Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Represent East Valley!

LA Times dug deeper into last week's story of the Valley's new census report and came out with a nice article focusing on the differences between the East and West Valley, respectively divided by the 405 Freeway. But I don't like how they painted this picture:

On one end of the Valley [west], gated mansions and old ranch houses still preside over well-groomed neighborhoods; on the other [east], some residents still don't have sewer hookups or street lights.
Not too long ago (but like before I was born), the Valley was the "country." No sewer hookups and streets lights was life. It seems LA Times is trying to paint an overly dramatic picture here as I continue to walk and bike extremely dark and wealthy streets here in Sherman Oaks. A lot of this is choice and not poor people or city services.

2 comments:

Steven Rosenberg said...

Sherman Oaks, Studio City, Valley Village and Valley Glen are East Valley ... Winnetka and Canoga Park are West Valley ... so you can't split the baby like that.

Steven Rosenberg said...

And using the demise of the Palomino as some kind of symbol of what has happened to the East Valley is pretty far off. It ignores EVERYTHING happening in the NoHo Arts District.