Look Ahead, Cleareyed

In discussing the end of the 20th century and the dawning of the 21st, one claim reliably persists: The 20th century belonged to New York and the 21st belongs to Los Angeles.

People throughout the world will watch to see how well Los Angeles succeeds in its great experiment. But comparison of Los Angeles in the 21st century with New York in the 20th is simplistic. We’re not the first to say this, but it’s worth underscoring: New York at the turn of the 20th century was the magnet for largely European immigrants pouring into the United States; many immigrant children never attended school and were not expected to raise their station in life. In Los Angeles now, the ambitious and proper goal is to formally educate all children--700,000 youngsters who represent 82 languages and dialects across the Los Angeles Unified School District.

There simply is no blueprint for what Southern California is attempting. Image and reality have always been at odds here, and not just in the movies: We have a multibillion-dollar bus and rail system that is mass transit in name only. We have an increasingly Latino and Asian population, while whites and African Americans continue to hold power at the voting booth. We have a public school district that routinely produces academic decathlon winners while also producing a student population in which more than half can’t do work at grade level. And unlike New York, where the screaming tabloid headlines are a reflection of the metropolis’ boisterous and bare-fisted political culture, Southern California prefers the appearance of peace even when eruptions await just below the surface.

That preference for at least the appearance of civility makes it hard for us when confrontation is unavoidable, as it was in one of the region’s big political traumas last year, the ouster of LAUSD Supt. Ruben Zacarias, now departing. For all the ham-handed moves of the school board and ethnic grandstanding by some politicians, what mattered was that parents of all backgrounds were unhappy with the performance of the public schools. So there was a political quake of sorts when an impatient reform-minded board took dramatic steps to speed up fundamental changes. We’re still feeling the aftershocks, and as we look ahead to more district changes that surely will occur, to a mayor’s race next year, to other shifts from the status quo, we should be prepared. It won’t be easy.

Los Angeles has always been a place that more people came to than came from. Once it was populated largely by former Midwesterners and Southerners, who joined the Mexican Americans who were here all along; now the newcomers are from Central America and Asia, as well as virtually every other part of the United States and the world. The only question is how well Los Angeles will adjust.

Times staff writer Jim Newton recently profiled Los Angeles’ behind-the-scenes movers and shakers, mostly wealthy white men who can write checks and get phone calls returned. Such a network obviously serves a civic purpose, but this area needs a broader, more inclusive group of wise men and women who meet and talk regularly about how to handle the region’s growing pains. It’s a leadership discussion that requires but cannot be confined to elected officials.

We must not remain in reactive mode, as if we cannot foresee some of the inevitable power struggles and conflicts that will naturally occur as Southern California continues to stretch and grow both in size and stature. As we enter a new year and a new era, let us resolve to anticipate change and learn from what has come before.