events

Voting is great and all, but it is only one part of democracy.

When neighborhoods suffer foreclosures, everyone on the block gets hurt. The abandoned buildings can quickly become blight and attract criminal activity. The decline of a block can hurt the self-esteem of a community. It is also hard to bring communities together through block clubs and neighborhood councils when people are struggling to stay afloat and the neighborhood is in constant flux. At the very time neighbors most need to come together to support each other, their own struggles may leave them little time or energy to do.

When people look at questions of transportation, livable streets, or complete streets, they sometimes look at them in isolation, as if they stood alone from socio-economic issues. Slate's recent touting of LA's transit system as the next big thing, for example, never addresses questions of who is riding, how, and why. Or, why not, in the case of many Angelenos, who may find public transit cumbersome and/or have less than favorable opinions of the "public" that rides it or the neighborhoods it passes through.

"That's a lot of wood," mused Ben Caldwell of the 400 trees on the chopping block along the Space Shuttle Endeavour's route to the Science Center.

When I first reported on the notices posted on trees along Crenshaw Blvd. back in July, I did not realize that those notices were more or less the extent of the outreach the Science Center had done with the communities that the Space Shuttle Endeavour would be traveling through.

If you were one of the participants in the South L.A. Healthy Food Ride/Walk this past weekend, you could be forgiven if you walked away a little confused about the purpose of the walk.

If you've been paying attention to our calendar, you already know that RideSouthLA and Community Services Unlimited, Inc. (CSU) are holding a Healthy Food Ride this Sunday, Sept 9. The ride/walk event is designed to take participants on a tour through the neighborhood and show them the fresh food opportunities that do exist in the area. The ride/walk meet-up site is Mercado La Paloma (3655 S Grand Ave), and the event runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

"Oh yeah, I just saw maybe 50 or 60 riders go by. Yeah, it was pretty cool." said a security guard at Plaza Mexico.

Over the next week, you've got four opportunities to participate in promoting more livable streets in South L.A.