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Has anyone played L.A. Noire?
The Antelope Valley, and its sister the Lucerne Valley to the east, are a mess. It used to be a nice places to live. Not any more.
Both are high desert, 1-2 hours drive out of the LA metroplex. The only jobs up there were government (Andrews AFB, George AFB, prisons) or ag (lots of dairy and alfalfa). In the 1980’s during there was a huge building boom. Thousands and thousands of cookie cutter homes were built for the families of LA based aerospace workers. People were commuting 3 hours to their jobs in El Segundo and the SFV. Palmdale, Victorville, and Lancaster become booming bedroom communities, filled with middle class aerospace workers who wanted a home out of the jurisdiction of the screwed up LA Unified School District.
Then after 1987 it all blew up. The aerospace jobs dried up. George AFB closed. The home values plummeted. By the later 1990’s it was becoming a ghost town. Hundreds and hundreds of abandoned or foreclosed suburban houses. People were upside down so they simply mailed the keys to the mortgage company and walked away.
Then speculators came in and started paying cash for the homes. $30k for a 4 bedroom house. They were absentee landlords. They rented the homes to section 8 families. Yep, welfare queens. Government guaranteed rent.
South Central LA used to be the heart of black SoCal. That is where the Bloods and Crips and West Coast Rap came from. No more. They all moved into these abandoned homes up the high desert. It made sense. If you live in welfare, and you don’t have a job to commute to, then why not move out of the urban ghetto and into your own home? It is still LA County, so you still get LA County welfare rates. A bedroom for each of your kids. Perhaps even a pool, if you know how to maintain it.
Sure enough, all of the social problems that hey had in south central LA followed them up to the Antelope Valley. Their gang banger kids. The drugs. The violence. The crime. The houses started falling apart, and the property values keep falling. The schools became prisons for troubled kids. It became a vicious cycle.
It is true. No one wants to live there any more. It has become a rural ghetto. Who wants to commute 5 hours a day to live in a shit hole?
South Central LA is now very hispanic, filled with new immigrants from Mexico and Central America looking for a cheaper or safer place to live than east LA. When I drive though Watts, Carson, Compton now, all the signs are in Spanish.
Now back to why the harassment. The short video mentioned a highway. True, the Pearblossom Highway that connects 14 to I-15 has always been a mess. It is far better than it used to be. You can cross the valley is less than 1 hour now. Back in the 80’s traffic used to back up 5 miles where Pearblossom and 395 met. I really don’t think that is the reason.
It think it is simply a matter of money. LA County wants to wrest control of the Antelope Valley back from the slumlords in order to make it a desirable place to live again. That in turn will raise property values, which will mean more property taxes. It is going to take a long time to do this, 20 years or more. So how do they do that? They start cleaning it up. And this is how they do it.
#40–Yank==excellent review. Shows how money drives so many “social” issues. I feel for the guy with the telephone pole house. That looked wonderful.
I think land use regulations are necessary—BUT==its not hard to meld health and safety concerns with individual liberty. I wanted to enclose a huge outdoor sun room as part of my house “but” I would have had a seven foot high wall at the far end where the code requires 8 feet so no building permit. Lots if not most people would have no problem with that 7 foot ceiling a the far end. I think I should have been given my permit and my property report just show “Non Code Conditions” and let the market decide what such a condition was worth.
But all too often the heavy hand of prohibition is used rather than “notice and choice.”
Same as it always is.
At 5:48 that must be the most unconvincing toupee I’ve ever seen.
BTW, those homes ARE unsightly, but for the NATs to stick their noses in is totally unconscionable.
Looks like the stage is set for a class action lawsuit.
The county seems to have a lot of money.
There’s a lot of people involved.
There are clear cut abuses and violations, some of which go clearly against Obama’s greeen policies.
All we need is a team of high profile lawyers looking to make some money and become famous.
“All we need is a team of high profile lawyers looking to make some money and become famous.”
Bingo.
These people may have their rights, but the legal system is money-driven.
Unless there are provable and demonstrable damages that result in a hefty negotiated monetary settlement or a jury verdict that can be appealed until long after these people are dead, no lawyer would touch this case.
The cost of litigation would come out of the pockets of the lawyers with no guarantee of a return on their investment.
Then the county would have deeper pockets to hire better gunslingers.
This is a no-win situation for these people. Damn shame.
Simple. the very rich want an exclusive place where they can go to hid, when the hungry starving hordes of humanity rise up and strike back. So they don’t want a bunch of dirt farmers already crowding their multi-acre villas, on the high desert. Whenever the rich want anything, poorer people already have. They get the state government to do their dirty work of running the riffraff out. And unoccupied land can always be bought for less than occupied land. The California NAT is being used as a property cleansing agent.
Right after the NAT moves everyone out of the deserts. The people should post signs saying, “The area will be designated Ground Zero, when the civil revolution begins.” And put up some standard radiation symbol signs, to drive home the point.
The way this county agency is operating in such secrecy. It makes me think that some cult desires to take over this land. One of those whack job things that Hollywood celebrities poor their millions into. And they need the isolation, to avoid public scrutiny of their bizarre hedonist lifestyles and slave labor practices. I’ve read accounts of cult properties in the desert, west of LA, before. And former conscript laborers having to escape from there. It’s on the internet, just look for it.
Los Angeles County is controled ($) by housing developers. They have the politicians force sewers and other utilties in the rural areas so that it can be overbuilt, like the rest of the county.
Looks like the weather calls for land mines, tanks, rpgs, and more rifles.
Lone Wolves Unite!!!
Great, thanks for sharing this blog post.Really looking forward to read more. Cool.