

MONEY

200

D. Moser

MONEY

202

Technology/ Financial Services

Business Services/ Government Money/ Health Services

Global Economy/ Top Industries

Tourism

Los Angeles Industry

Pornography

International Trade

Wholesale Trade/ Manufacturing

Motion Picture/ T.V. Production

Employment/ Unemployment

Income/ Household Ranking

Expenditure

Housing

MONEY

204 Not everyone in L.A. is in show biz. In addition to actors,

writers, directors, and others we refer to as being abovethe-line, we are also shoe clerks, air-conditioning repairmen, freeway litter removers, popcorn salesmen, female mud wrestlers, and the creators of logos that appear on T-shirts. This is by way of saying we are a heterogeneous mix in the nation of Los Angeles, and it is my job as a newspaper columnist to write about the melange. Actors are simply a part of the mix, but like blueberries in a muffin, they happen to be more obvious. Al Martinez, City of Angles: A Drive-By Portrait of Los Angeles (New York: St. Martinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Press, 1996), 138.

At a time when most native-born Americans were fleeing the traditional cities, newcomers from abroad flocked to the metropolitan cores, particularly the creative centers of New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, and Chicago. The newcomers have restocked the human capital of such urban centers, even as other towns face a continuing loss of population and economic vitality. This groupâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s penchant for living in the urban center has its basis in cultural as well as economic realities. Joel Kotkin, The New Geography: How the Digital Revolution Is Reshaping the American Landscape (New York: Random House, 2000), 17.

Fortune 500 companies headquartered in Southern California, 2000

E. Hillard

MONEY

206

rank 41 66 100 136 144 171 178 190 201 231 235 239 282 305 317 322 333 353 402 421 429 442 463 477

company revenue ($ millions) Ingram Micro 28,068.6 Walt Disney 23,402.0 Bergen Brunswig 17,244.9 Atlantic Richfield (ARCO) 13,176.0 Fluor 12,417.4 Pacificare Health Systems 9,989.1 Edison International 9,670.0 Northrop Grumman 8,995.0 Foundation Health Systems 8,706.2 Computer Sciences 7,660.0 Occidental Petroleum 7,610.0 Wellpoint Health Networks 7,485.4 Unocal 6,198.0 Mattel 5,515.0 Merisel 5,188.7 Dole Food 5,060.6 Litton Industries 4,827.5 Pacific Life Insurance 4,548.9 Countrywide Credit Industries 3,976.4 Kaufman & Broad Home 3,836.3 Avery Dennison 3,768.2 Fleetwood Enterprises 3,490.2 Amgen 3,340.1 Times Mirror 3,215.8

headquarters Santa Ana Burbank Orange Los Angeles Aliso Viejo Santa Ana Rosemead Los Angeles Woodland Hills El Segundo Los Angeles Thousand Oaks El Segundo El Segundo El Segundo Westlake Village Woodland Hills Newport Beach Calabasas Los Angeles Pasadena Riverside Thousand Oaks Los Angeles

Los Angeles companies in 1999â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Fortune 500 but out of 2000â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 247 Rockwell International 7,151.0 Costa Mesa to Milwaukee 644 Hilton Hotels 4,064.0 Beverly Hills 534 Western Digital 3,541.5 Irvine United States Filter 3,234.6 Purchased by Vivendi source: Fortune Magazine Magazine, 17 April 2000

Los Angeles has the 16th largest economy in the world. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

United States of America China Japan Germany India France United Kingdom Italy Brazil Mexico Canada Spain Indonesia Russia South Korea Los Angeles

gross domestic product ($ billions) 8,511 4,420 2,903 1,813 1,689 1,320 1,252 1,181 1,035 Global 815 Economy/ 688 Top Industries 646 602 593 585 470

source: The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2001 (New York: World Almanac Education Group, 2001)

At millenniumâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s end, the two largest metropolitan regions, New York and Los Angeles, after lagging smaller regions for most of the past decade, led the nation respectively in aggregate payroll and new job creation. Joel Kotkin, The New Geography: How the Digital Revolution Is Reshaping the American Landscape (New York: Random House, 2000), 12.

Who owns L.A. (as of April 2000)?

ASIA Denver L.A.Kings Daily News Pasadena Star News and others

Tokyo Columbia Pictures

Seattle McDonnell Douglas North American Aviation Home Savings

Chicago

Times Mirror KTLA

San Francisco Glendale Federal Savings First Interstate California Federal Savings

Las Vegas MGM

Phoenix L.A.Reader

AUSTRALIA MONEY

208

Sydney Twentieth Century Fox L.A. Dodgers KTTV

ANTARCTICA

Houston Getty Oil Co

EUROPE

London ARCO

AFRICA

Montreal Universal/MCA

Lexington, Mass.

Chicago

Hughes Aircaft Co.

Minneapolis

Times Mirror KTLA

Santa Monica Bank

Detroit Hughes Aircraft Co

Marietta, Ga. Lockheed

Global Economy/ Stamford, Conn. UNOCAL Top Industries Fairfield, Conn.

Dulles, Va.

KNBC

Warner Bros

New York

Charlotte, N.C. Security Pacific National Bank Bank of America

Paramount L.A. Weekly KCBS KCAL KCOP

Houston

Getty Oil Co

SOUTH AMERICA

source: “Who Owns L.A.?,” L.A. Weekly, Weekly April 7–13, 2000

B. Welling

Base industries in Los Angeles % of gross product revenue Direct international trade 20 Wholesale trade 18 Manufacturing 14 Business and professional-management services 12 Motion-picture and television production 8 Technology 7 Financial services 7 Health services/bio-med 6 Tourism6 Other 2 sources:

B. Kalpin

MONEY

210

Concentration of base industries Ventura Technology Corridor

ChatsworthCanoga Park San Gabriel Valley Eastern San Gabriel Valley

minor technopole

Airport Area

major technopole machinery–metallurgical clothing

Irvine Area

jewelry furniture movies & television production

Los Angeles Industry

Again we passed through the LA landscape, block after block of minimarts and momand-pop stores, boutiques and restaurants and manicure shops. By then I could see each of these places as the economic center of someone’s life. How could they all stay in business? I wondered. Where in the world was the volume? Could there possibly be, back there where they actually lived, in the houses behind the avenue facades of dry cleaners and Christian bookstores, enough odd need, enough people coming forth from their homes each day on some pilgrimage that held the world together for a second—to rent a video game, to restock on Bounty—enough customers, anyway, to keep all these little shops in business? Evidently so. It seemed a miracle just then, like the loaves and fishes, though it was so everyday as to be invisible once you got used to it. In its ordinary way it was magnificent, like a terrific levitation act in which what gets levitated is a blue Dodge minivan. Jim Paul, Medieval in LA: A Fiction (Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, 1996), 225–26.

B. Walski

MONEY

212

LAX — 3rd busiest airport for freight in the world 6,670 tons per day at $167 million per day

Port of Long Beach — 10th busiest American port 158,205 tons per day at $283 million per day

Port of Los Angeles — 18th busiest American port 120,943 tons per day at $213 million per day sources: Airports Council International, as cited in “World’s Busiest Airports,” Los Angeles Times, Times 11 February 2001, C-6. Los Angeles World Airports (www.lawa.org) www.losangelesalmanac.com U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (www.usace.army.mil) U.S. Department of Defense (www.defenselink.mil)

Local distribution 4

Global distribution via LAX

Alam da corri dor e

National distribution to U.S.

major truck terminals Alameda corridor existing freight rail lines distribution nodes highway

3 $ Global distribution via San Pedro Bay Ports

1. Union Station 2. Los Angeles International Airport 3. San Pedro Bay Ports 4. Van Nuys Municipal Airport 5. Burbank/Glendale/Pasadena Airport

International Trade

National/Global distribution

VALUE OF FLOWS ($ millions)

LAX

20,000–35,000 12,000–20,000

Port of Los Angeles

10,000–12,000 imports

Port of Long Beach

exports out of Los Angeles in to Los Angeles

source: 1993 Commodity Flow Survey, Survey U.S. Department of Transportation (www.dot.gov)

photos: S. Dimitrov

MONEY

214

International Trade

T. Morrison

Wholesale trade # of establishments gross product Durable goods (cars, furniture, construction materials, computer equipment, medical supplies, etc.) 19,973 $190,055,931,000 Non-durable goods (clothing, drugs, food, tobacco, liquor, books, etc.) 12,565 $112,964,715,000 total 32,538 $303,020,646,000

Manufacturing auto parts food and beverage petroleum apparel and textiles furniture total

# of establishments 1,068 1,707 94 5,341 1,532 9,742

gross product $23,040,469,000 $13,417,227,000 $412,863,013,000 $10,635,538,000 $5,053,514,000 $65,009,761,000

source: 1997 Economic Census, U.S. Census (www.census.gov) D. Dumanski

MONEY

216

T. Morrison

J. Rocholl

Concentration of aircraft, missile, and apparel manufacturing workers (percent of employed persons, 1990)

aircraft and missile manufacturing apparel manufacturing

Wholesale Trade/ Manufacturing

map source: James P. Allen and Eugene Turner. The Ethnic Quilt: Population Diversity in Southern California (Northridge, Ca.: The Center for Geographical Studies, 1997).

The district now known as Toytown represents a remarkable turn-around of the kind of archaic industrial area that has fallen into disuse all across the country: Here a combination of largely immigrant entrepreneurship and the fostering of a specialized commercial district have created a bustling marketplace that employs over four thousand people, boasts revenues estimated at roughly $500 million, and controls the distribution of roughly 60 percent of the $12 billion in toys sold to American retailers. Joel Kotkin, The New Geography: How the Digital Revolution Is Reshaping the American Landscape (New York: Random House, 2000), 80â&#x20AC;&#x201C;81.

S. Zukowski

Motion-picture/Television production M. Lipson

# of establishments motion-picture production 5,056 sound recording 479 television broadcasting 92 radio broadcasting 185 total 5,812

gross product $29,184,223,000 $4,650,036,000 $3,137,074,000 $65,362,000 $37,036,695,000

source: 1997 Economic Census, U.S. Census (www.census.gov)-----------

M. Lipson

MONEY

218

Guaranteed motion picture attendance is no longer a slam dunk. To sell a movie today, to create not just the desire to see a particular film but rather the need to see it, studios hire hordes of flimflam men to create publicity, promotion, advertising, and only Harvey Weinstein knows what else. The average cost of this marketing mavenry? Twenty-six million dollars. Twenty-six million dollars to promote a single motion picture— whose story, as often as not, is given away in its briskly paced three-or four-minute trailer in a far more entertaining fashion than the life-sucking three-or four-hour film itself. We’ve certainly come a long way from the days when, for twenty-six mil, a studio could turn out two dozen Andy Hardy pictures, a Ben-Hur Ben-Hur, and a Ben-Him. Larry Gelbart, “Hype!,” Los Angeles Magazine (December 2000): 158.

S. Zukowski

Concentration of theater and motion-picture workers (percent of employed persons, 1990)

theater and motion-picture workers

M. Lipson

map source: James P. Allen and Eugene Turner, The Ethnic Quilt: Population Diversity in Southern California (Northridge, Ca.: The Center for Geographical Studies, 1997)

Motion Picture/ T.V. Production

A nest of movie vans parked on a residential street is a common sight in Los Angeles. The crew rarely look pleased. The waits are interminable. It is hard to believe that any of this will make an impact except on available parking. And yet, the imaginary maps that these movies generate are repeated throughout the world. Norman M. Klein, The History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory (New York: Verso, 1997), 103.

Concentration of technology industries

Ventura Technology Corridor

Chatsworth / Canoga Park San Gabriel Valley

Eastern San Gabriel Valley

telecom companies

Airport Area

biotech internet / software hubs M. Lipson

Irvine Area

MONEY

220

Technology firms # of firms 19,000 8,000 5,000 4,000

Los Angeles Austin, Texas Massachusetts Silicon Valley

manufacturing design and development total

gross product $27,114,095,000 $5,986,715,000 $33,100,810,000

sources: The Zone News, February 2001 1997 Economic Census, U.S. Census (www.census.gov)

Concentration of managers, professionals, and lawyers (percentage of employed persons, 1990)

Technology/ Financial Services

managers and professionals lawyers

map source: James P. Allen and Eugene Turner, The Ethnic Quilt: Population Diversity in Southern California (Northridge, Ca.: The Center for Geographical Studies, 1997)

Financial services # of establishments banking 4,072 non-depository credit institutions 2,580 mortgage and loan brokers 1,440 securities 3,128 insurance 7,021 total 18,241

gross product $592,000,000 $17,270,882,000 $1,456,033,000 $9,217,901,000 $4,360,747,000 $32,897,563,000

Business services # of establishments real estate and rental/leasing services 17,465 accounting/bookkeeping services 6,207 legal services 10,610 architectural/engineering services 4,875 advertising/media/public relations 2,477 management consulting 4,264 other design services 1,854 scientific research and development 497 total 49,785

gross product $20,184,432,000 $9,766,902,000 $9,762,390,000 $7,157,974,000 $4,137,001,000 $3,710,725,000 $1,386,070,000 $1,320,539,000 $58,483,427,000

source: 1997 Economic Census, U.S. Census (www.census.gov)

Government money B. Kalpin

contributions federal government state government county government local government

$2,454,226,000 $5,963,000,000 $1,893,000,000 $56,529,000,000

expediture health care infrastructure libraries

$2,012,000,000 $262,000,000 $94,000,000 source: Rand California (www.ca.rand.org) C. Chung

MONEY

222

In 1994, after the Northridge earthquake devastated parts of the Los Angeles area, Paula Boland, a conservative Republican assemblywoman whose own home in Granada Hills was damaged, and who was then sleeping in her car, showed something of the same spirit when she declared that she would oppose even a small temporary sales tax increase to help repair quake-damaged roads, schools, university buildings, and other infrastructure. “Californians,” she declared, “are already paying too much in taxes.” It was the feds who should pay. “The President owes us. They’ve taken our military bases and all those jobs. They’re going to have to start giving something back to California.” There was an earthquake, but there was an almost equally ferocious determination—come hell, quake, or high water—not to allow anything to nuzzle up tax rates. Peter Schrag, Paradise Lost: California’s Experience, America’s Future (New York: The New Press, 1998), 65–65.

Health services # of establishments gross product ($ millions) physician offices 26,484 16,278.45 hospitals 106 3,064.78 nursing/residential care 2,040 2,532.78 laboratories 685 1,387.82 outpatient care 703 1,050.97 Business Services/ home health care 752 918.68 Government Money/ social assistance 2,490 667.67 Health Services other 216 423.12 total 33,476 26,324.28

Hospital ownership non-profit for-profit public

50% 43% 7% source: 1997 Economic Census, U.S. Census (www.census.gov) C. Chung

A. Scott

Tourism industry performing arts/spectator sports food services amusement, gambling, recreation accommodations museums, historical sites total

# of establishments gross product ($ millions) 6,275 10,965.23 14,579 8,899.10 1,786 4,071.09 1,158 2,185.22 26 16.34 23,824 26,136.98

1999 tourism statistics 25.1 million business trips 42.5 million leisure trips 80% California residents 16% out-of-state travelers 4% international travelers

Travelers spent an average of $77.60 per day. Travel revenue: $23,922,400,000 Payroll: $5,027,200,000 Employment: 248,280,000 jobs

Out of the top 25 amusement/theme parks worldwide, 3 are located within Los Angeles. 3. Disneyland, Anaheim 13. Universal Studios Hollywood, Universal City 20. Knottâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Berry Farm, Buena Park

MONEY

226

sources: 1997 Economic Census, U.S. Census (www.census.gov) California Division of Tourism (www.socalif.ca.gov) The World Almanac 2000 (New York: World Almanac Education Group, 2000)

photos 227-229: G. Narezo

Tourism

MONEY

228

Tourism

M. Lipson

In 2000, the porn industry made 3,500 original productions and released 11,000 titles. In Hollywood, 400 titles were released in 2000. source: Adult Video News

MONEY

230

Pornography

Although cities like New York and San Francisco have given us plenty of porn in their heydays, if you are serious about being a sex performer, you will probably want to move to Los Angeles. Not only are 50 of the 85 top porn companies based there, but the City of Angels really lives up to it [sic] name: L.A. is home to the largest congregation of porn stars on Earth—around 1,600 of them! The heart of the porn business is in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles, often referred to as “Silicone Valley” or the “Valley of Sin.” Some of the hottest adult spots in the Valley include Sherman Oaks, Canoga Park, Van Nuys, Studio City, and Chatsworth. Porn moved out to L.A. from New York in the mid-80s during the explosion of the home-video market. The reason was more financial than anything else, since rent, equipment, and talent were significantly cheaper there. Now, the Valley accounts for 90% of America’s porn production. While mainstream film shooting in L.A. has decreased 13%, porn film production is up almost 25%. In July of 1999, one out of every five shoots in L.A. was an adult-film shoot. According to Adult Video News, the industry released 10,000 titles in 1999, up from 8,950 titles in 1998, and up from around 8,000 in 1996. That’s adding nearly 1,000 new titles every year! Considering that Hollywood only puts out about 400 theatrical releases a year, you can understand why people, whether they want to be talent or crew, have little difficulty finding employment in the adult industry. Porn taps into the underemployed, disaffected people who can’t find—or are waiting for—work in the big Hollywood studios. The L.A. County Economic Development Corporation estimates the number of jobs created by the adult film industry is between 10,000 and 20,000. A sign of the times for porn’s triumph over Hollywood came when Ron Jeremy, perhaps the only male porn star who is a household name in America, was invited to speak to executives at Paramount Pictures and Columbia TriStar on the theme, “Why can the porno industry spin out films for $50,000 in 3 days and make big profits while the major studios spend $40 million in six months and can’t?” (Ron’s answer? “Low overhead.”) Matt Duersten (a.k.a. Ana Loria), 1-2-3 Be a Porn Star!: A Step-By-Step Guide to the Adult Sex Industry (Malibu, Ca.: InfoNet Publications, 2000), 57–58.

J. Fleischmann

MONEY

232

I. Sharp

J. Gillingham

Employment in Los Angeles # of people 2,207,390 1,093,042 1,013,282 887,100 436, 287 401,685 352,516 60,939

services retail trade manufacturing government wholesale trade finance/insurance/real estate transportation/utilites agriculture

17% 8% 8% 7% 3% 3% 3% 1%

average salary $19,255 $19,908 $38,108 $46,900 $46,073 $56,526 $42,861 $21,238

source: National Compensation Survey, July 1999 1999, Bureau of Labor Statistics (www.stats.bls.gov)

Among those with incomes in the lowest 25%, the percentage of Americans who cannot

J. Rocholl

freely take breaks choose working hours be absent from work to care for a sick child be absent due to personal sickness take vacation leave

39 64 70 78 59

source: “On the Job: Freedom by Income,” The New York Times, 13 May 2001, IV–14.

MONEY

234

I. Sharp

L. Hammerness

Employment/ Unemployment

Contemplating a day in Los Angeles without the labor of Latino immigrants taxes the imagination, for an array of consumer products and services would disappear (poof!) or become prohibitively expensive. Think about it. When you arrive at many a Southern California hotel or restaurant, you are likely to be first greeted by a Latino car valet. The janitors, cooks, busboys, painters, carpet cleaners, and landscape workers who keep the office buildings, restaurants, and malls running are also likely to be Mexican or Central American immigrants, as are many of those who work behind the scenes in dry cleaners, convalescent homes, hospitals, resorts, and apartment complexes. Both figuratively and literally, the work performed by Latino and Latina immigrants gives Los Angeles much of its famed gloss. Along the boulevards, at car washes promising “100% hand wash” for prices as low as $4.99, teams of Latino workers furiously scrub, wipe, and polish automobiles. Supermarket shelves boast bags of “prewashed” mesclun or baby greens (sometimes labeled “Euro salad”), thanks to the efforts of the Latino immigrants who wash and package the greens…. Only twenty years ago, these relatively inexpensive consumer services and products were not nearly as widely available as they are today. The Los Angeles economy, landscape, and lifestyle have been transformed in ways that rely on low-wage, Latino immigrant labor. Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, Doméstica: Immigrant Workers Cleaning and Caring in the Shadows of Affluence (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 3.

S. Dimitrov

A. Fishbein

MONEY

236 M. Lipson

Ever since becoming a producer at Paramount, Walter hadn’t had a day to himself. Twenty-four hours without last-minute script revisions or consultations with the studio lawyers, a cell phone practically grafted to his ear, was as hard for him to grasp as higher mathematics. He could barely remember what it was like to eat lunch alone, and prided himself on being able to talk business and chew food at the same time, no stray particles flying from his mouth or clinging to his teeth. Once, he knew enthusiasm for a great screenplay in the pit of his stomach, but now every day was filled with the hype and reflexive white lies—“This is a hot property”; “You’ll hear from us next week”—he relied on to spare a writer’s feelings, get cozy with a powerful agent, or end a tedious meeting early. Praise was little more than a convenience, and his opinions eventually circled back as dubious rumor. Bernard Cooper, Guess Again (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), 30–31.

I. Sharp

Unemployment As of June 2000, Los Angeles’s unemployment rate was 4.1%, or roughly equal to the national average. source: Bureau of Labor Statistics (www.stats.bls.gov/blshome)

Employment/ Unemployment

An estimated 25,000 desperate men gather each morning on roughly 125 corners in Southern California to beg for work. Steve Lopez, “Staying Ahead of the Pack With a Professional Passenger,” Los Angeles Times, Times 1 June 2001, B-1.

S. Dimitrov

How much do people make in Los Angeles? lawyers and judges college- and university-level teachers business executives writers/authors/entertainers/athletes engineers/architects/surveyors social scientists/urban planners teachers math/computer scientists technicians social/religious workers precision production police/detectives/guards sales administrative support truck drivers personal services machine operators groundskeepers/gardeners nurses and health aides janitors and maids waitresses and bartenders

mean annual salary $81,351 $71,693 $71,251 $69,562 $65,530 $63,456 $60,442 $54,777 $41,357 $40,109 $37,478 $35,425 $31,622 $25,862 $25,747 $20,582 $19,546 $18,528 $17,818 $16,838 $15,571

(calculated on the 40-hour work week) source: Bureau of Labor Statistics (www.stats.bls.gov)

MONEY

238 M. Lipson

T. Morrison-

M. Lipson

Household incomes in Los Angeles 22% 18% 15% 14% 8% 7% 5% 4% 4% 3%

$35,000 to $49,999 $50,000 to $74,999 $15,000 to $24,999 $25,000 to $34,999 $75,000 to $99,999 $10,000 to $14,999 $100,000 to $149,000 less than $5,000 $5,000 to $9,999 $150,000 or more

13% of the population lives below the poverty level or 1,703,099 people or the population of Utah or the population of Slovenia source: U.S. Census Bureau (www.census.gov)

I. Sharp

R. Yager

Income/ Household Ranking

photos: S. Smith

How do Angelenos spend their money? (based on a median income level of $36,853) 37% 18% 13% 5% 5% 4% 2% 1% .4% .3% 14.3%

housing transportation food clothing/apparel health care entertainment education personal care products/services tobacco and smoking supplies reading miscellaneous

$13,635 $6,633 $4,791 $1,842 $1,842 $1,474 $737 $368 $147 $111 $ 5,252

source: U.S. Department of Agriculture (www.usda.gov)

MONEY

240

C. Chung

D. Dumanski

What a dollar spent for food paid for in 1999 farm value labor packaging advertising profits rent transportation business taxes depreciation energy interest repairs other

20 ¢ 59 ¢ 8¢ 4¢ 4¢ 4¢ 4¢ 3.5 ¢ 3.5 ¢ 3.5 ¢ 2.5 ¢ 1.5 ¢ 2.5 ¢ source: www.usda.gov/news/pubs/factbook/001b.pdf

What a taxi costs Price of a 3-mile daytime ride within city limits (with tip) Los Angeles $14.60 Tokyo $14.10 London $11.10 New York $10.00 Berlin $9.38 Vienna $9.29 Milan $8.35 Copenhagen $7.95 Paris $7.89 Tel Aviv $7.76 source: Los Angeles Times Times, 11 February 2001

Expenditure

“It’s amazing,” Dandy says as we walk away. “Since I’ve been famous, I get better deals on everything. It’s so ironic. When you can finally afford to buy shit, they give you everything for free. After my show’s been on a few years, I want to go on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous and see if I can go a week without having to open my wallet.” Dennis Hensley, Misadventures In the (213): A Novel (New York, Rob Weisbach Books, 1998), 68.

A. Scott

MONEY

244

I felt a sharp stab of resentment, no, make that rage. Never in my life would I be able to live like this. It wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t just the money, although these Hollywood Hills were paved with gold. It was the ease, the confidence, the organization that Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d never be able to figure out. The best thing I could hope for in my little life would be a house in the Valley, and the last thing in the world I ever wanted in my life was a house in the Valley. Carolyn See, The Handyman (New York: Random House, 1999), 127.

Renting versus ownership

monthly mortgage payment (average by census tract)

$ 500–999 $ 1,000–1,499 $ 1,500+

monthly rent payment (average by census tract)

$ 0–564 $ 565–681 $ 682–839 $ 840–1,050

Housing

source: Southern California Association of Governments (www.scag.ca.gov)

J. Rocholl

J. Moon

MONEY

246 J. Moon

J. Rocholl

J. Moon

J. Rocholl

J. Moon

Housing

Contributing Writers

When I moved here in June 1991 to edit an architecture publication, Los Angeles was recessionhit but relatively complacent. Architects concerned themselves more with designing stylish baubles than grappling with issues of the city. The sun shone brightly, but most of us did not see the glaring social fissures. Then in April 1992 we were smacked in the civic gut by the riots. The events of April 29 shook the media, politicians, architects, and most citizens from what seems in retrospect to have been a pleasant oblivion to the seething tensions of a fast-changing city. Even though the riots were succeeded by other, natural calamities, and the recession gave way to economic boom, I believe the mindset here was profoundly altered; for better or worse, L.A. now demanded to be taken seriously. The riots spawned radio shows like “Which Way, L.A.?” (which I subsequently went to work for) devoted to analyzing the city. In fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, local writers explored the many facets of its complex, contemporary social fabric. We have turned to some of these writers for insights about Los Angeles to include in this book. Rather than pluck excerpts from the many great writers of previous decades, we have by and large chosen authors who have captured L.A. now—“now” being the years since April 1992, which in my mind prematurely kick-started our New Millennium. We have selected excerpts from recent books and articles to illuminate the different chapters of this book. Listed below are the authors’ names with brief descriptions about their work. I should add that the great pleasure of being the text editor for L.A. Now has been to enrich my own understanding and perceptions of L.A. through reading the sharp and varied voices out there on the subject. With thanks to the authors for letting us reproduce their work, I urge you to buy and read these books. —Frances Anderton

Eve Babitz is a journalist and novelist living in Los Angeles. She is the author of Eve’s Hollywood: A Confessional L.A. Novel (1974), Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, The Flesh, and L.A. Tales (1977), Sex and Rage: Advice for Young Ladies Eager For a Good Time: A Novel (1979), L.A. Woman (1982), Black Swans (1993), and Two by Two: Tango, Two-step and L.A. Night (1999). John J. Berger teaches and writes on energy and naturalresource issues and is a consultant on environmental science and policy. He is the author of books on nuclear and renewable energy including Charging Ahead: The Business of Renewable Energy and What It Means for America (1998) and is the editor of Environmental Restoration: Science and Strategies for Restoring the Earth (1990). Tony Cohan is the author of On Mexican Time: A New Life in San Miguel (2000), and the novels Canary (1981), a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and Opium (1984). His essays, travel writings, and reviews have appeared in books, magazines, and newspapers including The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. Times He divides his time between Venice, California, and Mexico.

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Bernard Cooper, recipient of the PEN/Ernest Hemingway Award in 1991 and the O. Henry Prize in 1995, is the author of Guess Again: Short Stories (2000). He has also published two collections of memoirs, Maps to Anywhere (1990) and Truth Serum (1996), as well as the novel A Year of Rhymes (1993). His work has appeared in Story Story, Ploughshares Ploughshares, Harper’s, The Paris Review, The New York Times Magazine, Harper’s Magazine and in anthologies such as The Best American Essays (1988, 1995, 1997), and The Oxford Book on Aging: Reflections on the Journey of Life (1994). Cooper is currently a contributing writer for Los Angeles Magazine. Magazine Michael Datcher is the author of Raising Fences: A Black Man’s Love Story (2001). An award-winning journalist and critic, his poetry has been featured in Body and Soul (1996) and Catch the Fire!!!: A Cross-Generation Anthology of Contemporary African-American Poetry (1988). Datcher is the co-editor of Tough Love: Cultural Criticism and Familial Observations on the Life and Death of Tupac Shakur (1996). Datcher has served as director of literary programs for the World Stage Anansi Writer’s Workshop in L.A’s Crenshaw District since 1993. Mike Davis is the author of several books, including Magical

Urbanism: Latinos Reinvent the U.S. Big City (2000), Prisoners of the American Dream: Politics and Economy in the History of the U.S. Working Class (1986), City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles (1990), and Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster (1998). Davis taught urban theory at the Southern California Institute of Architecture. He now lives in Papa’aloa, Hawaii. All excerpts from Ecology of Fear Fear, Copyright ©1998, are reprinted by permission of Henry Holt and Company, LLC. John D’Amico parks his car in West Hollywood. His e-mail address on the web is jad3@aol.com. Marla Dickerson is a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times, Times where she writes about manufacturing and the Southern California economy. An Illinois native, Dickerson holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Illinois and a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University. Matt Duersten is a Wisconsin-bred freelance writer and editor who has worked for two premiere failed L.A. magazines of the 1990s: Glue (for which he served as senior editor) and Buzz (for which he was a flunky). In addition to a book on L.A.’s porn industry, 1-2-3 Be a Porn Star!: A Step-By-Step Step-By-Step Guide to the Adult Sex Industry (penned Ana Loria, 2000), Duersten has written for Jalouse, Black Book, Variety Variety, Time Out, Flaunt, Instinct, Los Angeles Magazine, Magazine The New Times, and the L.A. Weekly Weekly. Celeste Fremon is an award-winning journalist and author of Father Greg & the Homeboys (1995). She is a frequent contributor to the L.A. Weekly Weekly, Los Angeles Times Magazine, Magazine Good Housekeeping, Housekeeping Los Angeles Magazine, Magazine Utne Reader Reader, MSNBC, and Salon. She and her son, Will, live in a small house in Topanga Canyon, which occupies 18.5 square miles of chaparral-covered hills in unincorporated Los Angeles County. William Fulton, a journalist and urban planner who has lived and worked in Southern California since 1981, is the author of The Reluctant Metropolis: The Politics of Urban Growth in Los Angeles (1997). He lives in Ventura, California. Dave Gardetta has been a writer-at-large for Los Angeles Magazine since 1995. His stories have appeared in the International Herald-Tribune, The Washington Post, Post and the Los Angeles Times Magazine. Magazine For the last four years, Gardetta has taught journalism at Eagle Rock High School. Larry Gelbart has been an on-and-off, in-and-out resident of Los Angeles since 1943. For over half a century, he has written for radio, television, the screen, and the stage in Los Angeles, as well as two of its suburbs, New York and London. Jay Gummerman, author of the novel Chez Chance (1995) and a collection of stories, We Find Ourselves in Moontown (1989), received an M.F.A. in fiction writing from the University of California at Irvine. He resides in San Clemente, California. Blake Gumprecht is a human geographer and cartographer whose research interests focus on the cultural and historical geography of the United States and Canada, especially the West, with emphasis on urban studies, environmental history, ethnic studies, popular culture, and the perception of place. He is presently at work on a book about the American college town. Dennis Hensley is the author of the Misadventures in the (213): A Novel (1998). As a journalist, his work has appeared in Movieline, Cosmopolitan Cosmopolitan, Us Weekly Weekly, InStyle InStyle, and The Advocate. He recently released his first CD as a singer/songwriter, The Water’s Fine, and is currently working on his next book, Screening Party Party.-He lives in the (818). Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, author of Doméstica: Immigrant Workers Cleaning and Caring in the Shadows of Affluence (2001), is associate professor of sociology at the University of Southern California. Roger Keil, author of Los Angeles: Globalization, Urbanization, Urbanization, and Social Struggles (1998), is an associate professor

of environmental studies at York University in Toronto. Norman M. Klein is the author of The History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory (1997). He is a critic and historian of mass culture. In addition to being a published writer, he is also a professor at CalArts as well as a faculty member at Art Center College of Design. Joel Kotkin is the author of The New Geography: How the Digital Revolution Is Re-shaping the American Landscape (2000). He has published four books and is a contributing editor to the Los Angeles Times and a columnist for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Journal A senior fellow with the Davenport Institute for Public Policy at Pepperdine University, Kotkin lives in North Hollywood. Lisa Leff is a former staff reporter for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. Times A Los Angeles native, she writes frequently on youth and social issues for Los Angeles Magazine and the Los Angeles Times Magazine, Magazine where her article on Jane Doe #59 appeared. Sandra Tsing Loh is the author of A Year in Van Nuys (2001), Aliens in America (1997), If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home By Now (1997), and Depth Takes a Holiday: Essays From Lesser Los Angeles (1996). She is a writer and performer who received the Pushcart Prize in Fiction in 1995 for her short story “My Father’s Chinese Wives.” Steve Lopez is a writer for the Los Angeles Times. Times Land of Giants, a collection of Lopez’s columns on local politics, was published in 1995. He is also a novelist. His first book, Third and Indiana (1994), was a finalist for the Dashiell Hammett Award. Lewis MacAdams is the author of The River: Books One and Two. He is the author of ten books of poetry, a film documentarian [What What Happened to Kerouac? (1985) and Eric Bogosian’s FunHouse (1987)], and an award-winning journalist for Rolling Stone, Stone Actuel, Los os Angeles Magazine, Magazine and L.A. Weekly Weekly, among others. His recent book, Birth of the Cool: Beat, Bebop, and the American Avant-Garde (2001), is a cultural history of the American avant-garde of the 1940s and 1950s. A founder of Friends of the Los Angeles River, he lives with his wife and two children in Los Angeles. Al Martinez is the author of City of Angles: A Drive-By Portrait of Los Angeles (1996). Born in Oakland, California, he studied at San Francisco State University and the University of California at Berkeley. In 1972 Martinez joined the Los Angeles Times, Times where he worked as a senior writer on an editorial team that won the 1984 Public Service Pulitzer Prize in Journalism for a series on Southern California’s Latinos. Bill Moseley is an actor/writer living in Los Angeles with two daughters, three cats, three fish, and three birds. A graduate of Yale University, his work has appeared in Interview, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair Fair, Omni, Glue, Hollywood Reporter Reporter, and National Lampoon. Lampoon His acting resume includes Pink Cadillac, White Fang, Fang Choptop in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, and Otis in House of 1000 Corpses. Corpses Moseley’s hobbies include gardening, girls’ soccer, and hiking in the California hills. Yxta Maya Murray, author of What It Takes To Get To Vegas, Vegas is a professor of law at Loyola Law School. She has written fiction and nonfiction for Buzz and Glamour Glamour, among other publications. Jim Paul, author of Medieval in LA: A Fiction (1996), What’s Called Love (1993), and Catapult: Harry and I Build a Siege Weapon (1991), has also published material in such journals as The New Yorker and The Paris Review. James Ricci has been the columnist for Los Angeles Times Magazine since November 1999. Previously, he was a special-assignment feature writer at the Times and a member of the newspaper’s literary journalism team. He came to the newspaper in September 1996 after fifteen years as a writer and editor at the Detroit Free Press. Richard Rodriguez is an editor at Pacific News Service

and a contributing editor for Harper’s Magazine, Magazine U.S. News & World Report, Report and the Sunday opinion section of the Los Angeles Times. Times He has published numerous articles in such publications as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The American Scholar Scholar, Time, Mother Jones, and The New Republic. Republic He has also written two books: Hunger of Memory, An Autobiography (1981), and Days of Obligation: An Argument With My Mexican Father (1992), as well as two BBC documentaries. Jerry Schad, author of nine books on outdoor recreation in Southern California, is a recognized expert on trails in the region. He is a professor of physical science at San Diego Mesa College, writes the weekly column “Roam-O-Rama” for the San Diego Reader Reader, hosts the “Afoot and Afield in San Diego” series on KPBS-TV, and exhibits his astronomical photography at www.skyphoto.com www.skyphoto.com. Peter Schrag is the author of Paradise Lost: California’s Experience, America’s Future (1998). He is an author of many books and was for nineteen years the editorial page editor of the Sacramento Bee. All excerpts from Paradise Lost, Copyright ©1998, are reprinted by permission of The New Press. Carolyn See is the author of nine books, including The Handyman (1999). She is Friday morning reviewer for The Washington Post, Post and has been on the boards of the National Book Critics Circle and PEN/West International. The recipient of Guggenheim and Getty fellowships, See currently teaches English at UCLA. She lives in Pacific Palisades, California. John Shannon is the author of The Orange Curtain: A Jack Liffey Mystery (2001). Shannon, a native of Los Angeles, grew up in San Pedro and attended Pomona College and UCLA, where he received his M.F.A. in film. His career has spanned writing to teaching to political activism. Stuart Silverstein is a writer for the Los Angeles Times. Times Kevin Starr, a contributing editor to the opinion section of the Los Angeles Times, Times is State Librarian of California and a professor at the University of Southern California. The latest volume of his series on the history of California, The Dream Endures: California Enters the 1940s, was published in 1997. Deyan Sudjic is the author of The 100 Mile City (1993) and editor of Domus magazine. Jervey Tervalon, author of Living for the City (1998), was raised in the neighborhood of South Central Los Angeles. He has translated the terrain of his youth and today’s headlines into urban American stories about a community imploding. Héctor Tobar, the son of Guatemalan immigrants, is a reporter for the Los Angeles Times and was part of the writing team that won a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the 1992 riots. He holds an M.F.A. from UC Irvine. Bruce Wagner’s books include I’m Losing You (1996) and Force Majeure (1991). His third book, I’ll Let You Go, is due in 2002. Wagner has directed several film projects including Women in Film (2001), produced by Killer Films and the Independent Film Channel. D. J. (Don) Waldie is an essayist, poet, and author of Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir (1996) and more recently Real City: Downtown Los Angeles Inside/Out (2001). He serves as Public Information Officer for the City of Lakewood. Lawrence Weschler has written for The New Yorker since 1981. He has authored several texts on David Hockney, including CAMERAWORKS (1984) and an interview with the artist in the 1988 Los Angeles County Museum of Art retrospective catalogue. Weschler has published numerous books, including Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees: A Life of Contemporary Artist Robert Irwin (1982); Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder (1995); Calamities of Exile: Three Nonfiction Novellas (1998); and A Wanderer in the Perfect City: Selected Passion Pieces (1998).

Contributing Photographers & Designer/Illustrators

What does Los Angeles look like? We have all seen it in the movies, both as itself and as a substitute for other cities. It is at once unique and generic: a profusion of visual diversity and an all-too-familiar landscape of indistinguishable built mass. The photographs that illustrate this book describe, subvert, and illuminate L.A. Now’s data.-In addition to the images by Art Center photography students, we include a substantial body of work by Los Angelesbased photographers found through research, gallery visits, and word of mouth. Many of the photographers dedicate themselves to issues such as labor, the homeless, and fashion; others have almost encyclopedic archives that depict myriad aspects of the city—a richness of resources vital to portraying Los Angeles in all of its complexity. The work presented in L.A. Now comprises previously published, unpublished, and commissioned photographs. The team of Art Center photography students took part in discussions about the nature of L.A. Now’s data, then either photographed to illustrate specific topics or offered related images culled from their portfolios. A number of photographers also located images in their archives and generously granted permission to reproduce them in this volume. One photographer spent two months photographing sites along a designated line through the entire city. It is our hope that this book becomes a piece of Los Angeles itself, a document of the place, a culmination of the ideas at work right now. Gregory Borjorquez is a freelance photographer who has been capturing East L.A. culture for his book project, Eastsiders. His work has been featured in L.A. Weekly Weekly, Los Angeles Magazine, Magazine and Big Time Magazine. Magazine Kaucyila Brooke is a Los Angeles-based artist. Her visual work and writing has appeared in Deborah Bright’s The Passionate Camera: Photography and Bodies of Desire (1998) and Diane Neumaier’s Reframings: New American Feminist Photographies (1996). Her ongoing video project, The Boy Mechanic, Mechanic was recently shown as a multi-channel video installation in the exhibition “<hers> Video as a Female Terrain” at the Landesmuseum Joanneum in Graz, Austria. She is the director of the program in photography at CalArts. Stephen Callis is a photographer and educator living in Los Angeles. His work on the L.A. River has appeared in numerous publications and is on permanent display at the L.A. River Center in Highland Park. He has also published a fotonovela in collaboration with Rubén Ortiz Torres and Leslie Ernst about hotel workers at a prominent L.A. hotel titled Murder in My Suite. Suite

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Sam Durant is an artist living and working in Los Angeles. He is represented by Blum and Poe in Santa Monica and Galeria Emi Fontana in Milan. His work has been shown recently at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture in West Hollywood, Nikolaj Contemporary Art Center in Copenhagen, Denmark, the Royal College of Art in London, and Dortmund Kunstverein in Dortmund, Germany. Anne Fishbein is a documentary photographer living in Southern California. Her work has appeared in Harper’s Harper’s, The Atlantic Monthly Monthly, and Los Angeles Magazine, Magazine and is in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and The Art Institute of Chicago. Jessica Fleischmann recieved her M.F.A. in graphic design at CalArts in 2001. She currently works at Lorraine Wild Design in Los Angeles. She also designs @n.d. and The Journal of Aesthetics and Culture. Her work can be seen in Eye Eye, at Printed Matter in New York, and on the Lida.com website. Andreas Freitag studied photography and graphic design at CalArts in 2000-01, as well as in his native Munich. He drives a big blue Mercedes. Jenafer Gillingham received her B.F.A. from Art Center. After living abroad in London, Montreux, and Munich for five years, she returned to her native Los Angeles to continue working on editorial photography. Her clients include Los Angeles Magazine, Magazine Children’s Hospital, Louey/Rubino Design, Emmy Magazine, Magazine and L.A. Weekly Weekly. David Grey is currently the art director for Clae Footwear. After living with a group of Rastas off the coast of Belize, he moved to California and received his M.F.A. in graphic design at CalArts in 2001. David is a Libra who likes tacos, ‘71 cabernet and long sunsets. Larry Hammerness is a freelance photographer who works in Los Angeles. His subjects range from celebrities and surfing to disasters and weddings. His photographs have been published both nationally and internationally and have been shown in several exhibitions. Erik Hillard is a 6th-term photography student at Art Center. Most of the photographs he provided are related to his book Inertia Breathes, a study of movement, transition, journey, and change. His freeway images, part of a series titled Junction Silent, reflect his attraction to the graphic nature of Los Angeles freeway interchanges and how they stand in majestic silence while thousands pass through them daily. Cheryl Himmelstein grew up in Tucson, graduated from Art Center, and now resides in Venice, California. She photographs a range of subjects including environmental portraits, personal projects, and editorial assignments. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Times Los Angeles Magazine, Magazine U.S. News and World Report, Report Industry Standard, Standard and Time.

Christina Chung is not Chinese like most people think. Instead she is short, right-handed, obsessed with falling-apart old houses, and was born in Santa Ana. Since graduating from CalArts in 2001, she has focused her attention on getting over her fear of snails, practicing horse stance, drawing pictures of pictures, and taking pictures of drawings.

Karen Hirt studied graphic design at the School of Art and Design in Zurich and at CalArts. where she recieved her M.F.A. in 2001. She has worked at Design Studio Anthon Beeke in Holland and Interbrand in Switzerland. She recently collaborated on the website for the Graphic Design Program at CalArts (www.calarts.design.edu).

Zoe Crosher is a recent M.F.A. graduate from the Photography and Integrated Media Programs at CalArts, concentrating her efforts on the Out the Window (LAX) series and preparing for a project to be shot for the Liberace Museum in Las Vegas. She is also managing editor of the forthcoming <net. net.net> book, published by the California Institute of the Arts Press and featuring interviews with participants of the MOCAand CalArts-sponsored <net.net.net> conference.

i-cubed, LLC is a Fort Collins, Colorado-based geo-processing service organization that offers complete business solutions based upon information and geodata derived from air photos, satellite imagery, and other sources of geographic information.

Slobodan Dimitrov is a photographer based in the Long Beach/Los Angeles harbors area. He is a contributing photographer for The Dispatcher Dispatcher, L.A. Weekly Weekly, The Building Trades News, and Random Lengths. Lengths His work has appeared in The Nation, The Carpenter Carpenter, The Progressive, Progressive Los Angeles Magazine, and The Economist, among many labor publications Magazine and newspapers. Dunja Dumanski, a 6th-term photography student at Art Center, contributed images of “consumption and waste” related to her interest in the human body. Dunja notes, “Los Angeles is decaying.”

Brandon Kalpin, an Art Center photography graduate in Summer 2001, contributed many images to L.A. Now. Among them are works from his Rooftop series, which reveals details that guide viewers to a discovery about their world and potentially change their point of view. By abstracting these nuances, he seeks to provoke a new consideration of the everyday.

Edit Kozma has been living in Los Angeles for over ten years photographing fashion, advertising, nature, and art. She spent the last few months, among other projects, shooting the 246 photos that document a line that spans the Los Angeles agglomeration. The project has afforded her the enjoyment of getting to know the city in a unique way. Jane Kung graduated from Art Center’s photography department in Summer 2001. Her interest in cultural differences, informed by her Taiwanese background, can be seen in many of Kung’s images. She contributed two series— one on recycling, the other on the ethnicities of L.A. “I didn’t want to show any more stereotypes about different races,” she says. “Instead I want to show how people really live in L.A. and what they like to do. No one is better than another, and my hope for the future is that someday everyone truly becomes equal.” Stephen Latty is a graduate student of film at Art Center. The series of video stills that capture the “100 People of Los Angeles” stem from an interest in personal interactions within crowds and their general reflection of class relations. Mark Lipson was born in Toronto and attended New York University film school. He came to Los Angeles in 1978, where he has been a photographer and filmmaker exploring the surreal and mundane landscape of the city. He now resides in Venice, California, with his wife and children. Ken Lubas, now retired, has been a photojournalist on the staff of the Los Angeles Times for more than thirty years. His photographs have appeared on the covers and in the pages of Sports Illustrated, Illustrated National Geographic, Geographic Time, Newsweek, and Life, among other national and international publications. Among his many recognitions are two Pulitzer Prizes as a team member and numerous personal awards from major competitions. Ken Marchionno is an artist, writer, and educator currently residing in Los Angeles. His work has been published and exhibited throughout the U.S., Korea, and Russia. Jennifer McKnight received her B.F.A. in Printmaking at Washington University in St Louis, and has recently worked in advertising as a digital illustrator. She is currently working on an M.F.A. in graphic designat CalArts. Julie Moon is a graduate of Otis College of Art and Design. She lives and works in Los Angeles. Swan Moon is a young L.A.-based artist who works mainly in photography and film/video. She has exhibited work in Los Angeles and New York and is a recent graduate of the Photography Program at CalArts. Theo Morrison, a 6th-term photography student at Art Center, contributed works from two series, as well as the 100 People of Los Angeles photograph. About his involvement in the project, he writes: “I realized that the trajectory, the momentum of our massive concrete grids, is faster than documentation. The image becomes everything and nothing in relation to a world paced by circuit boards. What I find unique in photographing Los Angeles is the relation these images have to images propelling the make-believe that dominates the city’s folklore. I am also fascinated with the subject’s relation to this make-believe, as well as my own.” Dwayne Moser is an artist and writer living in Los Angeles. His work addresses the phenomenon of celebrity and, simultaneously, the Angeleno landscape. Brian Moss is a multi-media artist with an M.F.A. in photography from CalArts, and a B.F.A. in painting from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. This summer, Moss received a Durfee Foundation Artists’ Resource for Completion Grant for work made during a three-month residency at the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art. Since 1997, Moss has taught photography, digital imaging, drawing, and sculpture in a variety of Los Angeles schools and universities.

Karin Apollonia Müller has worked in both California and Germany for the last 6 years. The German-born artist has received numerous fellowships and awards including a DAAD grant, a Villa Aurora fellowship, and a Lannan Residency. A recent body of work was published as Angels in Fall (2001) by Kruse Verlag, Germany. She is currently represented by Karyn Lovegrove Gallery, Los Angeles, and Julie Saul Gallery, New York. Presently she is working on a Getty/CalArts commission in Los Angeles. All images from Angels in Fall appear courtesy of Kruse Verlag, ISBN 3-934923-09-7, www.krusepublishers.com www.krusepublishers.com. Gala Narezo, who recently graduated from Art Center in photography and is returning to do an honors term, focused on the people passing through LAX for her L.A. Now project. She is interested in exploring the state of community in the modern world. Touching upon ideas of belonging and displacement, she pays special attention to transient spaces where community might not be expected, such as an airport, mall, or grocery store. Marlon Perkins is a prominent researcher for “Merkin and his Organization”. He rents in the Locust Mountain neighborhood of Los Angeles. His work has appeared in books, in periodicals such as Newsweek, Space Shower TV and during sleep. He recommends frequent exposure to lightning. Lorenzo Pesce is an Art Center photography student who graduated in August 2001. His L.A. Now project—LAX at night—involved the idea of representing people through empty public spaces in Los Angeles. “Coming from Italy, I have always seen Los Angeles as an empty city, because you see a lot more cars than people.” Jennifer Rocholl recently finished her 7th term in photography at Art Center. Her motivation for the People series was to capture the faces of Los Angeles in the way she encounters them—whether it’s a boy with his puppy or a truck driver stopping in for breakfast at a diner. About the Homes of L.A. series, she says, “I think it’s interesting to be able to compare the diverse personal signatures of the residents of Los Angeles right on their front lawns.” Allen Scott, a 7th-term photography student at Art Center, has always had a curiosity in how quickly the world around us changes. “We live in a contradictory society in which we crave the familiar, a sense of history, and yet we constantly tear down and rebuild our environment to fulfill our craving for the ‘new and improved.’” With this in mind, he approached the topic of “consumption” while seeking timeless images of urban Los Angeles. Issa Sharp lives in Los Angeles with her husband and twelve-year old son. Stuart Charles Smith is an amateur celebrity sleuth who works in the agglomeration, where he lives with his dog, Nikki Love. He is an M.F.A. candidate in graphic design at CalArts. Jon Sueda is a graphic designer currently studying in the CalArts M.F.A. program in graphic design. Previously, he worked on Speak magazine in San Francisco and was visiting lecturer in the graphic design department at the University of Hawaii. Brandon Welling is a photographer and architect living in Santa Monica. He currently works for Morphosis, and his photographs have been published in books and magazines worldwide, including Metropolis Metropolis, Interiors, Casabella, C3 Korea, GA Japan, Japan The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. Robert Yager is an award-winning, L.A.-based photographer from London. His work regularly appears in such publications as The New York Times Magazine, Magazine L.A. Weekly Weekly, and several British magazines. He has also been documenting a Latino gang in L.A. over the last ten years. Scott Zukowski specializes in design for cultural institutions and has self-published several faculty/student collaborative projects. His research focuses on design- and culture-related issues explored through photography, screenprinting, collage, and installation. His work has been published in Eye Eye, Emigre Emigre, I.D., and Cranbrook Design: The New Discourse. Discourse He has worked at M&Co. in New York and has held full-time teaching positions at CalArts, the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Herron School of Art. He received his M.F.A. from Cranbrook Academy of Art.