In Paradise, No One Can Hear You Scream

Frances Bloom is on the balcony of her Playa del Rey beach house, on the brink of the millennium, next door to the hub of the Pacific Rim. For someone in such a vaunted position, she looks pretty casual, just warmups and a purple sweatshirt, though she does have on lipstick and her hair has been nicely done.

Perhaps you’re wondering what it feels like to be poised on the brink of a hub. Let’s yell up from the sunny sidewalk: Hey, Frances! How does it feel?

She opens her mouth, but then sees something.

“Wait!” she politely calls down. And then here it comes, the future, which, brinkside, looks a lot like a jumbo jet auguring in for a landing at the hub, also known as LAX.

VVVRRRROOOOAARRRRRRR!!!

“What’d you say?”

Frances! How does it . . .

VVVRRRROOOOAARRRRRRR!!!

“I’m sorry?”

How does it feel to live just down the road from a millennial hub like Los Angeles International Airport? How does it feel to know that the mayor of L.A. is talking about expanding it to the tune of 90 million passengers and 72,000 jobs?

Frances says something, but it’s drowned out by another mighty VVVRRRROOOOAARRRRRRR!!! Think of a hundred leaf blowers aimed at your head.

What’s that, Frances?

“I SAID, THE TRAFFIC IS JUST TERRIBLE!” Frances hollers from the balcony, “BUT OTHERWISE, IT’S NOT SO BAD!”

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Southern Californians are an amazing breed, walking proof that you can get used to all sorts of hell if the payoff is right. Not that you won’t do all you can to minimize the downside, but in the end, you understand: There are trade-offs. Paradise has its price.

This spring, the talk of hell-minimization has been directed at the region’s future as a font of jobs and growth and international trade. Specifically, it has been determined that now is the time to poise ourselves to be the hub of the Pacific Rim, and that means someone, somewhere needs to make room for a lot more planes.

This is not necessarily unwelcome news. For those who stand to benefit from new construction and business, the talk of getting poised, being a hub, etc., is a lovely sound. In Orange County, where land speculation is a time-honored tradition, for instance, there has been much rumbling over who stands to benefit should a proposed international airport in El Toro get off the ground.

People in Palmdale are reportedly itching for the chance to ratchet their windblown little airport up into the commercial big leagues and simultaneously give the locals a place to work that doesn’t involve a four-hour commute. Similar interest has also been generated around the former Norton Air Force Base out in San Bernardino and March Air Force Base in Riverside.

Meanwhile, at LAX, which is handling half again as many passengers as the 40 million or so it was meant to handle, the press to jam still more huddled masses through its burgeoning gates is already underway. On one hand, there is Mayor Riordan talking hubs of the millennium; on the other, there are the neighbors, most of whom are substantially less resigned to progress than the folks of Playa del Rey.

But Playa del Rey is interesting, in that, down the beach from Frances Bloom’s balcony, there is an object lesson: a big empty spot where a bunch of houses once stood on a little rise. One day in the 1960s, the airport noise became deafening, and it became the airport or the houses. And Playa del Rey learned firsthand how these trade-offs tend to go in paradise.

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From Frances Bloom’s balcony, the April morning is sun-kissed and lovely. The sky is a royal blue against the red tile roofs. The air is fresh with sea spray and there is the smell of suntan lotion. If you breathe deeply, you can almost forget the Westside gridlock you had to endure to make it here.

In the intervals between airplanes, Frances Bloom counts the ways she loves the place where she has settled: the sunsets, the ocean breezes, the way the planes thrill her grandson, who is 3. She pauses, and for a long moment, there is suddenly quiet. A bird, a wind chime, the rustle of bougainvillea, the whoosh of the waves. It is bliss, and you think: If it weren’t for all those hub-of-the-millennium airplanes, this would be the sort of paradise a person would want to save.

But then, a hum. And you brace yourself for the sound of post-recession Southern California, poised at the start of--ah, Paradise!--another boom. And the clouds part, and there it is, the trade-off. Incoming.

“What’s not to love?” yells Frances Bloom.

Shawn Hubler’s e-mail address is shawn.hubler@latimes.com