Just as a point of reference, I grew up in Pasadena, b. 1954. I lived in Pasadena and Glendora from birth until 2016, when my family moved to Phoenix. I worked in marketing and tech all over LA. and know LA about as well as anyone.
So - what’s next for Angelenos?
I won’t be surprised if the - thousands of owners of burned-out $M homes in Pacific Palisades pack up & leave. Pols will see much of the too-progressive tax base leave CA; when that happens, CA is truly screwed as everything depends on overtaxing the wealthy in Hollywood & SiValley - well, they’re leaving.
Almost no movies are made in Hollywood anymore; “runaway production” means it was shot in Atlanta or Toronto or some other locale, and the hundreds of workers on a feature film have been having a harder & harder time for decades… this will make that worse, and the talent - well-paid actors, directors, etc., just got burned out so they’ll go elsewhere, too. The trades working in tinsel town will be screwed.
if you’ve been paying attention, much of the tech base in SiValley already moved to Texas; Zuckerberg just announced that more of his team has GTT - Gone To Texas. The brain and income tax drain from CA is about to accelerate. Bigly.
Pols will try to overspend on the homeless they just created via their own incompetence, but CA passed BROKE several overcrowded freeway exits back.
It’s doubtful Trump or Congress will nationalize their state debt … but it is CA, so ya never know …
The Feds can’t really print a few hundred $B after the recent profligacy - not that they won’t try - but, as with they’ve left selves no ammo to deal with a yuge recession, they’ve no ammo to deal with a yuge disaster.. and now they’ve got one in the second-most important city on the continent. Try to imagine if an earthquake gets piled on top of the ashes…
The city & state will try to build multi-family apartments where $M mansions were and move toward a 15-min city because the climate gods need to be appeased or the wind will return.
Who knows who will win that fight? But if the state wins, property tax revenue will tumble, taking down their horrible schools - driving away more young professionals and their incomes - as it does.
As to rebuilding tens of thousands of homes? The red tape will mean three years until the first load of lumber is dropped off.
This is not to be underestimated. When my brother remodeled the west Pasadena home in which we were raised, permitting took nearly 5 years. Same lot. Same footprint. Not a McMansion. Architect & GC: 5 years to get it permitted.
The competition for haulage to get millions of tons of concrete, framing wood, plaster, stucco, water & gas pipes… will be intense - and I have no idea where those workers & bobcats & trucks will come from or where it’ll all be put. Just cleaning up to start to rebuild will be expensive and long.
Having run home construction out of the state, I have no idea where they’ll get thousands of crews to rebuild tens of thousands of homes - or how much they’ll charge.
Since nearly all home construction in the Southwest is done by illegal aliens, expect fights between the state & homeowners trying to rebuild, and Trump trying to enforce immigration law.
They’re estimating $135-150B of damage. That’ll increase.
The economic hit of workers who have no home, no car, the kids’ schools burned down, businesses burned down, no sales tax, no income tax, no property tax… will be long-term & ginormous.
Moms accustomed to driving their now-burnt-out Range Rover to the market might have a problem learning to ride the bus & carry their groceries, as my mom did in the 1950s. I took MetroLink and an express bus for a year or so, commuting from Glendora to Culver City (Sony Pictures). I’m not at all sure how these Range River moms will adapt to riding with high schoolers, nannies & gardeners…
It’s a mess and will be for quite some time.
Brought to you by DEI Democrats.
You can’t hate them enough.
Last June a residence three doors down from our home caught fire. A regional utility company repairman was on site dealing with an electrical system short that apparently set the house on fire. All the occupants escaped safely, but in 90 seconds the home was engulfed in flame. When firefighters arrived, the house had burned to the ground. What remains is the home’s charred concrete foundation. Seven months on and still no new construction. Now consider the catastrophic devastation in Los Angeles where 12,000 (and counting) homes/structures were lost and some 200,000 are homeless, their possessions incinerated. What will become of these razed homes? Who takes the lead? Who starts rebuilding? Who eases California’s oppressive environmental regulations and construction rules to free homeowners to rebuild their homes -- and their lives? California Democrats decided social engineering and virtue signaling are more important than civil engineering. The proof lies in the lost lives and ashes of Los Angeles. Sadly, there may be worse to come.
As in all natural (or man made) disasters, the disaster is only the beginning. How to recover without a plan is a real problem. Common sense would dictate that you recover the working class first, as they're needed to support the swells. That won't happen because the swells have a lot more influence than the working class.
Services must be restored before the recovery can go anywhere, but how do you recover services without users? How do you reinstall electrical service to a wasteland?
If LA tries recovery without rebuilding and enhancing their water supply, they're only preparing the ground for the next disaster.
California needs to forget about Snail Darters and start diverting the water to people's use and protection.
Basically California needs to get rid of Democrats, at least the current crop of defectives, and bring common sense, no matter the party, to government.
There are plenty of Disaster Recovery and Contingency Planning professionals, and schools where people interested can get the knowledge they need. There will be a huge market in the LA basin for the foreseeable future.
Probably more to come...