Los Angeles. Love/hate relationship. Part 2 of series

Los Angeles had been beaten and battered in the few years leading up to my arrival. Starting in 1991, the Los Angeles basin shed over 200,000 jobs, primarily in the aerospace industry. Military bases were closed throughout Southern California. I've later learned much more about how this largely changed Southern California's "landscape" and diminished our middle class. The Northridge earthquake of 1994 was one of the most costly natural disasters in US history. 

I remember watching coverage on television. While there are cracks and shifts in buildings from the earthquake to this day and I remember noting some minor damage on trips to LA in 1996 prior to my moving, in reflection I have to say it was amazing how quickly things overall were repaired. But, it's impact did contribute to people leaving the region and a decline in prices. The earthquake occurred less than 2 years following the 1992 Los Angeles riots, which arguably was far more devastating to the city. I know it was far more damaging to the city's image. Starting with watching the attack on Reginald Denny, a truck driver pulled from his truck and severely beaten, being left to die, which was broadcast live on television and aired over and over again around the world, to all the chaos and devastation that followed, it only could insight fear and leave most perplexed. Sympathy to outrage were felt by people well beyond LA for what seemed like eternity following. For many, those emotions about that time still hold very strong and with understandable conviction. 

I had heard of the corruption in the LAPD for years and while "white privilege" made me welcome police presence in most cities, I was always a little skeptical around LAPD when visiting because of their reputation. I did have an incident once visiting right before or after the riots with my friend Beth. We were pulled over on Santa Monica Boulevard about to get on the 101 freeway. Our car was mistaken for one they sought in some drug crime and we were told to get out of our rental car and made to sit on a side walk while they searched the vehicle. After some radio call came to the police vehicle, an officer turned to me and said something like "wrong car, you can go." I remember being outraged but smartly tried to contain my disdain. I was quite fearful at the same time but also far more outwardly self-righteous in my early 20s. 

Corruption, crime and urban decline seemed to be the American way through the 80s and well into the 90s. I grew up around and lived in a New York City with an out of control homeless problem that didn't begin to be addressed until litigation forced so in 1981 and it is still an ongoing challenge, albeit there have made much greater progress than many other cities, including Los Angeles. San Francisco had and still has a large homeless crisis. So did Washington, DC when I moved there in 1993. Murder rates across the US were multi-fold higher than they are today. My car was broken into at least a half a dozen times when I lived in San Francisco and it was largely kept in a garage. My 1st home on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC was broken into through one of those incredibly strong metal bar doors made to prevent such break-ins from occurring. The police left me with the comforting suggestion "they will likely come back." Thankfully, that did not occur. On another hot, summer day, I was sitting in traffic on Bladensburg Road heading out of the District into Maryland when a "perp" ran onto the trunk and literally over my Ford Escort with police that then followed over my car with guns drawn. But, it wasn't always just in cities. I was also sitting in traffic, from what I thought was due to a car accident on a bucolic 2 lane road twisting around a lake somewhere around affluent Livingston, New Jersey when cops chased and shot a suspect while I sat watching like it was live TV. If we only had smart phones back then...

When I started telling friends in DC I was moving to Los Angeles at the end of 1996 I would get replies like "sorry" or outright "are you crazy?" One misnomer about LA by many Angelenos to this day is that "everyone" wants to live here. In my near quarter of a century here and travels around the world I have found that it is really only those in the city of Angels that are so adoring of this sprawling, unique land.