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

News this month

The ICE men cometh

Los Angeles is home to thousands of illegal immigrants, mostly from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America. The hotel and restaurant industries rely on their cheap labour, and the wealthy householders of west LA depend on them to do their washing, cleaning and gardening. The LA Police Department (LAPD) usually turns a blind eye to their presence. Under “Special Order 40”, enacted in 1979, police officers do not ask immigrants about their legal status when questioning them, since doing so would discourage them from reporting crimes.

But the tide seems to be turning. Under pressure from populist anti-immigration sentiment, the federal government is beefing up its “Los Angeles Fugitive Operations Team”. The aim is to hunt down immigrants who have defied court deportation orders, concentrating on violent gang members. Nationwide the initiative, crafted by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), an investigative arm of the Department for Homeland Security, is catching about 1,000 fugitives a week—many of them in LA. Indeed, ICE reports that since October it has arrested more than 2,800 illegal immigrants in Los Angeles, more than in any other American city.

Dirty water

Southern California is supposed to offer not just constant sunshine, but sand, sea and surf. Sadly, this is not always honoured: on August 8th Los Angeles County health officials ordered that two miles of beaches in Santa Monica Bay, including the wonderful expanse of sand at Venice Beach, should be closed to swimmers. The authorities had detected an unacceptable level of bacteria in the ocean and sand from a spill of some 20,000 gallons of raw sewage, after equipment failed at a sewage-treatment plant in nearby Culver City. But it could have been worse: the Culver City plant processes a daunting 1.2m gallons of sewage a day. Not that this troubles LA's glitterati: only surfers and tourists brave the cold Pacific—Hollywood types prefer their swimming pools.

Gourmets rejoice

Gordon Ramsay, a British chef, is becoming a cult figure among America’s foodies. He has a collection of Michelin stars for his mostly London-based restaurants, but Americans know him mainly from his television shows, such as “Hell’s Kitchen” (with the frequent expletives bleeped out). So it makes sense that he would expand his culinary empire—which already includes restaurants in New York, Dubai and Tokyo—to Los Angeles, where his inspired cuisine and bad-boy image should do well among A-listers. By next spring the Scot intends to open two restaurants and a bar at West Hollywood’s Wyndham Bel Age hotel—which is being revamped and renamed the “London LA Hotel”. Given the inevitability of tremendous hype, it might make sense for personal assistants to start trying to book a table now.

The LA kings

The most powerful and influential figure in LA is not a Hollywood mogul—at least not according to the LA Times's magazine, West. It seems the top spot belongs to Eli Broad, who made his billions from the kind of real-estate development that helped give the city its distinctive sprawl. The magazine ranks Mr Broad (who is a huge donor to the city’s education and cultural sectors) second in southern California as a whole, behind Donald Bren, an Orange County businessman. Antonio Villaraigosa, the mayor of LA, comes fourth on the southern California list, ahead of Roger Mahoney, the archbishop of the huge LA Roman Catholic archdiocese, whose flock numbers 5m.

Intriguingly, number six on the list does not even live in California: Philip Anschutz, a Colorado-based billionaire, who owns two local sports stadiums (the Staples Center and the Home Depot Center) and several sports teams (the LA Kings, the Galaxy soccer franchise and, with Ed Roski, nearly 30% of the LA Lakers). Moreover, his entertainment company, AEG, plans to spend more than $1 billion in hotel and commercial development in downtown Los Angeles. Lest Hollywood feel ignored, Jerry Bruckheimer—a prolific film and TV producer—makes the list at number eight, and Haim Saban, who has just bought Univision (America’s biggest Spanish-language TV broadcaster), closes out the top ten.

Green partying

In a victory for taxpayers, the California Supreme Court has ruled that they do not have to compensate a billboard-owner, Regency Outside Advertising, for the diminished value of their hoardings along Century Boulevard, outside Los Angeles airport. The company filed a lawsuit against the city because palm trees, planted in 2000, partly obscure these hoardings. The court unanimously disagreed: “The right to be seen from a public way”, the judgment declared, “simply does not exist under the circumstances presented.”

Catch if you can

August 2006

Robert Rauschenberg: Combines

Until September 4th 2006

Robert Rauschenberg has long been one of America’s most influential modern artists. His career has ranged from the minimalist “white paintings” of the 1950s, which were abstract works that changed in the light, to the design of the Talking Heads’ 1983 album, “Speaking in Tongues”. Given the scope of Mr Rauschenberg’s work and influence, it is worth braving downtown and its expensive parking for a chance to see 70 of his “combines” at LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art. These works, created between 1954 and 1964, blurred the boundaries between painting and sculpture, combining canvases with found objects, from a goat’s head to the artist’s own quilt. One of his contemporaries allegedly saw the combines and exclaimed, “If this is modern art, I quit.” Some MOCA visitors may well agree; most will not.

The Museum of Contemporary Art, 250 South Grand Ave. Tel: +1 (213) 626-6222. Open: Mon, Fri 11am-5pm; Thurs 11am-8pm; Sat 11am-midnight; Sun 11am-6pm. Entry: $8. For more information visit the museum’s website.

More from the Los Angeles cultural calendar