City and Suburb Can Be a Community

The secession of the San Fernando Valley would fundamentally alter Los Angeles’ signal contribution to the conduct of race relations. To an unusual degree for a major city, Los Angeles’ structure requires those who represent the inner city to come to terms with those who represent suburbia, and vice versa. While the relationship is often distant and uncomfortable, and at times filled with severe conflict, it is a relationship. That is all too rare in our society today.

Separating the interests of inner-city residents and suburbanites has been a major goal of conservative Republicans. To the extent that suburbanites feel that the problems of race and class have little to do with them, Republicans can help stigmatize the inner city as the “other.” Republicans have been able to gut social programs that are often portrayed as helping an undeserving “them.” Republican state legislators gleefully stoke the fires of secession, just as Republicans nationally have tried to turn broad social programs into means-tested poverty programs. They must enjoy the discomfort of Democratic legislators (if not that of their fellow Republican Mayor Richard Riordan) who want to hold the city together while responding to the alienation of the Valley.

If the Valley secedes from Los Angeles, those who would run the nation’s new sixth-largest city would see no reason to be involved in revitalizing the inner city. And those who represented the inner city, more powerful at City Hall under a smaller, Valley-less city, would have no incentive to understand and reach accommodations with the Valley. There would be no more Tom Bradleys, black mayors able to cross barriers of race and class, and no more Richard Riordans, Republicans who are spending resources in the inner city. There would be no more daily professional contact between City Council members representing such different communities.

Tom Bradley was a child of the inner city who built a biracial coalition with the liberal Westside. The Valley was his weakest base of support, but through determined effort he reduced Valley opposition. Over the years, he increased Valley representation on his city commissions. In his 1985 reelection, he won all 15 City Council districts, finally winning the Republican 12th District in the northwest Valley.

Riordan received his strongest electoral backing from the Valley, and he has feuded endlessly with black leaders. But almost unnoticed because of these conflicts, Riordan has actively pursued inner-city development. With the help of the Clinton administration, Riordan now has an opportunity to make dramatic improvements in the economic standing of South-Central and the Eastside. Even with all his political problems in South-Central, Riordan (who had long been active with inner-city schools) cannot write the area off as “the other,” any more than Bradley could or would dismiss the Valley as “racist suburbia.”

Those who favor progressive policies ought to fight secession, but not because the city needs the Valley’s tax money. The more important reason is that we cannot squander the unique opportunity for social learning that municipal union has offered. But efforts must be redoubled to use that opportunity well. We have allowed media and entertainment images to define both the Valley and the inner city for us.

With common membership in a big community, social learning is possible. For example, the secession movement has made people outside the Valley understand that the Valley is a more urban and diverse community than most had imagined; it is not just “white middle-class suburbia.” There is a very substantial minority population, mostly Latino and Asian American, a high level of urbanization and a great concern over the quality of community life.

The same level of social learning should take place about the inner city, which is often described as the sum total of its well-known social pathologies. The highly diverse South-Central and the heavily Latino Eastside are places with many long-established homeowners, hardworking families, community resistance to such social blights as liquor stores, and community organizations seeking “wise growth” rather than growth at all costs.

While Los Angeles still remains intact, we should accomplish as much of this social learning as we can. As people recognize echoes of their own problems in the lives of people in far reaches of the city, we will have a better chance of solving community problems. We might even find that such mutual curiosity can help forestall or prevent civil unrest in the inner city and secession movements in the Valley.