Historic Move

We Southern Californians are a heedless lot, so busy becoming something else that we seldom recall what it was we used to be. We have dealt ruthlessly with this region’s physical environment and just as cruelly with the works of men who came before us.

That is why the proposal by Los Angeles City Council members Gloria Molina and Joel Wachs to appoint an administrator to watch over L.A.’s 430 historical landmarks has a symbolic importance that extends beyond the city’s boundaries.

For an individual, coming to terms with memory is the path to sanity; for a people, it is the essential step to responsibility. We cannot restore our natural setting to what it was. There never again will be steelhead in the Santa Ana River or oak forests on the hillsides of the San Fernando Valley.

We can, however, do something to preserve the historical riches of our built environment, even if doing so is inconvenient or costly. In a place where nothing but profits matter, everyone is poor.