Living in Los Angeles has been great, on the whole. I grew up in a relatively small town, and enjoy the countryside as well. But living in a city has so many advantages. Unfortunately, one of the downsides is that life tends to be more expensive in the city in general. That’s okay– I understand and accept that.

But the last ten to fifteen years has brought a troubling trend to the forefront. The exploding housing market (which is now finally somewhat cooling down, slightly) has led to quite a bit of irrationality and greed on the part of just about everyone. One especially worrisome aspect of the overheated market is the number of condo conversions. I’ve seen this happen here in Los Angeles, but it’s also happening in a lot of other places. On one hand, as older buildings decay and need repairs, eventually they need to be torn down and replaced. I understand that. But often condo conversions allow the property owners to make a killing financially by selling out to a developer. The developer in turn makes a killing by building fancy, overpriced condos. This is not new– it’s something that’s been happening for several decades now. But where “urban renewal” of this sort might have been sort of okay then, it’s potentially catastrophic now. We are facing a future where cheap petroleum will be a thing of the past, where other natural resources and minerals will become scarce, and a time not too far from now where lack of water will spark famines, wars, and other misery.

Instead of planning for societies that return in practice to compartmentalized neighborhoods like the small towns and cities of yore, we’re continuing to plan suburbs with cul-de-sacs, condo conversions that force anyone who’s not wealthy to move farther and farther away from jobs and commercial centers, and building cities in places where lack of water will cause crises (Las Vegas and Phoenix are cases in point).

The issue of condo conversions recently became personal; there’s several apartments on my street that are slated to be torn down and replaced. I’m worried about that, and decided to write a letter to the city planning department in protest. I’ve included most of it here.

To the Planners, and any additional relevant individuals:

The proposed condominium conversions are unacceptable for a number of reasons. These reasons include environmental impact, economic impact, and community diversity.

At present, there are at least four properties that I know of on this street that are under review for conversion. These are in addition to the recent conversions in the last few years. This is an accelerated number of conversions in a city that is already facing apartment unit shortages.

The environmental impact involves air quality and increased traffic. During construction, there will be increased dust, particles from building materials, and fumes from equipment and materials. This will affect the health of residents nearby. Construction takes anywhere from several months to a couple of years. The sidewalks and streets will be restricted/limited during this time. Since this is a heavily traveled artery street used both by local residents and commuters, construction will adversely affect traffic. Additionally, current apartments, especially those on smaller lots, have limited parking slots. This means current residents have one or two cars. The proposed buildings will have two parking slots per resident; this means a potential increase in automotive traffic once the conversions are completed. At a time when congestion is already increasing due to development along the Wilshire Corridor, Century City, and the proposed development at the former Robinsons-May site at Wilshire and Santa Monica, these conversions will just add to the gridlock.

The economic impact cannot be understated. The proposed buildings are condo conversions; this means they will be sold/rented at a higher cost than the annual rents current residents pay. Recent ads and open houses for new condos on this street reveal prices from the $900,000s to $1 million +. This means only a certain segment of our society/city will be able to afford these condos. There are only a certain percentage of current residents for this market. Condos historically do not appreciate as well as homes, and they certainly do not permit the economic diversity that apartments do. This leads to the potential for a glut of overpriced condos. In the meantime, the conversions remove apartment housing stock permanently, thus increasing the already widening gap between the wealthy and everyone else in Los Angeles. The residents that will be displaced will be forced to search for affordable housing elsewhere, and a number of them will be pushed farther north and east. This means a short-term gain for the developers (who will be the primary beneficiaries of the conversions) and a long-term headache for everyone else. People who work in Los Angeles but are forced to live elsewhere pay higher costs for transportation, spend more of their time in traffic, contribute to regional gridlock, and will consequently have less time and money to spend on goods. As the costs of fuel continue to rise, an increasingly economically squeezed middle- and working-class will be able to contribute less to the regional economy. Additionally, the people we depend on, such as firefighters, police officers, teachers, nurses, and other vital personnel will move farther away, with some opting to leave the state for good. This is ultimately a cost that is unacceptable.

The loss of these residents also reduces community diversity. This is already a wealthy area, but existing apartments permit people with middle-class incomes to co-exist with an affluent population. Historically, people of less means spend more of their income on services and goods compared with the upper classes. Additionally, a more diverse economic population contributes to a more diverse ethnic and cultural population. This allows residents to get to know, appreciate, and understand a broader range of beliefs, attitudes, and backgrounds. By converting apartments to condos, the economic and social strata irrevocably changes, and produces a more homogeneous, more conformist, less vital community.

Currently, the number of set-asides and units offered to people of lesser income is just a small percentage of the overall number of units being built. Developers, planners, and officials have a moral and ethical responsibility to society to provide a better balance that will lead to a more healthy, diverse community. Mindless development based on short-term greed is a relic of the 20^th century. As we face a future with limited natural resources, it behooves all of us to start planning not for the status quo, but for the future.

Thus I respectfully urge you to halt the conversions and encourage developers to return with plans that will allow for more incorporation of residents from all occupations and income levels, rather than just a small strata of wealthy individuals.

Sincerely,

Mr. Sandman

I’m not sure how much influence, if any, this letter will have. Realistically, the conversions are a done deal. But this letter could have been written about most metro areas in this country. Sprawl and short-sighted planning, in my opinion, will just exacerbate the inevitable problems that will crop up in the near future. I think the people here in this town, and across the nation, are going to have to have a serious conversation soon about affordable housing, smart planning, and the allocation of resources. I only hope we have this conversation sooner than later, before it’s too late.

It’s funny- quite a few people in this country lament the state of things, and wish we could go back to the “good old days.” These are the same folks that think any mention of sex is taboo, that women should stay in the kitchen, that death, politics, and anything related to bodily functions, or actually living, should be kept behind doors and utterly private.

Yet our European counterparts (who live in nations that many of our forebears once lived in), have a much healthier take on life in general. Our ancestors certainly did too, in many ways. In Europe, topless bathers draw nary a second glance. Here in the U.S., just nursing one’s infant brings the risk of being detained for indecent exposure.

This extends to what we read and watch too. I’ve always found it somewhat amusing that we as a nation are willing to tolerate movies, video games, and pictures full of violence and gore, yet a bared breast brings cries of condemnation. Yet in Europe, commercials show much more skin than they ever do here (and for the record, why are we so squeamish about condom and contraceptive ads here, yet we have no problems with advertisements for products like Preparation H? I’d rather think about sex and love than hemorrhoids, thank you).

Currently, there’s a big fuss over a children’s book, by a well-known German children’s author. Apparently these books, which are a hit overseas, won’t be published here because one of the books contains a picture of a painting in an art gallery depicting a nude woman, and a statue of a naked man, with all his glory on display.  Other objections involve smoking in the pictures.

Censorship, anyone? It’s incredulous to think we live in a nation where its gummint and citizens often loudly proclaim the freedoms we have, yet turn around and censor books at the drop of a hat. As long as we’re going to ban books depicting museums and art galleries, we might as well require all our museums across the nation to institute restrictions on admission– you know, no one under 18 admitted to art museums and galleries whatsoever. For that matter, natural history museums as well. Goodness knows some child might get the idea in their head that there’s such a thing as a theory of evolution, or that animals have, well, you know, genitals. God forbid some innocent young soul learns the word “mating,” or “reproduction.”

I think this censorship and repression leads children to think sex and human functions are a bigger deal than they actually are, and warps their sense of perception regarding the natural world and how we live. In the past, humans lived multi-generationally in one home, usually no more than one or two rooms. Parents had sex at night with children in the same room. People did their business in chamber pots or on the streets, and tossed the contents out the window. When people died, they weren’t first sent to hospitals and linked up to machines or forced to live artificially. They died at home, and were laid out in the bedroom or the parlor. I think that despite the intolerance and inhibitions of the past (ankles used to be considered indecent, for example), people actually had a more realistic and better sense of life from birth to death, and didn’t sensationalize basic human interactions and functions, or create weird artificial social constructs about life, death, sex, violence, and tons of other issues. If we’re going to return to the “good old days,” I’d like to see us return to that, at least.

Right now, the books aren’t being published because the publisher, Boyds Mills Press,

…appeared to be acutely embarrassed about their objections but told her they feared being confronted by hundreds of offended parents, if they went ahead and published the book in its existing form.

They should be embarrassed. It’s 2007, guys, not 1621. Let’s ditch the puritanism, and leave it back in the 17th century, yes?