Other View of Gardena

Your article on the city of Gardena (At Home, Jan. 21, by Evelyn De Wolfe) only presented one view of the city.

While the city is approximately ethnically balanced, there is not a great deal of positive interaction among all the ethnicities. I should know. I have been through the junior high school and high school, and there is quite a lot of racial tension among the students.

The city is no longer an ideal place to raise a family, as the city has few “family-oriented” activities. There is no city youth center like most cities have, and enrollment in Gardena’s schools has dropped dramatically over the last 15 years, as many families with school-age children have moved out and not as many have moved in to fill their places.

Gardena was probably a better place with everyone as country hicks.

The 1980s have transformed the city into something that most urban centers and central cities face: plugged-up streets with massive traffic jams, high-density living conditions, problematic public schools, old abandoned buildings, crime problems and being part of a region that the Air Quality Management District identifies as having the second-highest level of carbon monoxide pollutant levels in all of the South Coast Air Basin.

Many who grow up here now, such as myself, have as one of their greatest ambitions the desire to move out of the city into more of a quality living area, suitable for settling down and raising families in the future, without having to confront the horrendous problems that the city now faces on a day-to-day basis.

JASON BURGER

Gardena