Notes on a Buried Hatchet

Last month a Los Angeles-born doctor wrote an op-ed piece for the San Francisco Chronicle. Katherine Dowling explained, in the snippiest of tones, why she was happy to be returning home after a three-year stint in San Francisco, which she described as a “land of political correctness and victim angst.”

Northern Californians, Dowling wrote, “have many a time condescendingly complimented me on my good fortune in having moved up here, asking unctuously to verify how thrilling it is. When I say that I’d give the world to be back in Los Angeles, I’m greeted with either speechlessness or the implication that the smog has probably rendered me a bit addle-brained. Then I’ll be accused of stealing water. . . .

“We have our riots, earthquakes, floods, fires, gang warfare down south, but even cholos hold doors open for little old ladies, and strangers usually return your smile. Babies are valued as the future, not seen as environmental interlopers. . . . So I’m going home. Don’t forget to send me your water.”

As such pieces go, this was a masterful bit of municipal rabble-rousing. In a way, it was reminiscent of the fantastic mortar shots that, a generation ago, columnists Herb Caen and Jack Smith lobbed up and down the coastal corridor. What was most fascinating, however, was the reaction. There were a couple of dutiful “good riddance” letters printed in the Chronicle, but that was it. Essentially San Francisco went prone, raising the question:

What fun is there in kicking around a city that won’t kick back?

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This is being written on the eve of a crucial two-game series here between the San Francisco Giants and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Not too long ago San Franciscans would have seized this opportunity to indulge in their infamous hatred of what the late, great Caen called that “wasted vastland” to the south. They would have filled the airwaves and newspaper columns with snide zingers about la la land and Mickey Mouse culture and stolen water.

Returning the fire, Angelenos might have reminded San Francisco that it simply no longer matters, that all the money, all the momentum and all the movie stars long ago set up camp south of the Tehachapis. Yes, they could retort, we not only stole your water, we also stole your commerce. Hahahaha.

What fun.

Alas, it is not to be. Only baseball fans have shown any interest in the showdown that begins tonight on Candlestick Point. Annoyingly enough, they insist on keeping the series in perspective: It’s only about baseball, not warring cities. A conclusion seems in order: The fire has gone out of a great intercity rivalry, and like the singer sang, there’s nothing cold as ashes, after the fire is gone. . . .

It did enjoy a remarkable run. More than a century ago, San Franciscans were cracking jokes about Los Angeles “pikes,” slothful predecessors of the so-called trailer trash of today. The attacks picked up in the early 1960s, after tourism emerged as San Francisco’s essential economic element, replacing the port. Recalled Kevin Starr, the California historian: “San Francisco saw itself becoming this boutique city, and it began to get more and more anxiety-ridden about the Chicago to the south.”

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The feud probably peaked in 1982 with the north-south split over the Peripheral Canal. Around the same time, Joe Montana and the 49ers started routinely whipping on the Rams. The Raiders moved south, and so did the big banks. The Silicon Valley exploded. So did L.A.’s entertainment industry. In the end, a sort of balance of power was achieved, dulling the debate’s edge.

Something bigger also was subtly at work. Year in, year out, Angelenos scattered throughout California, backyard insurgents flocking to the Sierra foothills, the Central Valley towns and, yes, the San Francisco Bay Area. In fiscal year 1995-96, the last for which state records are available, nearly 200,000 adults moved from L.A. County to elsewhere in California. About half as many Californians made the opposite move.

Moving company studies have shown more people transfer between Los Angeles and San Francisco than between any other pair of U.S. cities. Similarly, the L.A.-S.F. air corridor for years has ranked among the most traveled in the land. With all this shifting about, it’s inevitable that the gene pool for inner-city animosities has become diluted. All California is becoming Los Angeles--or, perhaps better put, Los Angeles and San Francisco, along with San Jose, San Diego, Sacramento and the rest, are melding into one big city. Call it California.

Pick a theory, any theory. In any case, the rivalry is dead. In truth, it always was a media creation, and it will be mourned mainly by newspaper columnists who valued it as fodder for a slow day. Not that yours truly ever would succumb to such temptations.