01/05/05

LC050105

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

A special report on Southern California's growth. Are we
building an unlivable future or fulfilling dreams?

John Young>> More homes, more single family detached homes,
more apartments, more condos, more townhouses.

Katherine Perez>> That kind of thinking is going to suffocate
us.

Val>> And then, a look at the history of tsunamis and evidence
that California has already experienced this terrible phenomenon
more than once.

It's all straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times.

Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val>> It seems endless, the sea of tract homes under
construction that continues to expand the boundaries of Southern
California. Sprawl is a blessing and a curse and tonight Saul
Gonzalez begins a special series of reports looking at the
future we are building for ourselves. Are we edging ever closer
to dystopia, as it's called, or are we fulfilling the California
dream?

Saul Gonzalez>> To drive through today's San Bernardino and
Riverside Counties, it's to journey across a landscape changing
before one's eyes. As heavy machinery carves up and grades acre
after acre of once rural land, construction workers are
everywhere, drilling, hammering and sawing. What they're making
are homes, street after street of them, subdivision after
subdivision, quickly covering vast swaths of the Inland Empire
in fields of suburban sprawl.

John Young>> We're seeing an astronomical growth. The
population has increased, more housing, more shopping, more
freeways, more things that happen when you have growth.

Saul Gonzalez>> Home developer, John Young, thrives on that
growth. His company is one of the Inland Empire's largest
producers of single family residences. In about a hundred days,
Young's workers can turn a bare field into a street of ready to
move in tract homes, front lawn included.

John Young>> The American dream that most people want is a
single family home with a big back yard, a place you can put a
pool, a place they can raise their families.

William Molette>> On a scale of one to ten, I'd say the quality
of life here is at least an eight, maybe even a nine.

Saul Gonzalez>> That good?

William Molette>> Yeah. Oh, I love this community.

Saul Gonzalez>> William Molette, a former Los Angeles area
resident, recently move into a Moreno Valley subdivision built
by Young's company. Like others who moved here, he came looking
for tranquility and he says he's found it.

William Molette>> My wife and I, we might take off and just go
walking. Just walk. Los Angeles, you've got to constantly keep
looking over that shoulder. We love this area and I would
recommend it to any young people.

Saul Gonzalez>> And every year, thousands of others are
following people like Molette out to the Inland Empire. Most
often, they're young families fleeing high real estate costs in
Los Angeles and Orange Counties.

John Young>> People are driven out here for prices. You have
prices that are six, seven, eight hundred thousand for a starter
home in the coastal areas now.

Saul Gonzalez>> And here?

John Young>> Here, after prices are in the three's, so you can
buy a home almost half price that you can for the coastal area.

Saul Gonzalez>> As quickly as the Inland Empire is developing,
growth so far is only a taste of things to come. It's estimated
that, by the year 2020, another million and a half more people
will be living here. That means more than a sixty percent
increase in population. In response, Young says developers like
him must continue to do what they do best: build.

John Young>> The mantra is that we need availability. The
mantra is more homes, more single family detached homes, more
apartments, more condos, more townhouses. We need for sale
products and we need for rent product. We need to house our
population.

Saul Gonzalez>> Of course, suburban growth is nothing new to
Southern California. Over a half century ago, in about an
hour's drive west of the Inland Empire, ground was broken in one
of the first post-war suburbs in America. If Southern
California sprawl has a birthplace, it was here in a project
worthy of the Pharaohs.

Between 1950 and 1953, seventeen thousand five hundred homes
were built on former farmland creating something that looked
like a human hive from the air. The result was the community of
Lakewood, the quintessential 1950's suburb and the direct
ancestor of subdivisions being built across Southern California
today. For newcomers, Lakewood meant a new life and a fresh
start.

D.J. Waldie>> My neighbors came from the borders south, from
Tennessee and west Texas and Oklahoma. They knew hard lives
and, for them, Lakewood was a kind of paradise. It was a place
of pilgrimage. They came here and wanted to stay here because
it gave them enough of the good things of life to lead a decent
life.

Saul Gonzalez>> Author, D.J. Waldie, is a social critic and
lifelong Lakewood resident. He writes about how suburban life
has shaped the character and dreams of Southern Californians.

D.J. Waldie>> I'm happy with suburbs because they are places
where a whole class of Americans invented themselves. Beginning
in the mid-1950's, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands and
ultimately millions of working class Americans, not exclusively
white but of all complexions, found enough space, enough
opportunity, enough employment to lead decent lives. Those
decent lives occurred in a place called suburbia.

Saul Gonzalez>> Yet as sprawl continues to spread, many experts
and citizens worry about the long-range costs of rapid growth.

Katherine Perez>> When you're driving along the freeway and you
look over and there's a new development project here and a new
development project there, it's the unplanned nature of this
growth that's the concern.

Saul Gonzalez>> Katherine Perez is the Director of the
Transportation and Land Use Collaborative, an organization that
studies growth and planning issues in Southern California.

Katherine Perez>> I think we live in this fantasy world where
we have this attitude where there will be an endless supply.
Endless supply of water, endless supply of land, endless supply
of resources to continue to do what we've been doing for the
past two and three generations. The fact of the matter is, that
kind of thinking is going to suffocate us. It's going to
suffocate us in terms of the air we breath, the contamination of
the water that we're trying to drink and the land that we
actually are not being very good stewards of.

Saul Gonzalez>> Critics of rapid development argue that sprawl
spawns a multitude of environmental problems from the paving
over of open space and farmland to the over-consumption of water
and other natural resources to the creation of pollutant-
spewing, nerve-grinding gridlock that gets ever slower. For
example, in the Inland Empire, time spent by commuters in
traffic has grown from nine hours a year in 1982 to fifty-seven
hours today, a more than five hundred percent increase. Less
measurable than the environmental costs of sprawl, but just as
significant, are the social costs of growth. Many worry about
the spread of so-called cookie cutter communities and the
decline of civic identity.

Katherine Perez>> You can literally get lost in a cul-de-sac of
some development project, not know what street you're on, not
know what city you're in because everything looks the same.
It's basically garage door after garage door after garage door.
You feel isolated. You feel detached. There's no sense of
place. People feel like, you know, I push the button, I put my
car in the garage. I push the button and I'm home.

Saul Gonzalez>> As the Inland Empire and other rapidly
suburbanizing areas grow, so do conflicts over how and where we
should build. For his part, Young asks critics, with the
mushrooming population in Southern California, what's the
alternative to sprawl?

John Young>> I have a young family growing up. I have a son
and a daughter and they're going to need to buy a home. Do I
tell them to move to Arizona? Move to Nevada? I want them
close to me. I want to be able to see my grandchildren as they
grow up. So I don't like that. I think it's like I have mine
and, if you get yours, I don't really care and, if I can
restrict you from getting yours, I'll do that. We call it
nimbyism and you've heard the term.

Saul Gonzalez>> Not in my back yard.

John Young>> Not in my back yard. I think that's a very
destructive thing to our society.

Katherine Perez>> We're paving our way up to Las Vegas. That's
what we're doing. If we, in fact, want to put people in places
where there is limited water, there's actually lizards and
sagebrush right now, but we're putting up housing tracts.
That's what we're doing. If that's the kind of Southern
California or even California we want to give to our children
and our grandchildren, that's the kind of place that they're
going to have to reckon with all these problems in twenty or
twenty-five years.

Saul Gonzalez>> Whether one damns suburban sprawl or embraces
it, a challenge remains. How do we build decent homes and
communities for growing numbers of Southern Californians while
also protecting the environment that sustains us all? For Life
and Times, I'm Saul Gonzales.

Val>> There is an alternative to sprawl and tomorrow night
we'll take you to the city of Brea that has taken a very
different approach to development with some very different
results.

Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and
Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, transcripts
and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most
interesting features. Just go to kcet.org and click on "Life
and Times".

Val>> It must be frustrating to be Long Beach, always sitting
in the shadow of the massive Los Angeles, and yet this resort
town turned military town turned port city is full of
architectural gems. Well, now a new book has brought them to
life. The book is called "Long Beach Architecture: The
Unexpected Metropolis" by Cara Mullio and Jennifer Volland.

I met Jennifer at her loft in downtown Long Beach where she gave
me a pictorial tour of Southern California's third largest city.
In fact, these lofts are in the historic Walker Building, which
used to be a department store. Jennifer is a writer and working
on her Masters in architecture at UCLA.

Jennifer Volland>> Of course, the iconic buildings like the
Villa Riviera that everyone knows about Long Beach, but there
are also some buildings that were surprises to us. You know,
vernacular buildings, little houses that no one knows about.
Cara has a favorite on Linden and Third Street that's called the
Linden Towers. It's an apartment complex that was built in the
1960's that anyone else driving would just pass by, but we
really saw this sort of special qualities in it and wanted to
showcase not only the buildings that people know, but also bring
to light some of the ones that people have no idea existed.

Just to point out, we include residences, we include civic
buildings, we include commercial buildings and, of course, we
include churches as well. This is Grace United Methodist
Church. This is one instance where we did want to show the
interior because of these wonderful stained glass windows and
the way the light comes in.

[Film Clip]

This is the Bixby Ranch House. It was built in 1890 by
Cockshead & Cockshead which was a firm that did a lot of work in
San Francisco. The Bixby family was an important family here in
Long Beach and we liked this page because it shows the old
photograph juxtaposed against a new one. The house is still
there, although all the land around it is not as vast and open
as it once was. But now it's in a gated neighborhood with
pretty close neighbors.

[Film Clip]

Jennifer Volland>> This is actually a very important home by
the architect, Irving Dillon. One of the few residential
projects by him still is existing in Los Angeles. You see these
wonderful white simplistic walls that are reminiscent of Pueblo
architecture even with the arches and the flat surfaces. This
is across the street from Bluff Park, so this house has a
wonderful view of the ocean.

[Film Clip]

Jennifer Volland>> This is Marina Tower model apartment by the
architect, Edward Killingsworth and his firm, Killingsworth,
Brady and Smith. What's unique about this building is not only
the architect who was the preeminent architect in Long Beach,
but also the fact that this was a model apartment for a tower
that was supposed to be built next door to it. Because of the
cost of the apartment, I think it never got built, but we have
this wonderful legacy of the model apartment that still exists.

[Film Clip]

Jennifer Volland>> This is the Villa Riviera. It's an icon of
the Long Beach skyline. It was built in 1929 by Richard King
and people love to talk about this building because rumor has it
that Charlie Chaplin lived in this building.

[Film Clip]

Jennifer Volland>> This is the YWCA, an important project
because, well, one, it was torn down, so it's a demolished
building that we want to highlight. It was on Sixth and
Pacific. It's by the architect, Julia Morgan. She did Hearst
Castle and, unfortunately, this was torn down. There was a
devastating event that happened there where a ceiling that was
added later, not even part of the original building, fell into
the pool and killed someone. When it was being demolished, it
put up a fight. It took a long time for them to get this
building down and it's a testament to the engineering of her
architecture.

Val>> Now a lot of people in Long Beach or even around Long
Beach will remember this because this is a well-known building.

Jennifer Volland>> Right. This is the Roosevelt Naval Base by
Paul Revere Williams. This was torn down pretty recently and
there was a public outcry when this happened. But when it was
torn down, there was a mitigation effort set up of several
million dollars and based on projects related to preservation in
Long Beach. They actually funded the pre-production phase of
our book.

This is actually also on the cover of our book. We picked the
cover because it's sort of a juxtaposition of old, the Villa
Rivera, and new. This is the International Tower and locals
refer to it as the beer can (laughter). It has this wonderful
curtain wall of glass and views out in every direction. Again,
sort of indicative of the 1960's.

[Film Clip]

Val>> People would not believe this.

Jennifer Volland>> Exactly. This is the International
Elementary School. The principle of this firm is Tom Mange
who's doing a lot of projects now, a very eminent architect.
What's interesting about this is that the playground is in the
middle of it and all the classrooms are on the periphery, so
it's a wonderful solution to problems inherent in constricted
downtown environments.

[Film Clip]

Val>> Now this was built in 1998?

Jennifer Volland>> This is a wonderful example of new
architecture in the city that we think really successfully
achieved what it set out to do. The forms are reminiscent of
water and waves and it really helped the redevelopment efforts
in downtown, bringing more tourism and local residents to this
area.

[Film Clip]

Jennifer Volland>> We've also included some projects that we
hope will be realized in the future. There's this one, Olive
Court. It's for both moderate income housing and they placed
this development near public transportation. They're trying to
build the infrastructure in this certain area. This is on Long
Beach Boulevard, so it's another unique approach to urban
living.

[Film Clip]

Jennifer Volland>> This is the proposal for the new bridge
which will be built --

Val>> -- this is a proposal?

Jennifer Volland>> Yeah, I know.

Val>> It looks so real.

Jennifer Volland>> I know. It's a computer rendering. It will
be built alongside the old bridge and then, when this one is
finished, they'll tear down the old one. We wanted to include
this, of course, because Long Beach's economy is still so much
based on the port. I think it's slated for 2010.

[Film Clip]

Jennifer Volland>> We wanted to make this book practical, so we
included maps in the book and we want people to be able to drive
around or walk around and experience these buildings firsthand.
We really did make a concerted effort to bring projects in from
various neighborhoods. Of course, Long Beach is so large that
it's hard to include everything, but this is really the
selection that we felt really best represented the city.

Val>> Jennifer Volland, thank you for your time and for
bringing Long Beach out of the shadows of Los Angeles a little
bit.

Jennifer Volland>> Thank you, Val.

To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us
by mail at this address:

Life and Times
4401 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, California 90027

You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or
contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org.

Val>> The massive devastation from the tsunami in Asia has
caused experts around the world to re-evaluate the potential for
tsunamis. So could one happen here? Well, one expert says
absolutely. We thought it would be a good time to open up the
Life and Times Vault and revisit this story by Saul Gonzalez.

Saul Gonzalez>> The Pacific Ocean. Its beauty and rhythms help
define California life. On or near its shores, over twenty
million Californians live, work and play. Yet the Pacific is
also a spawning ground for one of nature's most destructive
forces: tsunamis.

Costas Synolakis>> If you think about it really as a mountain
of water, as a huge hill that's moving inland.

Saul Gonzalez>> Meet Professor Costas Synolakis. He is one of
the world's foremost experts on tsunamis and director of USC's
Tsunami Study Center.

Costas Synolakis>> Nobody has ever really seen one. Nobody has
seen how it is generated. It's almost like an unknown enemy.
People have seen hurricanes, tornadoes, people can feel
earthquakes, but tsunamis, usually we only find out what happens
after a tsunami hits.

Saul Gonzalez>> Unlike conventional wind-generated waves, a
tsunami is a massive wave front caused when an earthquake,
landslide or volcanic eruption violently jolts the ocean floor.

Costas Synolakis>> The sea floor moves up or down because of an
earthquake, which generates this giant wave that can propagate
over tens of thousands of miles at speeds of a jet aircraft, so
this is the part that's really fascinating. You have this huge
wave that can move across the world's oceans as fast as a
jetliner.

Saul Gonzalez>> When they come ashore, tsunamis have been known
to grow to heights of a hundred feet or more, bringing
devastation and death when they come crashing down. Tsunamis
were once thought of as phenomena that other places in the world
had to worry about like Alaska or Japan, not Southern
California. Then scientists started to ask themselves this
question: do conditions exist here in local waters to create one
of these monster waves?

Costas Synolakis>> We used to think that Southern California
was a fairly quiet area in terms of tsunamis, but after Papua,
New Guinea did we realize that there is this landslide
potential. Now even this beautiful area is a candidate for
tsunami attack.

Saul Gonzalez>> That attack might come because of what exists
below the ocean waters of Southern California, a rugged
landscape of steeply sloping ravines and valleys.

Jose Borrero>> There are a lot of steep slopes with a lot of
sediment on them and there is the potential for slope failures.
These slope failures, if they're large enough, can produce
waves.

Saul Gonzalez>> Jose Borrero is a tsunami researcher with USC.

Jose Borrero>> A tsunami that would be caused by a slope
failure very close to us, we're talking in between San Pedro and
Catalina.

Saul Gonzalez>> A tsunami created so close to our coast would
dramatically diminish warning times for people on the beach.

Costas Synolakis>> If the tsunami takes place and happens ten
miles offshore, it will take it less than ten minutes to come on
land and there will be no time to issue a warning.

Saul Gonzalez>> In order to understand the kind of punch a
tsunami could give Southern California, Synolakis says to
imagine the force of ten El Nino storms all rolled into one
single wave. Responding to growing evidence that tsunamis are
possible in local waters, the state of California's Office of
Emergency Services has commissioned Professor Synolakis and his
team to determine through computer modeling which sections of
California's coastline are most in jeopardy if a tsunami wave
forms. They will then draft inundation maps to determine where
tsunami-related flooding could be heaviest. Using a map of the
Southern California coast, Professor Synolakis showed Life and
Times which neighborhoods might be threatened.

Costas Synolakis>> For a fairly moderate tsunami, we're talking
about the first, in this particular case, the first line of
houses. For example, in Venice up to Ocean Avenue, going around
Marina del Rey, the entire area around the canals is at risk,
and then Playa del Rey. Everything basically that is low-lying
and around the channel because tsunamis have a habit of going in
and penetrating. They can use this as what we call the wave
guide and they can go in and penetrate inland flooding of both
sides of the channel.

Saul Gonzalez>> It's an entryway to further inland?

Costas Synolakis>> Oh, yes.

Saul Gonzalez>> State authorities will use the tsunami
inundation maps to help plan evacuation routes and determine
where tsunami warning signs should be posted, signs that could
start appearing on California's beaches within a year. Oregon
already has such a system in place.

>> "And you want to know about evacuation signs. You want to
know about warning signals. You want to know where the
evacuation routes are. You also want to know where your
designated shelters are in your community and where high ground
is."

Saul Gonzalez>> Until such programs are in place here in
California, Professor Synolakis offers this advice.

Costas Synolakis>> If you ever have any suspicion of an unusual
water motion, one has to move as far away from the water as
possible.

Saul Gonzalez>> It pays to remember that, when we're on the
shores of the Pacific, we're standing at the edge of a vast and
sometimes dangerous wilderness.

Val>> Those warning signs on our beaches have not yet been
posted and, as for an early warning system, well, we don't have
one. But some Los Angeles City Council members are calling for
a network of underwater microphones that would detect a tsunami
before it hits land. Still, overall, emergency officials say
that tsunamis are not a major threat in Los Angeles County. And
that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and
Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.

Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val>> Next time on Life and Times --

There has to be a better way, but what is it? Our special
report on surviving sprawl takes us to a city with a different
way of thinking.

>> People said we want a place to congregate, we want a place
to call our own. We want entertainment, we want places to shop
and eat. We want a gathering spot for the community.

Val>> That's next time on Life and Times.