Secession Efforts Are Part of an American Activist Tradition

The famous old song “Hooray for Hollywood” extols the community as a place where “any office boy or young mechanic” can realize his dreams.

Recently, Hollywood became a dream factory again--not for movie stars but for average citizens all over Los Angeles who imagine living in a city that works and that works for them. The announcement that the Hollywood independence movement had generated more than enough signatures to trigger a study of cityhood was a landmark moment for all of Los Angeles.

It now appears likely that the 2002 ballot will present the possibility of creating four cities out of what is now Los Angeles: one in the San Fernando Valley, one in Hollywood, one in the Harbor area and a smaller, more manageable Los Angeles. This would clearly be a break from the status quo. But it would also give a break to people all over the city who are fed up with Los Angeles’ distant bureaucracies, arrogant elites, burdensome taxes and inadequate services.

The independence drives emerging across Los Angeles are part of a proud American tradition of citizen social movements. Like women’s suffrage or civil rights, these independence movements come down to one central impulse: the right of people to control their own destiny. In Los Angeles, this is almost impossible. The present boundaries of the city of Los Angeles make it bigger than the combined size of St. Louis, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Minneapolis, Boston, San Francisco, Pittsburgh and Manhattan. This gargantuan entity is simply too large for citizens to control.

The natural outgrowth of a city this size is that areas without political power--either because of their distance from the downtown power center or their racially diverse populations--are overlooked and underserved; their concerns are ignored and their values are scorned. This is not the sinister plot of some malicious mastermind. It is not a management problem that can be solved with new leadership. It is the inherent result of a city too large to be controlled by anybody but the most powerful. That’s why--contrary to the impression conveyed by independence opponents--the areas that are pushing hardest for a breakup of Los Angeles are some of the poorest and most racially diverse parts of the city.

The San Pedro / Willmington Harbor area is more than 55% minority and a federally designated poverty zone. Hollywood is famous for welcoming people from all different backgrounds and colors. The leading edge of the drive for Valley independence comes from the economically struggling northeast Valley. In fact, 54% of registered voters in the largely Latino area of Pacoima signed the petition requesting a study of Valley independence--the highest percentage of any neighborhood in the Valley.

Finally, more and more community leaders in Los Angeles are coming to the conclusion that a smaller city would provide more representation and better services to its residents. None of this should be surprising. After all, these are individuals who routinely get the short end of the stick. While more prosperous areas such as Brentwood get their share of services, these other parts of the city have to deal with poorly paved roads and graffiti-covered parks, with inadequate police and fire department responses and with unresponsive bureaucrats that express only disdain and disrespect.

*

Any change of this magnitude will naturally raise questions in the minds of local residents about how this change will affect them. That’s why state law mandates that an impartial Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) undertake a comprehensive analysis of the effects of creating new cities. This study will be completed by June 2001, long before the issue goes to a vote. State law mandates something else that is just as important. It says that independence cannot be placed on the ballot unless it is “revenue neutral.” That means that neither the new cities nor the new smaller Los Angeles would be financially hurt. The independence movements are about moving forward, not about leaving any area behind.

Everywhere we look, it is clear that the 20th century way of doing business--big, centralized, hierarchical, top-down institutions--is being consigned to the dust bin of history. Today’s cutting edge ideas are decentralization and empowerment. We see this with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the birth of the World Wide Web.

All over the city, men and women of good faith are casting aside years of cynicism and doubt and expressing the hope that these same ideas can be applied to our communities. This crusade is one that is picking up steam and support with each passing day. It is a crusade that will give all of us cities in which the people are in control, cities of our own, cities that work. That’s something for which we can all say hooray.