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Posts Tagged ‘L.A.’

As Gold Prices Soar, Criminals Catch On

It seems like nearly every day this summer, the price of gold hits a new high. Today is no exception. Not surprisingly, criminals around the world are starting to take notice. First, from Stuart Pfeifer writing in the LA. Times:

So far this year, gold chains have been snatched from the necks of at least 110 people during street robberies in Olvera’s South Los Angeles division. His officers are circulating fliers and showing up at churches and community centers to warn residents to stop wearing gold in public, or at least to tuck it under their clothes.


L.A.'s Carmageddon: Would Building a Train Be Smarter Than Widening the 405?

The “mother of all traffic jams,” in the words of L.A. County supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, is coming to Los Angeles. On the weekend of July 16/17, an 11-mile segment of Interstate 405 will be closed as part of a $1 billion widening project. Reading of the expected traffic jams, and having recently returned from western Europe, where I traveled mostly by train, I was reminded of an earlier traffic nightmare.
This example I learned from Robert Caro’s 1974 masterpiece The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York. Robert Moses was New York City’s “master builder” in the mid-20th century, and famously hated public transportation.