Economist.com Cities Guide: Los Angeles Briefing - March 2006

News this month

Delays at LAX

Los Angeles’s often-maligned LAX airport got another scolding in February, when a study warned that airport officials had ignored suggestions to improve security. Santa Monica’s RAND Corporation, a think-tank with a $900,000 contract to advise the airport on security, has issued a report on LAX’s safety each year since 2004. This year’s report warned that passenger queues in and outside terminal lobbies are terrorist targets, and advised—as it did last year—hiring more ticket agents and passenger-screeners. The report also argued for the third time in three years that building permanent checkpoints at the airport’s six entrances would reduce the threat of a car-bombing.

Los Angeles World Airports, the body that runs LAX, defended its counter-terrorism efforts. In a letter to the Los Angeles Times, Paul Haney, an airport director, argued that “more has been done and invested to improve security at LAX since 9/11 than at any airport in America”. But apparently this has not been enough. Antonio Villaraigosa, LA’s mayor who campaigned with a promise to improve airport security, issued a statement asking airport officials to “immediately consider” RAND’s recommendations.

Church v state?

Cardinal Roger Mahony, head of the Los Angeles archdiocese (the nation’s biggest, with some 5m members), is ready to defy the law if Congress passes a harsh immigration rule. A bill already approved by the House of Representatives would require charities such as churches to demand legal documentation from immigrants before giving them aid, or else be penalised. The cardinal, who has denounced the anti-immigrant sentiment as “hysterical”, used Ash Wednesday services on March 1st to advise the priests of LA’s 288 parishes to defy the law if passed and pray for humane immigration reform.

But will all of LA’s Catholics agree with their cardinal? Illegal immigration is a sensitive topic in California, home to well over one-fifth of the 11m-or-so undocumented residents in America. In 1994, for example, Californians voted overwhelmingly for Proposition 187, which sought to deny health, education and social benefits to illegal residents (a judge subsequently ruled most of the measure as unconstitutional). Last year so-called “Minutemen”—or immigration vigilantes—stationed themselves at the California border with Mexico to dramatise their anger against the illegal influx. LA itself is home to at least 1.5m immigrants, both legal and illegal.

Punishing the police

The 9,357 officers of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) have tried to shed their reputation for harsh methods. Yet two recent reports have painted a mixed picture of success. While complaints against the LAPD rose by almost 4% to about 6,400 last year, the number of officers and civilian staff who were suspended or fired fell by 46% to 421.

One reason for this discrepancy, said officials, is that the LAPD is too short-staffed to investigate complaints quickly, with the effect that many complaints from 2005 may not result in punishment until this year. The deputy police chief, Michael Berkow, also suggested that the rise in complaints may be due to efforts to improve the complaints system. Still, local civil-rights activists find the gap between complaints and punishment worrying, and officials say they will investigate the matter. For the record, the vast majority of sustained complaints in 2005 were for “preventable traffic collisions” and “neglect of duty”, such as not responding to an emergency call.

Keeping Hollywood in Hollywood

It may seem that Los Angeles’s role as the centre of the entertainment industry is secure, but Mayor Villaraigosa thinks there is work to be done. With New York, Arizona and a handful of other states using tax breaks to lure filmmakers, Mr Villaraigosa is proposing incentives of his own. The mayor wants to eliminate fees for filming on city property. Creating an “entertainment incentive zone”, he argues, would make filming in that area easier. He is also counting on FilmLA, a non-profit group, to streamline the issuing of film permits.

Mr Villaraigosa’s effort to keep filming local would be bolstered by a state bill—now stalled in the legislature—that would give tax credits of 12%, up to a maximum of $3m per project, to films or TV episodes shot in California. Los Angeles’s film and television industries provide around 250,000 direct jobs and generate some $30 billion in revenue for the county each year.

The cost of an education

The dysfunction of Los Angeles’s public school system—with its overcrowded classrooms, violent campuses and lagging test scores—drives many parents to send their children to private schools. Or at least those parents who can afford it. According to new data collected by the National Association of Independent Schools, the median tuition at LA’s private schools this year is $22,874, just $2,008 less than what the University of California, Los Angeles, charges to university students from out-of-state.

LA’s private schools are not as expensive as New York’s (which have a median tuition of $27,200), but do cost well more than the national median of $16,790. Moreover, tuition in LA is on the rise. For the 2006-07 academic year, the exclusive, all-girls Marlborough School in the Hancock Park neighbourhood will hoist its fees from $23,750 to $25,250, an increase echoed in posh schools around the city. Principals, encouraged by long lists of students waiting for a spot at their schools, know that most parents—especially the city’s rich lawyers and Hollywood types—will not be deterred by tuition hikes.

Catch if you can

March 2006

Sonic Scenery at the Natural History Museum

Until May 3rd 2006

Whereas most museums content themselves with conventional audio explanations of their exhibits, the Natural History Museum had the bright idea of inviting ten popular musicians and composers to create music specifically for the museum’s main galleries. The result is an intriguing experience introduced by Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor and music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Wander through the Ancient Latin America Hall while listening to the Sun Ra Arkestra, or sashay through the Mammal Halls to the extraordinary music of Jon Hassell, with digital rhythms illustrating an imaginary conversation between Masai tribesmen. At the end of the tour (the audio system costs $3) you may even want to buy the exhibition’s “Sonic Scenery” CD.
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, 900 Exposition Boulevard. Tel: +1 (213) 763-3466. Open: Mon-Fri, 9.30am-5pm; Sat-Sun, 10am-5pm. Entry: $9. For more information, visit the museum’s website.

More from the Los Angeles cultural calendar