Rebuilding L.A.: Trickle-Down vs. Trickle-Up

When Assemblyman Curtis R. Tucker Jr. introduced a post-riot aid bill for the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency last year, he thought he was doing a favor for the old hometown.

The proposal, backed by Mayor Tom Bradley, would have chopped about 18 months off the time it now takes to start a redevelopment project by weakening environmental controls and other limitations.

Tucker figured the bill might begin an economic revival in his district, which encompasses Inglewood but also includes part of the South L.A. riot area. It turned out, however, that the assemblyman was letting himself in for a lot of trouble.

State law gives the CRA the power of eminent domain, permitting it to force property owners to sell land at fair market value. The CRA then sells the land to developers at cut-rate prices. The developers put up office buildings, malls, housing and other projects.

What Tucker didn’t realize was that the CRA muscle has created enemies. An earlier CRA proposal for Watts touched off a homeowners rebellion. The homeowners knew the CRA is one of the few agencies in L.A.’s weak and splintered government with real muscle.

“I knew there was a credibility problem with the CRA,” Tucker told me when we talked in his Capitol office Wednesday. “But I thought I could convince the community to support (the plan).” He failed. Community activists, aware of the danger, flew to Sacramento to protest. They poured into Tucker’s Inglewood office. Suddenly, Tucker was hot news, but not in a way he liked. He dropped his support and the bill died.

But Tucker believes his district still needed help. So he proposed a redevelopment bill of his own. This bill has intensified a growing dispute over the best way to rebuild post-riot L.A.

To comprehend Tucker’ strategy, you have to understand what the CRA is up to.

The Community Redevelopment Agency carries out Mayor Tom Bradley’s policy of trickle-down economics.

The mayor believes that corporate high-rises, built on cheap CRA land, generate business and jobs that trickle down to the poorest parts of the community. His pride is downtown L.A., an achievement presently dimmed by the high vacancy rate in CRA-sponsored high-rises.

The homeowners who protested to Tucker are proponents of trickle-up economics.

As they see it, the many single-family residential homes in South-Central Los Angeles provide a neighborhood strength and stability that is often overlooked by news media more fascinated with gangs and violence. The residents want to rebuild L.A. from the bottom up.

I spent a morning with about a dozen of them late last year, as opposition to the CRA’s riot relief bill was growing. The men and women were mostly African-Americans who had lived in South-Central L.A. for many years.

Their fear was that the bill would allow the CRA to initiate eminent domain proceedings in South-Central L.A., wiping out residential neighborhoods to make way for huge industrial parks in the Bradley trickle-down mode.

Although it might seem preposterous to those whose only knowledge of South-Central L.A. comes from watching and reading news of the gangs, the area has great potential for industrial development.

Two freeways run through the area, the Harbor and the Century, which is under construction. The Blue Line train now serves South-Central L.A. In a few years, the Green Line will be running. Just a few miles away are downtown L.A., Los Angeles International Airport, the Southeastern Los Angeles County industrial area and the harbor.

If “location, location, location” is Southland real estate’s guiding principle, then South-Central L.A. could be a winner. It’s easy to see why the homeowners were nervous about the future.

Tucker’s new bill threads a path between the trickle-down and trickle-up views. It creates a new agency that funnels downtown Los Angeles redevelopment funds into South-Central L.A. It would also create resident committees that would have the power to stop eminent domain proceedings for unpopular projects.

The redevelopment agency has learned from its defeat. “We will listen to each community to see how it wants to implement its redevelopment project,” said CRA chief Ed Avila. But he stopped short of promising the residents veto power.

Tucker knows better than to believe that South-Central L.A.’s prosperity can just trickle up from the neighborhoods.

But after receiving a painful lesson at the hands of the area’s homeowners, he also knows that old and stable residential neighborhoods can’t be sacrificed to developers under the cover of rebuilding L.A.