Ignoring Ecology Won’t Save L.A.
James Flanigan’s column, “Can L.A. Answer Cry for Economic Equality” (May 3), struck me as outrageously irresponsible and myopic.
Voters with “a fondness for anti-growth initiatives (he meant slow-growth) to protect the environment or property values or quality of life” are derisively censured for everything from driving away industry to declining home prices.
Los Angeles is one of the filthiest cities in the United States. For too long industry and development had their way with us--dumping, polluting, congesting, building whatever they wanted as big as they wanted--making progress a four-letter word.
Let’s hear it for the businesses that, instead of begging for reprieves, responded to the challenge by cleaning up their acts and remaining prosperous. They hired consultants instead of lobbyists. Many now save millions of dollars a year.
They use energy more efficiently and minimize packaging. They recycle and reuse to save landfill space. They are resourceful rather than stubborn. They don’t ridicule those who want a decent quality of life because they do too. And they stay. That’s progress!
Flanigan makes a valid point for training people to fill needed jobs, as they do in the Carolinas. He wants us to learn from the fact that our industries are fleeing to the “receptive” Carolinas (to wreck their environment).
Job training and retraining for all ages is exemplary. Our city could lower unemployment significantly by “recycling” aerospace-defense engineers to do the massive task of rehabilitating the beautiful city we all long for.
Youths could be trained creatively in fields that support constructive endeavors. This doesn’t have to be a fantasy. The potential to create jobs that repair is limited only by a lack of vision by the leadership.
One thing is indisputable: It is counterproductive in every way--especially economically--to waive environmental standards in order to keep and attract the very industries that are destroying us.
CAROLE LYNN KENNEY
Pacific Palisades
