Why Is Los Angeles Falling Apart?

Every day, Los Angeles seems more like Mexico. Every day, Los Angeles seems more like a second-world city, with large parts of it resembling the third world.

Los Angeles used to be (as late as 1960) the most Anglo-Saxon big city in the country. Now whites are only 40% of the population of Los Angeles County and falling fast. Half of the population is Hispanic and rising fast.

As people of Mexican and Central-American origin comprise the majority of Los Angeles residents, Los Angeles increasingly looks like Mexico. Hispanics, along with blacks, tend to stay around the bottom of the socio-economic spectrum generation after generation while whites and orientals stay at the top. As whites leave Los Angeles, they are replaced by Hispanics who don’t earn as much money, pay as many taxes, and they use far more government resources per person such as welfare and education (as they have more kids than whites do and these kids get in more trouble with the law, fail to graduate high school most of the time, etc).

My headline asks why is Los Angeles falling apart? But that’s a white perspective. For whites, Los Angeles seems to be going downhill. For people of Mexican origin, however, Los Angeles is simply becoming more like them, more Mexican, more second-world teetering on third world.

Bloomberg reports: From buckling sidewalks to potholed thoroughfares to storm drains that can’t handle a little rain, the infrastructure that holds the second-largest U.S. city together is suffering from years of deferred maintenance. Bringing pipes that deliver water to 3.9 million people up to snuff could cost $4 billion — more than half the city’s annual operating budget. The bill for repaving streets will be almost that much, according to estimates from a city consultant, and patching or replacing cracked sidewalks will require $640 million…

Voters won’t approve adding to the local sales tax — which at 9 percent is among the nation’s highest — and would revolt if the price of water went up, he said. As it is, the rate is the seventh-highest in the U.S., according to a survey by the conservation nonprofit Circle of Blue…

When it comes to roadways, car owners pay. L.A. motorists spend an average $832 a year on repairs and other operating costs because of the shabby condition of city streets, according to a 2013 report by TRIP, a Washington-based transportation group. The amount is the highest in the country and 71 percent more than the urban-area average, the report found.

Los Angeles has spent $300 million in the last three years on paving, according to a city audit. The Bureau of Street Services gave about 40 percent of streets grades of D and F. Fixing those 8,200 lane-miles would cost an estimated $4 billion, according to an audit by Controller Ron Galperin.

About Luke Ford

I've written five books (see Amazon.com). My work has been covered in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and on 60 Minutes. I teach Alexander Technique in Beverly Hills (Alexander90210.com).
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