Los Angeles Daily News

Gregory Rodriguez in Los Angeles Daily News | 'One Man Realizes the American Dream'

Communications — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 10:24:00 -0400

New America in the News:

"They are totally new Latinos in the mixture of Latinos in America," says author and Latino culture specialist Gregory Rodriguez, a Los Angeles-based fellow of the New America Foundation. "Their reason for immigrating was less economic than political. They are also more urbanized than Mexican immigrants, Salvadorans especially, and have established themselves institutionally more quickly than Mexicans.

"They also have no long-standing connection (to the U.S.) the way Mexicans historically have had, through the Bracero Program, for instance, and the relationships between Mexico and the U.S..." LINK

Joel Kotkin in Los Angeles Daily News | 'For Many Immigrants In the Valley, Life Continues As It Did In Their Native Countries'

Communications — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 09:19:00 -0400

New America in the News:

..."Latinos," says Los Angeles author Joel Kotkin, an Irvine senior fellow at the New America Foundation, "represent the city's grass-roots future - from its aspiring working class to a rapidly growing middle class.

"They are the city's emerging majority. Their ownership of small businesses has exploded, increasing nearly fivefold since the 1980s. They constitute the majority of new homebuyers in many Southland communities.

"Few can deny that, ultimately, Latinos - their music, their cultural values and political sensibilities - will reshape the essence of Los Angeles in the new century"... LINK

L.A. Daily News Quotes Joel Kotkin on Mayor Villaraigosa

Communications — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 17:43:00 -0500

New America in the News:

Even as he burnished his image as an international political figure, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa faced heightened challenges at home last year over his aggressive efforts to consolidate and assert his authority...

And after a lengthy honeymoon in office, Villaraigosa's frenetic public pace and wide-ranging reforms -- including raising wages, hiking trash fees and hiring more cops -- have begun to prickle critics who say the mayor must start turning promises into actions...

Joel Kotkin, senior fellow at the New America Foundation, said the mayor was skillful in his use of political power during his first full year on the job.

"We are in this kind of strange period where (Villaraigosa) and the governor are both governing from the center -- or at least what passes for the center in Los Angeles and California -- and there is no real opposition," Kotkin said.

Kotkin said that even when Villaraigosa has suffered a setback -- such as the court ruling against AB 1381 -- he used it to his advantage.

"From a political and P.R. point of view, it's brilliant," Kotkin said. "This way he can argue he tried to make reform but was blocked by the courts. And it enables him to do that while approving giveaways of downtown Los Angeles."

Kotkin has been among a handful of critics who question the city subsidies granted for the Grand Avenue civic center project being developed by billionaire Eli Broad and the l.a. live entertainment complex that broke ground in 2006 near Staples Center...

The city has agreed to waive the hotel bed tax for a number of years for both projects -- some $60 million that otherwise would flow to the city's coffers.

"I just don't see why public money should be used for those," Kotkin said. "He's been able to push through subsidies that a (former Mayor) Dick Riordan would have been crucified for..."

Ultimately, Kotkin believes Villaraigosa's political future depends on the local economy -- particularly property values -- as much as any other factor.

"As long as the economy is humming along, he will do fine," Kotkin said. "But I think there are storm clouds out there. As a city, Los Angeles is not doing as well as some of its neighbors."

"As long as he keeps the property values up, he will be able to continue to do things."

For the complete article, please visit the Los Angeles Daily News website.

Gregory Rodriguez on Mayor Villaraigosa in the L.A. Daily News

Communications — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 19:36:00 -0500

New America in the News:

Antonio Villaraigosa had promoted his ambitious trade mission to the Far East for almost an hour when he slipped into a monologue about Chinese food and chopsticks...

As chroniclers of Antonio Villaraigosa invariably come to discover, sometimes what comes out of the Los Angeles mayor's mouth -- particularly when it's about his past -- and what ultimately turns out to be true are not always entirely the same...

Ironically, a window to understanding why Villaraigosa tries so hard may be in the very Horatio Alger-like tale the mayor himself has often told about his childhood: Abandoned by his alcoholic, abusive father while he was in kindergarten, raised by a mother he describes as "a woman of indomitable spirit who never stopped believing in me," and further traumatized when his father sired another son as part of another family and christened him with the same name he had given Villaraigosa at birth -- Antonio Ramon Villar Jr.

In that rocky upbringing, some experts say, lies the seed for the drive, ambition and, yes, even the indulgent bravado behind the self-reinvented Villaraigosa, as well as many others in public life...

Longtime Villaraigosa watcher Gregory Rodriguez, a fellow with the New America Foundation, said he thinks an apparent quick-trigger temper resides just beneath his skin, noting in a Los Angeles Times opinion article that in the 2005 mayoral debates, Villaraigosa "repeatedly lost his cool. ... (He) visibly seethes, furrowing his brows and clenching his jaw.

"His volcanic reactions ... are beginning to reveal what political insiders have known for years: The former Assembly speaker can be thin-skinned, easily angered and even vindictive. Although great politicians learn to distinguish between what is political and what is personal, Villaraigosa has not. He can try to hide this side of his personality, as he has erased his tattoo, but, so far, he can't make it go away..."

For the complete article, please visit the Los Angeles Daily News website.

Michael Dannenberg in L.A. Daily News on Student Loan Subsidies

Communications — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 16:04:00 -0500

New America in the News:

As the Democratic takeover of the House sidelines Santa Clarita's Republican Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon, changes are expected in how the committee he chairs handles student loans.

Democrat Rep. George Miller, who's expected to replace McKeon as chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, wants to halve the interest rate charged on loans to needy students.

He also wants to increase the number of "direct" loans that the government makes to students. The president's budget office found those kinds of loans cost the government less than federally backed loans from private lenders...

Private lenders pressure the government to guarantee a certain rate of return on their student loans, which were historically risky investments. But critics say the system puts lenders ahead of students.

"It drives me crazy how much taxpayer money has been wasted on excessive subsidies for student loan companies, instead of making college more affordable for families," said Michael Dannenberg, director of education policy for the New America Foundation...

For the complete article, please visit the Los Angeles Daily News website.

What's the Proper Role of Government?

Articles — Sun, 25 Sep 2005 04:00:00 -0400

As we reflect over the destruction of Hurricane Katrina, and the role that government failed to play in protecting American citizens trapped by that natural disaster, the words of President John F. Kennedy ring boldly down the decades.

In a 1962 commencement speech to Yale university graduates, Kennedy stated:

"There are three great areas of our domestic affairs in which, today, there is a danger that illusion may prevent effective action. They are, first, the question of the size and the shape of government's responsibilities; secondly, the question of public fiscal policy; and third, the matter of confidence in America."

Throughout… more

A River Runs Through It

Articles — Sat, 14 May 2005 00:00:00 -0400

Los Angeles originally took shape along its river, but over the last 70 years, it has turned its back on the waterway that gave it birth. Now, by returning to the river, it could find a new lease on life.

Reviving Los Angeles -- turning a concrete conduit into a green waterway -- would change the very nature of the city, and nowhere more than here in the San Fernando Valley. It would give a place that has lost much of its natural environment a new lease on life and provide an economic spur to varied communities along its course.

The… more