Long time city observer and CCN friend Joel Kotkin writes an insightful must read piece in the LA Times on mistakes made in Los Angeles and the focus of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's efforts to build "elegant density". Kotkin, never afraid to declare "The emperor has no clothes" -- calls out some interesting statistics in making the case that not enough focus exists on the part of Mayors in 'non-real estate related economies." Take a read for yourself:
"Ever since his election in 2005, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has been portrayed as a political comer with a future that possibly included the governorship. As soon as he entered office, he launched an impressive succession of "bold" initiatives -- among them, to make the Los Angeles Police Department a 10,000-cop force, to "green" the port of Los Angeles, to improve the academic scores of some of L.A. Unified's worst-performing schools. Until the real estate bubble burst, he oversaw a building boom downtown and elsewhere, casting himself as a visionary re-creating L.A. as a model of "elegant density."
"But when it came to that part of the city's economy not connected to real estate, Villaraigosa might be compared to Emperor Nero. As the city has continued to lose thousands of middle-class jobs in aerospace, manufacturing and high-end business services since 2005, Villaraigosa has basically stood by and fiddled. From February 2007 to February 2008, the county suffered the biggest percentage of job losses-- 0.7% -- of the 10 largest metropolitan areas in the country, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' most recent report."
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