Community Redevelopment in Los Angeles:
Institutional Performance and the Reasons for Success and Failure
Any analysis of redevelopment in the city of Los Angeles must be sensitive not only to institutional performance of the Community Redevelopment Agency but also to the broader social context in which that agency operates. Robert Putnam (1993), in his most recent work, has argued persuasively that when evaluating a particular institutions performance, it is important to view its functioning as a dependent as well as an independent variable. Thus this study will conjecture that the practical performance of the CRA is partially shaped by the social context within which it operates
This social context in Los Angeles, in both its soci-economic and sociocultural dimensions, has undergone dramatic change in the last ten years.Radical demographic shifts, trends toward greater income and wage inequality and declining political participation have increasingly buffeted the city.
Since the 1980 census there has been a significant decline in the non-Hispanic white population in the city, a lesser decline in the Afro-American population and a dramatic increase in the Hispanic and Asian-American populations. Among the Anglo population there has been an continuing movement from more urban neighborhoods into the suburbs. The decrease in the Afro-American population during the 1980's suggests that a similar pattern is occurring among middle-class blacks who are leaving the inner City in search of more hospitable living environments. The Afro-American population of South Los Angeles actually decreased by 20% during the decade, while the Afro-American population in the rest of the city increased slightly (City in Crisis, 1992).
In 1990 40% of the population of the city of Los Angeles was Hispanic up from 28% in 1980. 45% of South Central Los Angles is now Hispanic. In the most damaged areas of the civil unrest of April 1992 (which...