LA follows policies which depopulated other large cities

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Villaraigosa has touted the middle class as “the strength of the town” but spends almost none of his time trying to lure, or create incentives for, private-sector employers, as L.A. Weekly discovered in reviewing 10 weeks of his personal schedule. In fact, city policies may be hastening middle-class flight.

In 1970, more than half the Valley’s neighborhoods, or 152 Census tracts, were healthy. Three of four Valley families living in those enclaves owned their homes, and middle-class families comprised 600,000 of the Valley’s 1 million residents. By 2000, such enclaves were anachronisms, containing just 97,691 of the Valley’s 1.5 million residents.

Thirty years ago, Reseda, cultural home of the “Karate Kid” and Tom Petty’s hit “Free Falling,” was 74 percent middle class. Almost everyone was a homeowner. But Reseda was targeted for a massive remaking, pushed by City Hall, that forcefully transformed it into a cluttered minicity of apartment complexes hampered by crime and gangs. The middle class bolted, by 2000 making up 41 percent of Reseda.