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A vacant lot in Hawthorne

Viviana Franco stares at her reflection in a broken mirror found among the trash on the barren lot in Hawthorne 100 feet from where she grew up. She earned a master’s degree in urban planning at UCLA specifically to clean up the lot and replace its hardscrabble dirt with a blanket of grass.

Viviana Franco stares at her reflection in a broken mirror found among the trash on the barren lot in Hawthorne 100 feet from where she grew up. She earned a master’s degree in urban planning at UCLA specifically to clean up the lot and replace its hardscrabble dirt with a blanket of grass.  (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

fence

Construction of the 105 Freeway in the 1980s created dozens of forlorn lots like this one, at Doty Avenue and 118th Street in Hawthorne.  (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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Trash litters the lot near the 105 freeway in Hawthorne. Viviana Franco has run into an array of troubles trying to turn the third of an acre into a park.  (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

portrait

Viviana Franco, 30, is a ferocious community advocate, but her zeal and idealism have run headlong into reality — into local politics, dizzying bureaucracy, a shoddy economy.  (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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