Mayor Villaraigosa should move to the Village Green in the Baldwin Hills area—a true hidden gem in Los Angeles if there ever was one!

To begin with, it fits his only stated criterion: close to the airport (LAX). While we’re not right next to the airport (and all that noise and jet fuel), we are just a quick 15-minute drive away on a relatively traffic-free stretch of La Cienega Boulevard.

But make no mistake—the true pleasures of the Village Green start much closer to home. We are a secluded little oasis of more than 650 townhomes and apartments on 68 acres of open, green space, with 2,000 trees representing nearly every variety found in Southern California. We’re also a tightknit, diverse, cohesive community of people.

I’m certain that the mayor would enjoy his newfound freedom and leisure by spending his free time as many here do: walking or jogging around “the Green,” chatting with neighbors, and enjoying the sunshine and fresh ocean breezes that are funneled by the Baldwin Hills into our neighborhood. The mayor also could enjoy a variety of outdoor opportunities nearby: hiking in the beautiful 300-acre Kenneth Hahn Park, climbing the challenging staircase at the super-popular Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook, running around the track at Rancho Cienega Park, and bicycling down to the beach on the Ballona Creek Path!

The mayor would be able to take advantage of the amazing new rail transit system he worked so hard to establish. We are walking distance from the La Brea Metro Rail Station, which directly connects us to downtown, Little Tokyo, Hollywood, the Valley, Long Beach, East Los Angeles, Culver City, Pasadena, and, soon, with the opening of new extensions currently under construction, Westwood, Santa Monica, Leimert Park, Westchester, and LAX. In a few years, the mayor would be able to walk out of his house, head down to the beach for some quiet time in the morning, review his notes on the ride downtown for an afternoon private equity board meeting on Bunker Hill, enjoy dinner and drinks with his old City Hall buddies at one of the new downtown hotspots, take in a Lakers game at Staples Center, and catch a red-eye out of LAX to the latest conference of world thought leaders, without ever getting into a car!

What a life!

The Village Green is very welcoming to newcomers. Many of us have been here for decades, but with a variety of types of units—some for rent and others for sale—there are always new people coming in, of every race and nationality, and from a variety of economic backgrounds. You would be hard-pressed to find someone in Los Angeles who wouldn’t feel right at home among our diverse and hospitable neighbors. Outside of our daily informal interactions, there are also dozens of organized social events throughout the year, including a twice-yearly jazz picnic, outings for seniors, Halloween festivals and Easter Egg hunts for the kids, and cocktail parties and outdoor movie nights for the swinging set.

Finally, as great as the Village Green already is, there’s so much that the mayor could do with his clout, connections, and charisma to make it even better. For one, the mayor is famous for his commitment to public education, and the schools around the Village Green are not what they should be. Our elementary school across the street—Baldwin Hills Elementary—scores well, but the campus has not had any physical improvements since it was built many years ago. It needs a major facelift and renovation; the mayor could lean on his friends and contacts at LAUSD and in the foundation world to make that happen. The local middle and high schools have more serious problems that could be addressed by bringing in a well-regarded charter school operator like KIPP or Green Dot—or by pushing through needed reforms at LAUSD and the state.

To the east of the Village Green are some neighborhoods that face major problems with gangs and disinvestment. Although the mayor’s gang intervention and community policing programs were successful in bringing about a drop in crime, and although existing retailers such as the Baldwin Hills/Crenshaw Mall and the Ralph’s grocery store at Rodeo and La Brea have recently made major investments in upgrading their establishments, there are still several large vacant lots in the neighborhood—including the site of the old Santa Barbara Plaza—that are in desperate need of commercial redevelopment. The mayor could do wonders to push exciting new development projects forward on those sites, revitalizing the commercial heart of the Crenshaw/Baldwin Hills community and providing jobs for local youths.

The mayor is world-renowned for his commitment to the environment, and there are a number of significant local environmental issues that could use his attention. In the Baldwin Hills, there are hundreds of acres of open space slated for parkland—but right now those acres are a huge urban oil field, serving only as sources of local air, noise and water pollution and aesthetic blight. Mayor Villaraigosa can help change that and make our dreams of a greater Baldwin Hills Park a reality.

Village Green is already a wonderful place: a beautiful, green, tight-knit community close to the airport, the new rail lines, newly renovated shopping areas, and beautiful parks and open spaces. But with the Mayor as our new neighbor, we could realize our potential to be so much more!

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Before the mayor decides where to live, he needs an honest appraisal of what he needs out of his next home. As an unattached, career-focused professional transitioning between jobs, Villaraigosa could at any moment be called into service in Sacramento, Washington, D.C., or even foreign capitals like London or Mexico City. He doesn’t need a long-term lease anywhere so much as he needs, in the words of George Carlin, a place for his stuff.

That’s why the mayor should consider micro-housing. A throwback to the 1970s mantra “small is beautiful,” micro-apartments cram all the necessities of modern living into tiny spaces, usually less than three hundred square feet. Every inch of space is utilized in these minimalist homes. They’re ideal housing for people like the mayor who frequently travel, need limited space, and want to reduce unnecessary expenses—so long as you don’t mind home goods stacked like Russian nesting dolls.

In the process of lowering his monthly expenses, the mayor would be conducting an extreme home makeover of the American Dream: how to be successful without a big-home status symbol.

American attitudes about success are inextricably linked to house size. This wasn’t an accident but a byproduct of the assembly-line era, when big corporate employers wanted a reliable and stable workforce anchored to the local factory. “Moving up to a larger home became a signpost along the roadway to success,” writes Rick Grant at HousingWire.com, a website that tracks the U.S. housing market. “People paid attention to every aspect of the home and keeping up with the Joneses meant making sure your home was just as nice as your neighbor’s.”

Tax laws, ranging from the Home Mortgage Interest Deduction to the First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credit, have only exacerbated the problem. Economists argue that these tax breaks don’t increase access to home ownership; rather, they expand the home sizes and debt burdens of those already buying.

Bigger homes inevitably lead to finding more things to fill them with. “That’s what your house is,” Carlin used to joke, “A place to keep your stuff while you go out and get … more stuff!” Increasingly, our stuff has consumption habits of its own. David I. Levine, a professor at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, estimates that phantom power, or energy use by appliances on standby, increases household energy consumption by 5-10 percent.

The values of the new economy are akin to the mayor’s lifestyle: mobile, flexible, international—all of which are best served by a micro-home. Los Angeles has relatively few micro-housing options so the mayor should move quickly. And that might be the best reason for the mayor to go micro: It’d correct for eight years in which Boston, Seattle, and San Francisco surpassed the City of Angels in the micro-housing movement.

The post Neighborhood of the Future appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

Mayor Villaraigosa, you just must consider Granada Hills in the northern San Fernando Valley as your new home.

Frankly, Granada Hills can boast what no other section of L.A. can: Granada Hills is in the same league as Disneyland. History confirms this point. When Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev was denied a visit to Disneyland in 1959, the place American officials sent him to tour instead was a modern American neighborhood in Granada Hills! You can look it up.

Now let’s consider the two biggest issues you struggled with as mayor: public safety and school reform.

Public safety, first. Look at the Los Angeles Police Department’s crime map. The Granada Hills area has many fewer of those troubling icons showing criminal activity than most parts of the city.

And you can bet we’ll stay safe, because the new Los Angeles County district attorney lives in the neighborhood.

As for education, Granada Hills Charter High School is annually competing in, and often winning, state and national academic decathlon awards.

While there have been no Charlie Sheen sightings around here that I’m aware of, your movie and TV friends like the place. There is always filming going on here. Jimmy Cagney even owned a ranch in the hills, although the only remembrances are a street named after him and a relatively new housing project named Aliso Canyon at Cagney Ranch.

Still, this place has been touched by Hollywood. Just ask E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial, who lifted his buddy, Elliott, and his friends on their bicycles off the ground while riding down White Oak Avenue in GH. Yes sir, Mr. Mayor, Granada Hills is a magical place.

However, I suppose it is only fair to warn you that a few rattlesnakes live in the hills up here. Of course, after a lifetime in politics, you’ll know how to handle them.

Come on up and check the place out.

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The post Come Live Here, Antonio! appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

So who will adopt him? Where real estate agents might see the mayor’s predicament as an opportunity for a commission, Zócalo saw it as an opportunity to help a mayor in need and to get Angelenos talking about their communities. We wanted to find out what people think makes their neighborhoods distinctive, why they love their corner of Los Angeles, and how they and their neighbors welcome newcomers.

Angelenos from across the city answered our call and made their best cases for why their L.A. communities should adopt Mayor Villaraigosa. People wrote to us from San Pedro to South L.A., Porter Ranch to Pico-Union, and from points in between. Our favorite entries, which we’re publishing today, touted the wildlife of Hollywood Oaks and the auto shops of Wilshire Vista; they waxed poetic on the big things happening downtown and proclaimed the hipness of Palms. They touted the history of Granada Hills, the rise of the South Carthay post office’s Yelp score, and the convenient commutes from North Hollywood. And we were impressed by some of the more offbeat suggestions: that the mayor forgo picking favorites among the neighborhoods of the City of L.A. and head instead to Culver City, or that he downsize and move into micro-housing.

But the winner, in the end, is Village Green, a historic planned community in the Baldwin Hills neighborhood that not only had two strong supporters among our entrants but also elicited the most compelling response we received, from longtime resident D. Malcolm Carson. We’re delighted to publish his piece and award him our 10 current favorite books on community—the finalists for the 2013 Zócalo Book Prize.

THE WINNER:

Village Green: L.A.’s Best-Kept Secret—and Close to LAX

Mayor Villaraigosa should move to the Village Green in the Baldwin Hills area—a true hidden gem in Los Angeles if there ever was one! To begin with, it fits his only stated criterion: close to the airport (LAX). While we’re not right next to the airport (and all that noise and jet fuel), we are just a quick 15-minute drive away on a relatively traffic-free stretch of La Cienega Boulevard. … (Read the full article)

THE FINALISTS:

Hollywood Oaks: My Neighborhood Has Brangelina

Granada Hills: I Basically Live In Disneyland

Wilshire Vista: Enjoy Great Food While We Fix Your Car

North Hollywood: Actually, We’re the Center Of the World

Neighborhood of the Future: Micro-House This Ex-Mayor

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Come Live Here, Antonio: Downtown, South Carthay, Palms, Village Green, Carlson Park

The post We’ve Found a New Home for Antonio Villaraigosa appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

Mr. Mayor, in my neighborhood here in Mid-City—Wilshire Vista—we have an active neighborhood association, and our president sends out regular notices informing us about residents who’ve opened new stores or are offering rooms for rent. We have an annual Halloween Haunt for the kids, and we have mixers now and then for the adults.

OK, all that Leave it to Beaver stuff is fine, but here are the real reasons my part of Mid-City is a good place to live.

I believe we’ve achieved a Zen balance between diners and auto repair establishments. I’m not being ironic here. My dad was a working mechanic, and back in the days of carburetors, I was a bit of a shade tree mechanic. As far as I’m concerned, I’m down with auto repair and body shops. In fact there’s one at the corner of my street. Having experienced these shops for the outer and inner needs of the various vehicles our family has utilized over the years—including currently a late-model Prius and a ’92 Cadillac El Dorado—I’ve received good service and have not been unreasonably charged.

The diners? You can walk the gamut of eateries we have along Pico Boulevard. There’s CJ’s, where young parents dine, old timers hang out, and LADWP workers get an early breakfast before their shifts start. I’m partial to their catfish and eggs breakfast with grits and fresh-squeezed orange juice, among a variety of juices freshly grinded on their industrial strength juicer. Just a few blocks west of CJ’s is Bloom Café for the more trendy, diet-conscious set. They serve up the likes of vegetarian chili and beet and goat cheese salad. Further west, in the Pico-Robertson area, where the old Coco’s was, is now a kosher steak joint called Bocca.

Back to the east near CJ’s is La Maison du Pan, where they make a killer chocolate croissant. At Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles, people line up on the sidewalk on Sundays. There’s also Oki’s-Dog, home of the heart-stopping Oki’s-Dog burrito (hot dogs, chili, pickles, mustard, cheese, and pastrami). I would be remiss not also to mention the doughy goodness available from Magee’s Donuts in a little strip mall on the northeast corner of La Brea and San Vicente.

I know you stay in shape, so I’d be happy to take you out of but close to the area, to my gym, the L.A. Fitness on La Cienega housed in the converted Montgomery Ward, to work off those heavy meals. For upkeep on your new abode, consider that we also have two well-stocked hardware establishments, an Orchard Supply Hardware and a newer Lowe’s Home Improvement Center in what’s now called the Midtown Crossing near the Midtown Shopping Center, where there’s a remodeled Ralphs and the aforementioned OSH. As you know, Mr. Mayor, there was a lot of wrangling as to what was going to replace the long-gone Sears, originally opened in 1936 and closed in the ’90s.

Me, I love to wander around the cavernous Lowe’s even if I’m just there to get a new handle for the toilet. I spend time gazing at cool tools I’ll never use and weigh, yet again, the prospects of how much work it would take to re-paint the interior of our house if my wife and I did the work. Then I dismiss such over-ambitious notions once I’ve exited the building … but I’ll return.

We got you covered in Wilshire Vista.

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I couldn’t imagine living anywhere but the Hollywood Oaks. I say this as an ex-New Yorker who grew up with 24-hour traffic noise and a steady bustle of sidewalk activity. Bordered on two sides by Griffith Park, the Oaks has neither. On particularly still nights, when the only loud noises are coyotes howling, my wife and I feel as if we live on the edge of civilization, not in the middle of a major city.

We love this dichotomy—the isolated and the dense within a mile of one another. It gives us access to the urban activities that have drawn us to cities throughout our adult lives and that our children, now 11 and 14, are slowly growing to appreciate. Yuca’s, voted the city’s best place for tacos in a 2009 competition, is five minutes away. So are the Hollywood Farmers Market, Skylight Books, and a slew of cool retailers on Vermont and Hillhurst Avenues. The drive is short to LACMA and Los Angeles’ reviving downtown. We can people-watch when we choose and then recharge on our balcony.

The Oaks is uniquely close. When we moved in 15 years ago on a cold, rainy late-December afternoon, our next-door-neighbor Margery loaned us blankets and a phone to track down movers who’d gotten stuck in their massive truck on a narrow street. Those were the days before cell phone service was guaranteed. A few days later, another neighbor dropped off a gift basket.

We’ve developed more than a half-dozen good friendships. These are people in whose homes we’ve celebrated occasions and who have celebrated in ours. There is nothing like an Oaks evening on someone’s patio with dusk falling on the mini peaks of Griffith Park—Lee with the Hollywood sign and Hollywood with the Observatory—and a table full of good food and wine.

The views from the upper hillside streets, hundreds of feet up, are sublime. Last February, a double-rainbow formed from one end of the valley below to the other.

We have great dogs in the Oaks. People know their names before they know their owners’ names. One neighbor carried a bag of biscuits. Until he passed away earlier this year, it was not unusual to find him surrounded by wagging tails. Now his widow carries the treats.

The annual July 4th picnic, Christmas party, and Halloween walk are killer. One home, whose boys are well past trick-or-treating age, stages elaborate costumed performances. One year’s act showed the aftermath of a nuclear disaster with family members and friends outfitting themselves in hazmat suits.

The Oaks has history, too. The first homes sprouted when the area’s roads were still unpaved. The architecture is an eclectic mix of Mediterranean Revival structures dating to the early decades of the 20th century; Tudor; Craftsman; and mid-century modernist works built by the disciples of Frank Lloyd Wright, including the architect’s son, Lloyd.

There’s star power, including the first couple of Hollywood, the Pitt-Jolies. The neighborhood knows that they are in town when the tinted limousines of paparazzi congregate near the entrances to their compound.

The wildlife is as rampant as in any national park, with raccoons, skunks, hawks that perch on our balcony railings, and snakes. I keep hoping to catch a glimpse of mountain lion “22” who moved into Griffith Park a year ago and has been feasting on the local deer herd. But even one of the park’s shy bobcats would do.

Every neighborhood has its appealing qualities. Ours seems to have more than most. And for those who like golf, there are two courses and a driving range within minutes. You may have to play around the deer.

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Dear Antonio:

Forgive me the informality, Mr. Mayor, it’s just that I’ve known you a bit for so darned long, going back to the early 1990s, when I routinely interviewed you as Gloria Molina’s alternate on the transportation board, and then we were in that political discussion group with Wendy Greuel, who was trying to succeed you. Now, after serving as state Assembly speaker and Los Angeles mayor for two terms, you are about to become un-mayor and, well, what then?

Since those nasty term limits will send you back to the private sector and out of the mayor’s Hancock Park mansion, the good folks at Zócalo suggested I write about a Los Angeles community where you might consider putting down new roots in your new non-role: North Hollywood.

Oh, I know when you were growing up, North Hollywood was hardly a garden spot, and it still has an ample sprinkling of non-garden spots, particularly in the north end of the neighborhood. It continues to provide ample grist for the bitterly amusing memories of Adam Carolla, once a star linebacker for the North Hollywood High Huskies.

On top of that, several of our nicest neighborhoods (and there actually are quite a few) have spent the past few decades scheming to get out of North Hollywood. Thus, we now have hard-to-find nearby communities with names such as Toluca Terrace, West Toluca Lake, and the slightly more accessible Valley Village.

No matter. North Hollywood marches on. Now, the area is acquiring a kind of cool, just as you’re searching for a new home. Perfect!

Why, the L.A. Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne even said in a recent article that Lankershim Boulevard, which bisects North Hollywood, is “emphatically on the rise,” so it must be true. We’re kinda happening.

Even better, Antonio, you can take some credit for the resurgence. The now-disbanded Community Redevelopment Agency of Los Angeles invested tens of millions of dollars in what is grandly called the NoHo Arts and Entertainment District, centered at the intersection of Lankershim and Magnolia Boulevard.

The CRA/LA helped spur construction of office space, preserved historic structures, and stabilized dozens of small theaters, recording studios, dance troupes, and other arts-related groups and creative businesses. The result: The core of North Hollywood has a diverse and vibrant pedestrian culture, and in how many parts of Los Angeles can you say that?

You didn’t start that work, by a long shot, but you kept it going to substantial fruition before state budget problems killed the CRA/LA, so it’s time you reaped some rewards from one of your more substantial achievements.

Oh, it’s true that the CRA/LA and you never could do much with the quake-wracked Valley Plaza/Laurel Plaza shopping center, but it wasn’t really much the fault of the city, or the developer, given the inflated expectations of that area’s neighbors. And at least there’s still a very nice Macy’s there with a lot of available parking, so you can pick up some new suits for your job interviews.

By the way, in those nice North Hollywood neighborhoods, you can actually buy a house with a big yard, maybe on a quiet block without any sidewalks, for as little as half of what it might cost on the Westside. I know you’ll be getting by on one of those modest city pensions, so you’ll need to husband your financial resources (OK, now I’m kidding; you’re going to do fine on that honking big pension, plus whatever else you can earn).

Here’s another nifty thing about North Hollywood: It’s kind of in the middle of everything. As a man who’s spent most of the past decade zooming all over the city, you’ll love this. From NoHo, in minutes you can be anywhere in the Valley, certainly, or in our sister cities of Burbank, Glendale, and Pasadena. Hollywood and West Hollywood are just over the hill, and you can hop into downtown for a power lunch with your old political buddies in 25 minutes.

If you need to fly somewhere, there’s a free shuttle to nearby (but not too close) Burbank Airport. I hate to say it, but after all your long-stymied efforts to improve and expand LAX, the Burbank Airport is much easier to get in and out of, and it’s right there.

Yes, the Westside remains impassable to mere mortal ex-mayors without police escorts, but you’re the one who said that the billion-dollar 405 improvement would make it easier for us to get there. Now, you’ll get to put your own drive-time where your mouth, and our money, have been going all these years.

Speaking of transportation, North Hollywood is already the terminus of the Metro Red Line subway (a project you helped authorize back in your MTA board alternate days) and the Orange Line, a dedicated busway that girdles the San Fernando Valley and preps it mentally for its own eventual light-rail line. The daily bustle of thousands of riders scurrying from one to the other is a wonderful thing to see. Public transit that works in Los Angeles. Who saw that coming?

From the North Hollywood station, you can hop on the Metro for a pastrami sandwich at Langer’s, an author lecture at the Central Library, a football game at USC, or a string of gallery openings in Culver City. It’s so pain-free and cheap that it’s easy to forget we also have a bus system (I know, the MTA forgot about the bus system for years, too).

The Red Line (and the other rail lines of varying colors) are the coolest, and within a year (or two, according to the slipping completion schedule), you’ll be able to get all the way to the Santa Monica Third Street Promenade on the Expo Line, thanks in part to that expedited federal funding you secured.

Of course, North Hollywood also has the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, which gives out the Emmys and has a cool plaza of statues and plaques honoring Hall of Fame TV stars, and (again thanks to CRA/LA encouragement), a Laemmle art-house movie theater.

I know you’re a bit of a gourmand, so you’ll be delighted to hear that we have some fantastic restaurants and nightclubs. I’d start with the Federal Bar, Spumante, Firenze, Eclectic Wine Bar & Grill, Kansas City Barbecue, MP’s Soul Food, and Bow & Truss. For breakfast, there’s Eat, and the wonderful coffee house cum pie shop called Republic of Pie. For middle-of-the-night munchies, there’s the North Hollywood Diner.

Your discriminating palate will probably want to give Little Toni’s a wide berth, unless all those political banquets have somehow given you a weakness for Sutter Home White Zinfandel or Lancers Rosé (I’m guessing that’s a no).

Oh, and Antonio, the bad boy in you should be delighted to hear that North Hollywood seems blessed with a staggering plethora of smoke shops and marijuana sales facilities.

I’m no expert on this, but, based on the density of such shops here (at least until the City Council gets around to implementing that new Supreme Court marijuana shop zoning decision), North Hollywood must have the mellowest residents in Los Angeles, Given your high energy, perhaps a little all-natural medicinal self-care will blunt, so to speak, the edge of an unexpectedly early retirement.

As one final enticement of North Hollywood living, we’re the perfect place to indulge your weakness for gorgeous newscasters. KABC is just a few miles east, and the studios for KCET and KNBC are even closer. Happy hunting, Your Honor.

The post North Hollywood appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

So our mayor has no obvious place to go. This is at once a personal concern (he needs an apartment or a condo or a house in which to stay) and a municipal quandary—the mayor needs a neighborhood that he can make his own. By his own admission, he has yet to give the subject much thought, telling The New York Times only that he is considering a place near the airport. So to help our mayor figure out where to put a roof over his head, we at Zócalo pose the following question:

Can your Los Angeles community give Antonio Villaraigosa a home?

Today, Zócalo launches its Adopt-a-Mayor program, an open invitation to people in the City of Los Angeles to make a case for why their neighborhood would be a good place for the soon-to-be-ex-mayor—or, for that matter, anyone else facing a difficult transition—to make a new home.

Using between 100 and 500 words, please make your best case for your neighborhood as the mayor’s next home. Is there one moment or anecdote that sums up why you live on L.A.’s finest block? How has the greatness of your corner of the city remained secret for so long? What incredible facts about your commute, your dry cleaner, or your landlord prompt uncontrollable envy in other Angelenos? How do your neighbors welcome newcomers? What could your neighborhood do for an ex-mayor? And what could an ex-mayor—and his clout, connections, and charisma—do to make your neighborhood an even cooler, possibly better place to live?

We will publish the most compelling responses well before Mayor Villaraigosa has to start getting quotes from moving companies. And we’ll reward the reader who in our judgment provides the most compelling response of all with our 10 favorite books on community from the past year—the Zócalo Book Prize longlist.

Please submit your argument via email to adoptamayor@zocalopublicsquare.org. Include your name, your neighborhood, how long you’ve lived there, and a phone number at which Zócalo can reach you. The deadline for submissions is Monday, April 29 before 5 p.m.

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