After decades of enthusiastically giving Los Angeles tours to out-of-town friends and family, and even co-authoring a walking guide to the city, I’m all too aware that things have changed. Recent guests have been stunned by the tent encampments, sidewalks piled with debris and shuttered storefronts I see daily. I feel embarrassed and heartbroken for the unhoused, their neighbors, my city.
Displaying our problems to visitors has made me think how Los Angeles — even with its history of civil unrest and corruption, poverty and racism, earthquakes and fires — often gets measured against a tradition of cheery propaganda promoting a West Coast paradise. Nineteenth century travel writers likened L.A. to the Holy Land, and the cliché of the California dream persists, despite those who say the promise of abundance and fresh starts is dead, and the dream, a nightmare.
Read more at the Los Angeles Times.