Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

What, you mean the San Fernando Valley is actually part of Los Angeles? When did this happen?

As long as I can remember, Angelenos at both ends of the Sepulveda Pass--which, by the way, is all the impenetrable moat any border crossing should ever require--have treated “The City” and “The Valley” as distinct and separate as North and South Korea. Divergent nations. You need a survey map, a pack mule and a good excuse to shuttle between the two.

Secession would be nothing but a formality at best, endorsing all the physical, cultural and psychological barriers that already separate the Valley from Los Angeles proper.

As it is, city folks talk about the Valley like a black hole that friends and family sometimes get sucked into, as in: “Rob? He moved somewhere out in the Valley, haven’t heard from him since.” Which means, kiss ol’ Rob good-bye, his lifeline to the space station just broke and we are not going out there to bring him back.

Meanwhile, Valley dwellers refer to the city like a death sentence that is only rarely commuted: “Lucy went back to Mar Vista? Really? Wow, that’s rough.” Which is to say, a move from Encino in any southeasterly direction, for Lucy or anyone else, can never be an upward one. It has to be part of some downward spiral--a demotion, a backward slide, a humiliating indicator of personal or professional collapse.

And then there’s the little matter of simply getting from Point C to Point V and vice versa. People talk about this excursion like it’s an adventure race through the Australian Outback. Ever tell somebody who lives in Inglewood you’d enjoy their company on a drive up to Van Nuys? “Van Nuys? Man, that’s way out in the Valley, forget about it!” Or ask a resident of Woodland Hills for a ride to City Hall? “Downtown L.A. on a Friday afternoon? I don’t think so, dude!”

Short of mandating the installation of an electrified fence along the length of the Santa Monica Mountains, how could secession possibly enhance such well-balanced alienation?

OK, so maybe, from a Valleyite’s perspective, there are a number of genuine economic rationales for secession: political autonomy, improved public services, etc. etc.

Yet if the primary point of the exercise, as some of us city inhabitants suspect, is to lift suburbia above the Mercedes-challenged driveways of the inner city, for heaven’s sake, save the effort. Because even without a fancy gateway bearing a new, official city name, even a tourist can see that the Valley is the only place to really live around here.

All you have to do is count the Starbucks signs.