Los Angeles Downtown News

Expanding the number of quality blue collar jobs in Los Angeles will be Mayor-elect Antonio Villaraigosa's most difficult economic challenge. Since 2001, our region's manufacturing employment has declined by nearly 20%, mirroring the loss of 2.6 million goods-producing positions in the nation as a whole. That's very bad news for cities like L.A. that are home to enormous numbers of working and middle class families.

Immediately after his landslide victory, more than a few editorials wondered if Los Angeles Mayor-elect Antonio Villaraigosa would inevitably govern in accordance with the new, Chablis-liberal ideology that has infected so many of our nation's cities. Antonio Villaraigosa is garnering attention across the nation. But he'll find that Los Angeles' problems are unique.

Most telescope enthusiasts know the difference between a clear sky and good seeing. After rain or wind, for instance, the air looks crystalline and the stars as bright as can be. Yet, it's often at just those moments that the atmosphere is secretly bubbling with turbulence, smearing what should be magnificent images of Saturn or Jupiter into an eyepiece of flickering, ghastly mush.

A sportswriter shocked by the recent shooting of a Giants fan in the parking lot outside Dodger Stadium inadvertently touched on one of California's most important, yet underreported demographic trends.

"It used to be the fans in San Francisco who were fools," wrote the L.A. Times' Bill Plaschke. "The battery throwers? The Tom Lasorda haters?... And while construction of a pricey new San Francisco ballpark eliminated some of those Candlestick cretins, the Dodger Stadium crowd has simply grown angrier and more frustrated."

We had just finished a ride down the South Bay beach bike path, huffing and puffing through the route's uniquely California mosaic. Behind us were the USC frat-like boys and girls of Playa del Rey, the inner-city flavor of Dockweiler State Beach, the always-puzzling encampment of Winnebagos at the very foot of the massive Hyperion sewage plant, and the body-wrapped opulence of Manhattan Beach.

Building a durable political consensus in favor of growth is crucial if California is to generate sufficient economic opportunities in the future. Anti-development fashion now holds sway among the state's most privileged, well-organized communities. That's why even Depression-level job losses in the Bay Area have been met with indifference, if not secret glee. Should these perspectives continue to gain traction in Sacramento, they will choke off the remarkable economic performance achieved by California's fast-growth regions.

California's gubernatorial election has mistakenly focused on a purported statewide industrial meltdown that simply does not exist. No one disputes Sacramento's maddening financial irresponsibility. Yet, as large as the budget deficit may be, it remains a small fraction of the state's trillion-dollar economy.

Spurred by the recall, California's industrial demise is everywhere declared, but never seriously examined. The state's economy is said to be in a "nosedive." Everyone is leaving for someplace else. Pundits speculate that Sacramento politicians are trying to force a federal bailout by deliberately making things as bad as possible.

We do not lack for challenges in the coming year. Terrorism, the public financial meltdown and a still struggling economy command everyone's attention. Yet, one of the least discussed issues may prove to be among our biggest tests: Can America's unprecedented consumption windfall continue unabated?

It was, by any measure, a bitter setback for Northern California. Blessed with seemingly insurmountable advantages, and so very close to a victory for the ages, everything suddenly, relentlessly, went sour.

The San Francisco Giants' ugly collapse against the gritty Anaheim Angels? To be sure. But the same story could be told about the formerly high-flying Bay Area more generally.