It’s like someone poured bleach on LaBrea

I wanted doughnuts. It’s a Saturday thing I sometimes do. I go to Blue Star on Sunset. They were closed — the sewer system backed up into their store and was flooding the patio. This was my first sign that I needed to turn around and go home. I decided instead to go to Kettle Glazed. Both are good but the doughnuts at Blue Star are like $3.50 each and the best you’ve ever, ever had. Kettle Glazed are a less eye watering $1. Remember when doughnuts were twenty five cents? I digress. I started down Franklin but a car was flipped over blocking the Westbound lanes. There was gas everywhere and police cruisers (I guess they only use SUV’s now?) blocking traffic. I diverted down to Hollywood and HOLY HELL what happened to Hollywood? We appear to have only two poles of existence: scion of a Chinese billionaire attending school in LA or Mad Max Homeless Camp Dweller. There were HUGE NEW CONDOS everywhere that had sprouted up like mushrooms during the last ten months of lockdown. The roads had all been resurfaced and every square inch of sidewalk or underpass was crowded with homeless camps.

I got my doughnuts and decided to go for a little drive. I’d not really been anywhere in LA in the last 1o months other than my corner of Silver Lake. Heading South on LaBrea it looked like it had been bleached. Every storefront boarded up. No signage as every business had gone under months ago. No advertisements on the billboards. Everything was white or gray. Every restaurant, gone. Every clothing shop gone. GONE. The only thing operating (at full speed) was the concrete factory presumably pumping out materials for the CONDOS going up along LaBrea. A Chevy dealership replaced by condos. A prop warehouse replaced by condos. Who lives in these condos? Is this like what happened to South Kensington in London? All the beautiful townhomes sold to Chinese, Russian and Saudi billionaires as portfolio options, kept empty and left to rot — turning the neighborhood into an abstraction and a ghost town?

I hung a left on Wilshire. More CONDOS along the new subway line. Empty storefronts and tipped over scooters everywhere. Homeless women with glazed eyes darted in and out of traffic — totally unconcerned about the cars. Yes, even in this ghost town of Los Angeles there’s still traffic somehow. Where were they all going? Where was I going? I was visiting a city I’d lived in for 26 years and yet a city I’d never seen before. How did we get here? Oh right, I know full well how we got here:

1. In 1978 Governor Reagan signs Prop 13 into law, freezing property taxes for the citizens of California. California at the time has the number one school system in the United States — including free college tuition for CA residents.
2. Over the next two decades, California’s school system drops to 50th in the nation due to lack of funding.
3. Meanwhile, California real estate becomes an attractive investment because of low property taxes. As a result home prices skyrocket.
4. Those able to buy houses are reluctant to sell knowing they’ll be unlikely to afford a replacement. This further drives prices sky high.
5. The crash of 2005 forces millions into eviction. Prices dip less in California than elsewhere. Those who lose housing during this time become permanently homeless or leave the state. California begins giving homeless population one-way bus tickets out of the state.
6. Property lost during the crash is flipped and turned into luxury property — raising prices further.
7. By 2015, Los Angeles City government representatives, far from being the socialists you’d imagine if you watch Fox News, are all funded by real estate developers. Laws pass making it easier to build high density housing under the guise of increasing housing stock. Nearly 95% of all new housing stock built in Los Angeles are high end luxury units priced over $1 million. Here’s where the actual communists come in: Chinese Investors buy these units, further escalating price inflation. Condos sit empty, representing blocks of cash. Homelessness in Los Angeles reaches 40,000.
8. 2016 flaming sack of sentient dog shit gets elected. Immediately begins terrorizing cities with ICE raids. Further economic policy exacerbates the homelessness problem. Blue states lose their state income tax write-offs, increasing taxes on homeowners. Any efforts to dislodge prop 13 meet with failure.
9. 2020 Pandemic and economic crash, compounded by criminal presidential and Republican Congressional mismanagement, force millions more into homelessness. Homelessness in Los Angeles reaches 60,000.
10. Summer of protests results in remaining shops boarding up or closing altogether, giving the city an abandoned feeling. Only large retail chains remain.

Merry Christmas!