No Crime or Traffic on Children’s Blueprint for Ideal City

The cures to some of the worst urban ills in Los Angeles--traffic, crime and poverty--have eluded politicians, bureaucrats and academics for generations.

On Saturday, a new generation took a crack at the challenges of city life, as junior high students from across the Southland gathered to share ideas on the city of the future at the California Science Center.

Using computers, glue, engineering books and their brains, children from 10 schools presented their vision of the urban hereafter. Some called for communities free of traffic.

A few jokingly called for free fast food. Nearly all of the young urban planners found plenty to criticize in the cities of the present.

“We called our city Peace City because my friends and I agreed we wanted to work together to make it a safe place to live,” said Ta’Tyana McElroy, a student at Bret Harte Preparatory Middle School in South-Central Los Angeles. “It’s not like L.A., where we have lots of hatred and people don’t like each other.”

The event, which drew students of widely varied backgrounds, provided an interesting window into the lives and concerns of children from different social classes and neighborhoods.

“The great thing about this sort of learning is that you get to see how these youngsters are seeing their own communities,” said Leonard Mitchell, director of the Center for Economic Development in the School of Urban Planning at USC.

“You know, many kids see a lot of the same challenges, but they have real different ideas of how to solve them. ‘Quality of life’ means something different to each of these kids.”

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For example, high crime was a problem almost all students hoped to eradicate in their future cities. But while some students packed their towns with jails and police departments, students from Bret Harte envision tight-knit communities where neighbors take care of one another as the key to safer streets.

“There are expensive homes, but lots of low-income homes too so no one has to be homeless. There are shelters, and rec centers for people to spend time in,” said Rosa Johnson, a member of the Bret Harte team and a creator of Peace City.

While three security-minded students from Sequoia Middle School in Fontana proposed retina scans to enter buildings, Johnson and her friends would suspend pay for police officers who discriminate or use unnecessary force.

Although students broadened their visions well beyond the engineering aspects of city planning, they were required to create computer and physical models. Short essays accompanied each project.

The team from Oak Avenue Intermediate School in Temple City planned for clear sidewalks that allowed sunlight to power the extensive subway system below.

The high-tech city of Brome would use people movers, renewable energy sources and would outlaw private vehicles in most parts of town.

“Compared to L.A., there’s basically no pollution in Brome,” said William Cheng, 13.

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The students from Nightingale Middle School in Los Angeles called their city Green Day and filled it with parks, water and public transit.

After hearing a presentation on the merits of Brome from Oak Avenue Intermediate School, State Assemblyman Carl Washington (D-Paramount) leaned back in his chair, smiled, and said, “I’d like to be the mayor of a city like that.”