East Los Angeles resident Kristie Hernandez remembers the excitement and anticipation that she felt as she prepared to vote for the first time in November 2001. But when she arrived at the polling place, she was surprised to find that the candidates for the Los Angeles mayoral race were not listed on her ballot. When […]
Tag: Los Angeles
The L.A. Metro is Surrendering to BANANAs
No transportation agency is as self-sabotaging as Los Angeles Metro. On Jan. 22, the Los Angeles Metro Board of Directors voted to oppose SB 677 unless it is radically amended to give Los Angeles County a backdoor out of Transit-Oriented Development (TOD). Their justification was explicit. “Tying increased density to proximity to transit projects is […]
The Case for a Metrolink Land Trust
The Southern California Regional Rail Authority (SCRRA), or Metrolink, has been serving Los Angeles and its surrounding counties for decades, moving millions of passengers a year. Founded in 1991, the commuter rail network is one of the largest in the nation at 437 miles of track. Size is not enough to attract riders, though. Over […]
Trump’s Message to California, the Nation
MacArthur Park is a civic treasure of Los Angeles. It stands as a testament to the diversity and resilience of the city and the people that inhabit it. On July 7, these values were challenged. Federal U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents descended upon the park in trucks and horseback, marching down Wilshire Boulevard […]
Is Los Angeles the Future of Redistricting?
Do two wrongs make a right? That’s the question California voters must answer following Governor Gavin Newsom’s announcement of the Election Rigging Response Act. If passed by voters in a special election this November, the Act would redraw the state congressional district map and add five Democratic congressional districts in California. The Act aims to […]
The Palisades Fires: How Profit and Greed Ignite California’s “Natural” Disasters
California is home to occasional earthquakes, various landslides, longstanding droughts, and most of all, sweeping and devastating wildfires. This past January, the Palisades and Altadena fires, alongside many other smaller flare ups, brought complete destruction and turmoil to L.A. county. Up to 150,000 residents have been displaced, and those who aren’t fortunate enough to have […]
LASD Gangs and Police Mistrust in the United States
Mostly minority and poor communities across the country have complained for decades about law enforcement agencies often behaving more like aggressive criminal street gangs than sworn dutiful police officers. Although genuine efforts to confront the issue at the federal level have been mostly inconsequential, there have been bouts of evidence and shared experiences to support […]
A Contentious Congressional Race in One of Southern California’s Last Republican Districts
One of the most contentious and unpredictable congressional races in the 2020 general election is in California’s 25th District. Encompassing the suburban cities of Santa Clarita, Palmdale, Lancaster and Simi Valley, CA-25 is the only Republican district in Los Angeles County, a notoriously Democratic stronghold. Prior to 2018, the district had been represented by a […]
Tenants over Tents: Why Skid Row is Stuck in the Undertow
The largest concentration of unsheltered people in the country is located on “Skid Row,” a 54-block stretch of eastern downtown Los Angeles. 2,000 people spend each night there. However, Skid Row is simply a more visible component of an underlying dilemma: from 2010 to 2017, there has been a 42 percent rise in the number of homeless people […]
Avoiding Traffic at All Costs: Is The Bullet Train Worth It?
Imagine this — you arrive in Los Angeles from San Francisco in a mere three-hour train ride to hang out on the beach with your friends. No painful six-hour drive or delayed flights, but rather, a trip that gets you to your destination as painless and quick as possible. The thought of having a train […]
Room to Live: Helping Homelessness with Housing First
It’s springtime in Berkeley, which means that around 15,000 high school seniors are considering attending Berkeley. For many, what stands out is Berkeley’s large and visible homeless population. Homelessness in Berkeley is omnipresent, as it has been throughout California since the 1960s. Treatment of homeless populations has not been consistent over the past 50 years, […]
A New River For a Concrete Jungle
The desert river had flooded for the last time. After days of torrential downpour, it had overflowed its banks and wiped out nearly all the houses in its path, causing millions of dollars in damage. Los Angeles was at the mercy of nature, and for the last time. That year, 1938, the Army Corps of […]
Housingcare: How to Solve California’s Affordable Housing Crisis
As a mother of two children and wife to a steadily employed husband, Brianne Reynolds considered herself to be a typical, hard-working American. In addition to taking care of her kids during the day, she worked the night shifts at a local grocery store as a custodian in order to pay the bills. In what […]
Murder in Lockup
In recent years, it has become abundantly clear that security does not always come hand-in-hand with safety. Although they house the most closely guarded of California residents, state prisons have become dangerous for prisoners and, as a recent report by the Associated Press suggests, prison assaults have increased by an approximated 40% from 2011 to […]