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

News this month

Making shipshape

Officials have unveiled a plan to cut air pollution at the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, America's busiest. The plan, announced on June 28th, calls for diesel emissions from ships, trains and lorries using the ports to fall by over a half within the next five years. Each port is being asked to pay over $100m toward the plan’s $2 billion cost, with the remainder being met by state bonds, tariffs levied on ships, and aid from the state and federal governments. The two ports’ commissions will consider a finalised version of the plan in September.

A key requirement is that cargo ships should use only low-sulphur fuel within 20 nautical miles (23 miles) of the ports. But this rule may not be enforceable because the harbour authorities do not regulate foreign-flagged ships (and many ships fly foreign flags precisely to avoid regulation). Hopefully, companies will comply on their own accord: Denmark’s Maersk shipping line, the world’s biggest, has already said its ships will switch to low-sulphur fuel within 24 nautical miles of California's coast. Under pressure from environmental groups, the International Maritime Organisation, a United Nations body based in London, is also considering revisions to its rules.

Open for business, sort of

America’s second-largest city is becoming a less attractive place to do business, according to a new survey. The report from the Kosmont Companies and the Rose Institute of Claremont McKenna College found that LA is now America's 16th-most-expensive major city for business. At first glance this hardly seems damning—New York and San Francisco were ranked third and eighth, respectively. But last year LA ranked 17th, and its rise comes despite an effort launched in January to reduce the tax burden on businesses.

The programme, which is being phased in over five years, will relieve some 130,000 small and medium-sized businesses (those with sales of less than $100,000) from paying taxes on gross receipts. Eventually larger businesses will receive tax cuts of up to 15%. But the survey concluded that these cuts will have very little impact on LA’s ranking, as labour, property, and utility costs remain relatively high, as do their related taxes.

Hateful

“Crash”, which won the Oscar for best film earlier this year, portrayed Los Angeles as a city seething with racial and religious tensions. But most Angelenos think they get on well with each other, despite occasional outbreaks of violence between Latinos and blacks in LA’s vast public-school system. So many were shocked when a new synagogue in the San Fernando Valley was daubed with anti-Semitic graffiti two days before its dedication on July 9th. Vandals also tried to set fire to the building, which caters mainly to Jews of Iranian origin, causing damage estimated at $9,000.

Despite this ugly incident, hate crimes in Los Angeles County are in decline, from 691 in 2003 to 502 in 2004, according to the latest figures from LA County’s Commission on Human Relations. Of the crimes committed in 2004, 81 were motivated by religion (most of them targeting Jews), about the same share as in 2003.

Better get a good lawyer

LA lawyers are often celebrities—none more so than Robert Shapiro, who helped defend O.J. Simpson in the sport star's murder trial. Mr Shapiro's name has been in the headlines again lately, over a lawsuit filed by a former employee of his firm, Christensen, Glaser, Fink, Jacobs, Weil & Shapiro. Pauletta James, a legal secretary, claims she was fired in 2003 after reporting that Mr Shapiro was over-billing his clients. In early July a California appeals court ruled unanimously that Ms James could proceed with her claim of wrongful dismissal, overturning a prior decision.

This is not the only problem facing Mr Shapiro’s firm. Another partner, Terry Christensen, has been indicted by a federal grand jury in a long-running wiretap case. The investigation centres on Anthony Pellicano, a private detective hired by Mr Christensen and others, who faces charges of illegal wiretapping and racketeering.

To market, to market

George Russell Weller, aged 89, is due to stand trial in September for crashing his car into the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market—killing ten people and injuring 63—in 2003. But lawyers for the victims and their families have also been trying to pin blame on the city of Santa Monica, arguing that its traffic plan failed to protect the market-goers. Their case was bolstered in 2004 when the National Transportation Safety Board found that Santa Monica was partially responsible for the accident because the barriers protecting the market were inadequate and the city’s traffic plan was outdated.

On July 3rd a Los Angeles Superior Court judge, Valerie Baker, ruled that the traffic plan—which had been approved by a certified traffic engineer—was perfectly reasonable, and that the city is therefore “immune from liability”. But the survivors’ lawyers plan to appeal against this decision. To prevent another such accident from happening, parked police cars have replaced the market's protective wooden barriers.

Catch if you can

July 2006

Rubens and Brueghel: a Working Friendship

Until September 24th 2006

Many are familiar with the great works of Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel the Elder. But few know about their friendship: the two masters, so different in their styles and subjects, collaborated on at least 25 works in Antwerp between 1598 and 1625, when Brueghel died. More than a dozen of these are now at the Getty Museum.

Their well-matched partnership saw both men contribute ideas and expertise, with Brueghel specialising in landscapes and animals and Rubens in people (wonderfully fleshy nudes, for example). And they influenced each other—witness the animals in Rubens’s “Garden of Eden with the Fall of Man”. Curators offer insight into the pair’s collaboration with a technical examination of “The Return from War: Mars Disarmed by Venus” (pictured), with X-rays and infrared reflectography revealing how Rubens painted over some of Brueghel’s work.

Also on view is an informative display of 17th-century prints of Rubens’s paintings, as well as a recently discovered work of his entitled “The Calydonian Boar Hunt”.

J. Paul Getty Museum, 1200 Getty Centre Drive. Tel: +1 (310) 440-7300. Open: Tues-Sun 10am-6pm (Fri-Sat until 9pm). Entry is free (parking $7). For more information visit the museum’s website.

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