Today I am bullish on the future, even the future of Los Angeles. I am not worried about water. There is plenty of water. Only one fifth of Southern California's water goes to domestic use, the rest goes to agriculture, and California agribusiness pays around 1/100th what residential customers think it's worth. LA doesn't have water problems. The Imperial Valley has water problems. I walked to the library today, past supermarkets and bus lines, parks and apartment buildings (and also past traffic and SUVs, McMansions and streets empty of pedestrians), and found my little city of Santa Monica to be planned, compact, exquisitely well cared for. Gasoline prices may rise with the rise of India and China, even without declining oil supplies, but Santa Monica will adjust, with its mix of businesses, dense residential living, constant draws like the beach and the weather and the proximity of LA. And there's light rail coming shortly, and a subway down the line. This corner of this sprawling metropolis will do just fine.
Yesterday's run destination: Berkeley and Olympic
Yesterday's menu:
breakfast: salsa cheddar omlette
lunch: yet more potatoes
dinner: lentil soup
Have you read Mike Davis? Particularly, Ecology of Fear (though I imagine it's in City of Quartz, too). From my notes from when I read it for prelims:
ReplyDeleteL.A.’s norm is flux and disaster. That is, there is no average year, just large swings. This is true for water and winds and fire and drought and earthquakes. Anglos have only been in LA for about two and a half lifetimes, and they tried to impose their cultural knowledge from “humid landscapes”—that is, the east and Northern Europe—on LA, which doesn’t really work. The only way to live in LA is to understand and work with its climate.