Exactly. We’re talking about a neighborhood makeover. So why is it okay to discuss the “common good” – whatever that is – as if it were something so critically vital that we’d willingly sacrifice successful businesses like the one Ari Noonan described in his Dec. 6 editorial, the one belonging to the college girl’s family(“Put Down Your Guns — We Are Surrounded and Outnumbered”)? Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t successful businesses a good thing? It seems to me that some of those businesses in the South Sepulveda area have been there for quite some time…doesn’t that suggest that they are meeting important community needs, that they are successful? Even if we acknowledge that people affected by the proposed development would be compensated, it seems icky to believe that money (read: bribery) can mitigate the investment of time and energy people put into running their own businesses.

The One vs. the Many

The major philosophical problem is that this whole development idea relies on a top-down approach, not a grassroots initiative. Sure, there may be community input. But to what extent will it merely amount to choosing what color to paint the walls? To quote from that same article:

“As a single entrepreneur in charge of the entire complex, [Mr. Champion] said, I can develop the space in a flowing, attractive, orderly manner. But if you resist my plans…it is undeniable that single, smaller-time developers will drift into the neighborhood, building separately, without coordination, and the result will be a smeary-faced hodge-podge of ugly smudge.”

While Mr. Champion could undoubtedly complete the project within a short timeframe, it seems to me that the whole hoopla about the value of a single entrepreneur is a bit like saying a dictatorship is better than a democracy because a dictator doesn’t have to engage in long debates that hinder Getting Things Done immediately. This brings to mind the sort of abuse Prop. 90 was supposed to address, namely, preventing city governments from using eminent domain to transfer property from one private owner to another. South Sepulveda seems like a classic example of the problem, although the question could be reframed as:

Why should a developer-driven initiative give any more legitimacy to disposing of other people’s private property and businesses than city government initiatives?

Change Is Necessary, but…

Of course, I understand that South Sepulveda is considered an eyesore, an area experiencing decline. I also understand that change of some kind is necessary. But I worry that the aesthetic judgment being passed on the area stems from a kind of snobbery that sneers at anything not Beverly Hills Chic. While it seems like South Sepulveda is being treated as a disaster area in need of reconstruction, I think it’s more like a withering plant in need of water and sunshine. At the least, it hardly seems fair to uproot, disrupt or otherwise tweak businesses – people’s livelihoods – simply because we find an area displeasing to the eyes.

Still, Mr. Champion says resisting his plans will result in an ugly smudge. Really? That sounds like fear-mongering to me. Attractiveness doesn’t hinge on everything being matchy-poo. If we look at older communities, the ones that captivate with their charm and character, we’ll find that houses or businesses are not identical, that different individuals have made different aesthetic choices that yield variety and the inimitable spice of the “personal touch.” True, there are the occasional follies that can be described using four-letter words, but for the most part, a “hodge-podge” approach can yield very pleasing and exciting results. The alternative, as touted by Mr. Champion, is Orange County.

In Part 2: More questions and more reasons to continue being skeptical of Mr. Champion’s proposed development.