Culture
Los Angeles neighborhood bears the brunt of air pollution
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As summer temperatures rise, so do fears of asthma and other illnesses caused by all the air pollution converging on the east Los Angeles community of Boyle Heights.
Democracy
In smoggy Los Angeles, one neighborhood pushes back
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News about Boyle Heights in Los Angeles tends to be about crime or gentrification. There’s little coverage of air pollution, lack of safe and green spaces, lack of access to affordable and healthy food options — or the residents and organizations that are determined to change this.
Culture
Interview with “Smogtown” authors
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In the kickoff to Here in the City’s “Air Check: petroleum and air pollution from a community perspective,” Sara Harris interviews Chip Jacobs and William Kelly, the authors of “Smogtown: The lung-burning history of pollution in Los Angeles.”
Culture
Lesser known facts about air pollution in Los Angeles
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The Coalition for Clean Air houses a wealth of information about quality in California. Here are some surprising assertions I encountered about Los Angeles recently on their site:
Culture
“The Smogometer”
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I’m knee deep in Smogtown: The Lung-burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles by Chip Jacobs and William Kelley. It’s written like the pair wishes they were really James Elroy, but it’s chock-full of archival research and unbelievable anecdotes about just how toxic the miasma called air was in Los Angeles before the oil companies and defense manufacturers were ever subject to regulation.
Culture
The Toxic Tour: Networked public-health journalism
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Newsdesk.org’s award-winning, crowd-funded “Toxic Tour” is expanding to Los Angeles, Oakland and San Francisco, where we’ll put the neglected issues and neighborhoods “on the map,” and create a new model for independent journalism.
Culture
L.A. Targets Gangs for Hate Crimes
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The Southern Poverty Law Center says a Latino gang based in the California prison system has widened its feud with a rival African American gang, and is now engaged in an “ethnic cleansing” campaign that targets blacks indiscriminately. The latest victim, 14-year-old Cheryl Green, was fatally shot after straying too close to the “forbidden line” that divided her neighborhood down the middle, NBC4 in Los Angeles reports. Race-based attacks there have spiked in the past few years, and state and federal agencies are teaming up for a crackdown. Sources:
“L.A. blackout”
Intelligence Report (Southern Poverty Law Center), Winter 2007
“Injunction to be filed against 204th street gang”
NBC4.TV (Los Angeles), January 19, 2007
“No age of innocence in gangland’s turf war”
New York Times, January 21, 2007