Holidays in Cosmopolis: Baba Yaga Edition

by Tony Chavira

This has been a particularly long holiday season. Between holiday parties for the organizations I work with, holidays parties for friends around the entire Southern California area, planning for more work as soon as next year begins, and trying to keep my head on straight to finish personal projects by the end of the year, I haven’t had as much time as I’d like to really look into the future. Or into the future of the future for that matter.

What’s amazing is that agendas change so quickly. Suddenly Barack Obama wins the presidency, and the proposal for a stimulus plan for the development of the interior triggers an array of articles all over the Internet about the high hopes and lofty goals that planners and politicians have all over the nation. This is compounded by the news that the state of California will have a massive debt going into next year, likely triggering either more layoffs, a further freeze on hiring, reduced wages, or all of the above. Over 16,000 construction jobs have been lost in the last year, and the slowing rate of development may mean a further loss of 400,000. The Urban Land Institute predicts that we won’t be able to even get loans for development until June 2010 at the earliest. The green sector may have to take sacrifices for the economy, as companies tighten their belts further and further. What can I say to a friend of mine who works in construction and can’t find a job anywhere? “Sorry, you have absolutely no chance of getting hired into any company for the next two years. Too bad your experience is all in construction management and not something that could make money these days.” When I can think of what that thing is, I’ll be sure to let you all know.

In one hundred years, will Los Angeles really look any different? We all know the goals: sustainable, smart growth, transit-oriented, walkable ... but what will it take for us to achieve all of those things? What kind of immediate investment do we have to be willing to make to set us on the right track?

Current research on the economic crisis particularly interests me because it doesn’t take much to learn exactly what it’ll take to fix this crisis: provide available credit to potential homebuyers, lend, and spend. Yes, it’s that simple. We all know from often-quoted, news magazine-featured researchers that this crisis is “cyclical”; that in a few years something magical will happen and we’ll all suddenly be back on top. Maybe President-elect Obama will have something to do with it, maybe he won’t. There are a ton of factors, none of which are in our individual realm of control.

So how comfortable do any of us feel celebrating during the holidays with so much doom and gloom floating over our heads like a parasitic curse from Baba Yaga? How difficult is it to think about the potential for a bright and shining future when the present is so discouraging to so many? What I find especially sad is that the people who need affordable housing the most maybe not be able to afford it, as layoffs at large companies continue, small companies cannot solidify business loans, and the price of rent remains generally stable (since people need to live somewhere if they can’t find a home). Will this mean the mass revival of tent cities on the scale of the Great Depression? Though the Department of Housing and Urban Development recently reported a twelve percent drop in homelessness nationally in the past two years, it conveniently didn’t include people who had previously been considered homeless, like the tons of people who were forced to move back home with their parents or the poor people living in motels or on campgrounds. The pressing question, of course, is whether or not this omission is deliberate. I’d rather not venture a guess.

Right now each redevelopment area in Los Angeles has a 30-year plan. Each city in Los Angeles has a strategic development plan. The County itself has a general plan for development. The Southern California Association of Governments is always developing goals and refining their municipal plans. L.A. and O.C. Metro are always hunting for money to fix roads, better coordinate traffic, provide bike routes, fund light rail transit, perfectly harmonize bus routes, and promote transit-oriented development. As one would expect, their ultimate goals are grandiose and ridiculously expensive. But it’s best to have a grand and extravagant vision, right? These organizations never know when they’re going to get a gigantic financial boost, especially now that we know that Obama is committed to the development of infrastructure the likes of which we haven’t seen since FDR’s New Deal. We hope.

But we need to keep the research in mind and stay rationally optimistic. This is the vicious point of a virtuous cycle. These crashes have happened before and more than likely they’ll happen again. But the developments and innovation that arise from desperate times lead to golden years. We just need to stay active, stay involved. Remain forward-thinking, come up with new ideas. and implement them carefully and conservatively. If the future of Southern California is what we make it, we need to decide what we want to make it.

For now, enjoy the holidays, and prepare to start making some big decisions in 2009.

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