Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

Neuilly is a nice city, but even though it’s the next Metro stop over from Paris, it never will be known as the City of Lights. Tony Bennett didn’t leave his heart in Daly City. And drunks in karaoke bars the world over don’t croon: “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere, it’s up to you, New Rochelle.... “

For the past several years, the San Fernando Valley has been threatening to secede from Los Angeles. The city’s gotten too big, secessionists complain. Nobody pays any attention to us. The city government is too unwieldy and there are, well, too many poor people in L.A. Too many problems. We can do better.

Maybe. Recent research has shown that secession is financially feasible; the San Fernando Valley could function without being a part of Los Angeles.

But at what cost? Certainly L.A. would feel the loss of income, the loss of political power and the loss of square footage and voters that would demote it from the second-largest to the third-largest city in the country.

But Los Angeles wouldn’t be the only loser. An ephemeral but very real part of the cachet of living in a world-class city comes with having to put up with the very things that make it world class: a diverse, polyglot population; the mosaic of cultures and mores that also brings tensions and problems. We possess our world-class energy because people come from all over to be here, to try their luck here, to give their children better chances. Here.

So divorce the suburbs from Los Angeles and the city will lose some important things--but so will the ‘burbs. At the moment, all the Outer Ring is seeing is a smaller geographic area with more economic homogeneity; a kind of Statue of Liberty in reverse: “Poor? Hungry? Huddled masses? There ya go, L.A.--good luck!” But it will also miss the sparkle of the city’s cultural institutions: its great public library, its museums. Yes, folks, the Getty will still be in L.A., as will the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Taper, the Geffen and, eventually, the Disney. USC and UCLA? Ours. Cedars-Sinai, UCLA Medical Center and County-USC: in Los Angeles, thank you. Maybe there will be a discount for city residents to use all these. Or visitors from other cities will have to pay stiffer entrance fees.

In the fervor to secede, Valley secessionists are greedily envisioning the Newarkization of Los Angeles: Drive into the city, work in its buildings, drop a couple of dollars for lunch, then retreat to their chosen Valley neighborhoods with the bulk of their tax dollars; leave behind a husk to be struggled over by the yellows, blacks, browns and no-option whites.

That would be penny-wise and pound-foolish. L.A. will survive and ultimately prosper, with or without the Valley.

Eventually, L.A. will find a way to make up for lost income--perhaps a series of toll roads at the critical entrance points to the city or a commuter tax. Which would leave the secessionists in the Valley to enjoy a smug isolation that suddenly doesn’t look like so much fun anymore.