So, San Pedro is finally getting a new waterfront. . .
What took so long?
What was Congresswoman, er . . .Councilwoman Janice Hahn up to during her ten-year tenure on the Los Angeles City Council? When she wasn't running for higher office, she approved raising higher parking fees in Downtown San Pedro, she missed opportunities time and again to entice businesses back to the Port region, while pushing environmental standards which may throttle business expansion. In effect, Councilwoman Hahn and her confederate Council ilk did pretty much little else beyond talking up job recovery to prod the Harbor Area back into economic recovery .
Now recently installed Councilman Joe Buscaino, with Mayor Villaraigosa, really really (they promise!) want to prosper the port region properly. If we have learned nothing over the past few decades, top-down intervention and investment does not work. Instead of grand and grabby visions — read, delusions — of grandeur, Buscaino and Company ought to lobby for greater autonomy for the Port of LA region, since the Harbor Area has been mismanaged for so long by Downtown bureaucrats focused on office-seeking and constituent-pleasing.
San Pedro does not need anymore visionary assistance, especially from government. Private enterprise and local organization must take the helm, so to speak, if the Waterfront wants new vitality.
Perhaps we will witness the realizations of the hopes and dreams of long-deceased yet still famous San Pedro Poet Laureate Charles Bukowksi:
""yeah," I say, "and have you read the
papers lately? they are going to construct
a marina here, one of the largest in the
world, millions and billions of dollars,
there is going to be a huge shopping
center, yachts and condominiums every-
where!"
(excerpt from Bukowski's "Be Angry at San Pedro")
Bukowski was waiting for waterfront development with uncharacteristic enthusiasm, or signature cynicism.
Will the "Waterfront Vision" of today's political class confirm this poet-prophet's highest hopes? Only if public enterprise stops trying to micromanage everything through central planning, and let's private enterprise in conjunction with local control take the initiative.