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Although the Los Angeles wildfires are still burning, the true toll is already becoming apparent. Homes and businesses are gone. The same goes for schools, supermarkets and houses of worship.
Those fires also robbed some Californians of something more intangible: a sense of community. What defines society? Although often a physical space, it is also more based on vibes and amorphous — the network of sensations between its members and their environment, constructed and natural.
Already, online and in conversation, Angelenos are remembering what was lost in the fires that burned Pacific Palisades, on the coast, and Altadena, an east side neighborhood with a thriving black middle class. The fish tacos at Reel Inn. The pancakes at Fox’s. Synagogue. The Bunny Museum. Walking trails. A pet supply store that sold backyard chickens. The account is early and incomplete. These fires may burn for weeks. The news is burning every day.
Eulogies show humanity and loss. Lakers coach JJ Redick, who recently moved to the Palisades, picked up on that in an interview over the weekend. His rented house and all his family’s belongings were burnt. But he was troubled, he said, by the loss of society. “All the churches, the schools, the libraries, are gone,” he said. He put his head in his hands as he talked about the playground where his children played sports. “It just hurts to lose it,” he said. What is the Palisades without these spaces?
What’s next
First settled by Native Americans, then owned by Spain, then Mexico, Los Angeles was incorporated in 1850, the year California became a state. Urban sprawl and frequent natural hazards make it less stable than most American cities. Keep growing, change, innovate, innovate.
I grew up in the Palisades in the 1990s. I went away to college at 17, and almost every time I came home, the things I loved—a nearby bookstore, a restaurant—were gone. Each loss is a pinprick. It’s also a real-life example of the Ship of Theseus thought experiment: How much of an area can you replace before it’s no longer your place, before it’s your home? Now the loss happens all at once instead of slowly. With them another complete loss – citizenship, uncertain, irrevocable.
Some have said that these areas should not be developed again, or that they should not be the same. They refer to a 1998 essay by environmental critic Mike Davis, “The Case for Letting Malibu Burn.” But Malibu caught fire often, and for better or worse, it always came back. Likewise, these villages are about to return. There will be new schools, new churches, new recreational facilities. As an Angeleno, you have to see enough natural disasters to understand the city’s resilience.
The next Palisades will not be the same. There will be no Altadena coming either. (Whether middle-class families will still be able to afford them is still an open and necessary question.) And it’s unlikely they’ll feel the same way. At least it didn’t last very long. But today, these communities live in people who encourage each other, help each other, remember and heal.
With luck, enough government funding and hard work, these places could be established in safer places, better able to withstand the effects of climate change. . For a century, Los Angeles has been a dream factory. Its inhabitants, remembering what they lost, appreciating what they held, may dream of brighter things.
This is the time to mourn, help and heal. Soon it will be time to start over. Los Angeles, after all, loves nothing more than sequels.
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