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Today in his LA Times column, Steve Lopez takes a look at Chicago--who beat us out for the 2016 Olympics, no less--and wonders if Los Angeles can use the "Windy City" as a "role model" for a better way of living and running a metropolis. He asks three pointed questions of direct comparison:
But why does a city that's under ice half the year have a better system of bike lanes, not to mention a bike-riding mayor, while Villaraigosa has a deputy mayor for transportation who dopes around L.A. in his Hummer?Ultimately, Lopez sees the core issue as being how the mayor of each city uses its resources and works to better the lives of their constituents, and introduces a wish to implement "an exchange program in which we trade Villaraigosa for Daley and see what happens." He says we need a leader who can better inspire and muscle Angelenos. But Lopez's questions seem to lead only to more questions, and not real solutions.Why has Chicago more aggressively improved full public access to lake and river, two of its greatest natural assets, while L.A. never gets anywhere with river development and didn't have the sense or leadership to build a western rail line all the way to the airport, let alone the beach, despite crippling traffic?
Why was Daley able to take over all of his city's ailing schools while a beaten-back Villaraigosa, after promising something grand, had to settle for a measly few campuses?
Are we right to point to Villaraigosa for the multiple failings of the behemoth LAUSD, the decades of counterproductive inaction and underdevelopment of our transit system and the LA River, and for his staff member who has the poor sense to drive a vehicle wholly representative of conspicuous consumption? Would Chicago's Mayor Daley, inheritor to a political bloodline and of his father's legacy as the "boss"-style mayor who ran the city under the auspices of corruption, be any more effectual than Villaraigosa? What keeps Los Angeles and its "systems" from serving the people well?
Our city has its own legacy of progressive politics, big-business mindset and domination, sprawling de-centered development, corruption, and community action, along with our reputation as a laid-back mecca of celebrity and bounty. It seems we're rather far-gone in the consequences of our own history--too far-gone to point at one fairly powerless person in our present as the source of our failure.
We don't need to fantasize about what Chicago's Mayor Daley could do for LA, but rather we should all look at ourselves and our city and figure out what we all can do to make life here better. Just before reverting back to his Daley-for-Villaraigosa trade idea, Lopez mentions Ron Kaye, who is working on "a July 14 rally at City Hall for something that's being called the Saving L.A. Project" (yes, S.L.A.P.). Kaye is quoted as explaining the event and group as follows: "The slogan is to take back Los Angeles, to demand a great city [...] There's a group of community activists who want great bike paths and great schools and want to live in a great city that's the equal of our climate."
The Saving L.A. Project seems to directly answer everyone's questions when it comes down to what's wrong and how to fix it: While we need great leaders, we need each other more.
Photo by kla4067 via Flickr
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the problem seems obvious to me, Villaraigosa is all talk. he has been since the beginning. And as much as I love a good rally, the best thing that could happen is to end some of these "lifetime" appointments in our city's government. Why should these city council members actually do anything when it seems they are never really challenged for their positions?
I LOVE LA!
Richard M. Daley has been Mayor of Chicago the majority of my life (I grew up just outside of the city and he started in 1989 and still is Mayor).
To Mayor Villaraigosa's defense, In 1995, Daley gained control of the schools. That's six years since he became mayor. Let's see if Mayor V can do that in his second round of being mayor... that is, if he gets elected next year.
It's not that easy to just take over a school district. I believe the mayor, whoever it be now and in the future, should have control over the schools. Right now, 11,000 or so people make the decision of who should be on the school board. Accountability is very low. If the schools are failing and the mayor is in control, it's easy to know who to hold accountable and where to protest every year on July 14.
Excellent points, Zach. The LAUSD is so colossally overextended in its scope, reach, resources, credibility that I think it would take a miracle to fix it, not one person stepping in decades after it began to unravel. I wish they could detangle the politics, focus on who is really suffering (the kids), and really break the district in to separate, smaller, more manageable districts--the breakdown now still stems from its rotten root. But of course, this is all another post altogether...don't get me started! :)
There is a key difference between the Chicago and L.A. school situation - in Chicago the school district boundaries match the city boundaries, while in L.A. the school district boundaries encompass more than just the city of L.A. In the former case, mayoral takeover was relatively easy due to the boundary matching, while in the latter it is rather difficult because the mayors of the other cities represented in LAUSD would have to cede power to allow L.A.'s mayor to take over LAUSD, which, in turn, would disenfranchise those who don't live in the city of L.A. And that doesn't even to get into the issue of the elected school board in L.A.
Chicago is in some ways lucky to have a mayor who believes serving his city is the greatest job in the world and has no aspirations for higher office. I daresay our mayor has his eye on a bigger prize and doesn't have the long-term commitment to change nor the political capital to spare that someone like Daley has. Though to be fair, Daley didn't really takeover the school district so much as the IL legislature foisted it upon him by giving him the power to appoint the superintendent and the school board.
But really, Chicago isn't even the best example of mayoral takeover of schools working. If you want to see success, look at Boston and what Bloomberg has done in NYC. Both are better case studies for what Mayor V. should do if he is really serious about reforming our schools. Sadly I don't think he is serious.
Not to rub salt in the wounds, but the head of the Chicago Transit Authority, Ron Huberman, rides the system daily for his commute.
Or look at San Francisco. Why does a city that's roughly seven miles on a side have such poor bike lanes? Why do we have a terrible, poorly-run public transit system in a town where plenty of people don't own cars and driving (and even worse, parking) are nearly impossible? Why, in a very dense city that relies heavily on public transit do we not have a functional subway system instead having one roughly on par with LA (if that) and almost entirely above-ground where it has to fight with traffic? Our smartcard system (though it covers a very wide array of region-wide transit providers) has been in the works for six years at this point and it still isn't launched (though it does work unofficially in some cases).
Of course, our mayor is now a gubernatorial candidate who loves to take credit for other people's work, bulk up his own staff at others expense... and won a re-election by a massive majority last year after entering rehab for alcoholism and sleeping with a staffer who is also a friend's wife.
So, while I love SF, look north once in a while where I'll be standing around in our 60 degree summer weather and waiting 20 minutes for a bus that'll take an hour to go seven miles across town. Things could definitely be worse.