Giddy About Gardens, House Shopping, Crazy About Crime

Giddy About Gardens
[Re: “Green House Effect,” vol. 5 no. 38]

I’m honored at your mention of the Lakewood lifestyle. I moved there four years ago on a whim and wouldn’t dream of moving back to the Westside of L.A. The garden yard???? Hmmmm. What a great idea! No, I haven’t gone “Stepford”!!!

-Christina Seltzer

House Shopping
[Re: Debutantes in da ‘Hood,” vol.5 no.36]

I worked in Moorpark for just over five years in a company with hundreds of employees, a large share of whom were Latino. A lot of them had already purchased, or were looking to purchase, homes in the high desert, where hour-and-a-half commutes back and forth to Ventura County were essentially synonymous with first-time mortgages. I would like to state that as many Latino families as there are considered casualties of gentrification, there are just as many who want nothing more than to buy homes as far away from Echo Park as possible. Whether they are lucky or smart enough to have saved sufficient money to move out before being forced out is beside the point when their “displacement” to the I.E. or the high desert (in my experience) is typically their aim.

The big question, I think, is: Why aren’t Latino first-time home buyers purchasing property in Echo Park? And the answer, I think, is because they are traditionally conservative, come from poverty and want to move away from the heart of L.A., where crime is less, houses are bigger and schools are better for their larger-sized families. Meanwhile, the gay couples and small, affluent white families are typically liberal, come from comparative comfort, and are fascinated by the big-city arty-farty be-somebody and have kids lifestyle. I’m a NJ transplant who is victim to this urban dream as much as any other white Angeleno.

To say that Latino family displacement is “business as usual” while white family displacement would cause an “uproar,” I think, is unfair. The “white family” in L.A. is generally too wealthy to be affected by gentrification, and, therefore a poor comparison. The whites who are effected by gentrification are the elderly residents of Venice who are being forced out of their communities with as much vigor as the Latino families in Echo Park. Both are victims of the complacency tenancy breeds.

I think gentrification, much less another under-publicized systemic abuse on Latino families, is simply a lesson in how the rental market will always be submissive to the real estate market. And so it should. If all ethnicities share the desire for the most secure place as possible to start our families, shouldn’t we all be saving for our future house? And shouldn’t the market allow us as many affordable options as possible?

-Jeff

Crazy About Crime
[Re: “The Horrifying, Bizarre, Unnatural History of Sunset Junction,” vol.5 no. 39]

The sordid underbelly of a Hollywood neighborhood. Each fact more deliciously creepy than the previous one. I eat them one by one, savoring the mélange of comic relief and morbid fascination. Excellent sleuthing. I will have to bring Kim Cooper to one of our Sisters in Crime meetings in South Pasadena. Another place you have documented very nicely. (heh!)

-Dianne P.

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