QUALITY OF LIFE IN THE VALLEY : Roger Greaves, health executive

“There’s more hustle and bustle here now. The center of gravity of commerce has shifted to include the Valley in its own right. I find it a more exciting and innovative place to be. There are cultural activities, the business and industry is incredibly complex. I don’t have to go downtown to stay in touch anymore. Mayor Bradley comes out here to visit now and so do the other politicians.

“I also see the kind of people that you want to see: energetic people out in the morning, getting exercise and taking care of themselves. I love that. I found myself able to, in this environment, take the time to get the proper amount of exercise. The San Fernando Valley lends itself to that. It still has the rural flavor to it.

“I’m only 15 minutes to work. I can get out in the morning and run, which I had trouble doing when I lived in other communities.

“My neighborhood has improved. It’s a wonderful place. There’s more population in the area, but that’s been good for the neighborhood. There have been changes that some people didn’t like, but I see that there are more people, a more diverse mix of people, but there are still horses too. You just have everything here that you need--malls, every variety of restaurant exists in the San Fernando Valley.

“There are some aspects of the change that I’ve been a little disappointed in. The city center concept was a wonderful idea--high-rise city centers where people live, work and exercise. I’d like to see that revisited. Century City is an example of that. And we would have in between those centers wide greenbelts, all connected by rapid transit. A major mistake we have made is not continuing rapid transit and the funding for it as a regular part of our agenda. There’s a political leadership issue there and there’s also the priorities of the population--we’ve voted against rapid transit over the years.

“Los Angeles business should be contained within the boundaries of Los Angeles, instead of being told, ‘no, you can’t build here’ and so they end up in Ventura County instead and we lose the revenues but still have the people and the traffic. It makes more sense for people to live close to where they work; I know because I’ve been doing it a number of years.”