The Power of Disruptive Events
The Los Angeles wildfire will revolutionize urban development, strengthen the MAGA coalition, and change the map of California.
Over the past decade, we lived through a series of disruptive events that upended business as usual. A disruptive event can have positive or negative outcomes. It can blow the dust off ancient systems that have become corrupt or anachronistic, or it can threaten civilization’s scaffolding.
Recent events have leaned in the negative direction. Our young people are more lonely and suicidal. We have given up on the notion that a president should exemplify a virtuous life. Income inequality has led to a series of mini-revolutions.
With 10,000 buildings burned to the ground and over 100,000 people displaced, the Los Angeles wildfire is a disruptive event times a hundred. It’s a cataclysmic event that could bring both positive and negative outcomes. It will revolutionize urban development, strengthen the MAGA coalition, and change the map of California.
The New City
The Chicago Fire of 1871 reset American urban life. Chicago became Ground Zero for architecture, where they learned how to build skyscrapers. They redesigned Chicago into a grid system. As Chicago modernized, other American cities replicated their successes. As major as this fire was to Chicago and all American cities, the fires in California are already bigger and more destructive.
Homes in Los Angeles will never be built the same. They will be constructed with cement and surrounded by rocks. Sprinklers will be built into roofs. Some areas — like along the coast of Malibu — won’t ever be rebuilt. Experts predict that it will take five years to reconstruct some areas.
Between the new building codes, competition for contractors, and supply/demand issues, many middle-class families will be priced out of Los Angeles. The costs to rebuild will be prohibitive. Others won’t be able to afford an alternative home when waiting for their homes to rebuild. Rich people are already shopping for new homes, but middle-class families who inherited their homes will take the insurance checks and move to a state with cheaper real estate.
Hopefully, this disaster will lead to proactive changes around the country. Can our infrastructures protect modern cities in an age of big disasters? God, no. Philadephia, New York, and Cleveland were built a century ago and need a full facelift. Eight million New Yorkers get their water from a 150-year-old water system. Even without a disaster, a detour to LaGuardia Airport takes you through crumbling neighborhoods with dirty buildings cloaked in a permanent shade under the trestles of an elevated subway line.
The needs are obvious, but cities can’t afford to make those changes. Adding one stop on a subway line in New York City costs billions. The MTA estimates that repairing New York City’s transportation system will cost $43 billion over five years.
The Los Angeles wildfire will force America’s older cities to face massive, expensive problems they’ve long ignored. It’s not clear if our cities can make these changes.
The MAGA Coalition
Trump supporters are strange bedfellows — tech bros, rich/elite haters, traditional values guys, and disenfranchised young men. Even before he took office, fractures were forming in the MAGA coalition over visas for programmers from India. This event will tie them together around their common hatred of “woke politics”.
Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass are taking the blame for the empty fire hydrants. Newsom and Bass are also Democrats, who have promoted DEI hiring practices. Prepare the tar and feathers because they’re going out on a rail.
Anger extends past Newsom and Bass to all local leaders who embraced DEI hiring practices and failed to effectively protect its residents. (Check out the comment section in this New York Post article about the plans to recall Newsom.) That anger put Trump in the White House, but the fire has given them ammo to confidently state, “When you care more about identity than ability, your city burns down.”
Trump will be sworn in next week and later enjoy a $200 million party with a performance by Village People. Mark Zuckerberg, John Fetterman, and the Prime Minister of Italy have already traveled to Mar-a-Lago to show fealty to the new king. Trump will have a blank check to do whatever he wants for the first 100 days.
California Dreamin’
For a century, people moved to California for the sun and lifestyle. With a ranch home in the hills, it was a symbol of modern life. In Mad Men, Don Draper leaves Madison Avenue for yoga on a California beach.
California is no longer a modern utopia. The state is mired in messy politics that have led to cities that are populated with the homeless, soup kitchens, and junkies bent over with fentanyl running through their veins. The fire further exposed the incompetency of its leaders. Tina Brown wrote,
There are few politicians who would want to be in Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’s blazing saddle right now. When the raging flames begin to cool, the fiery embers of political finger pointing that are already falling on her luckless head will entirely take over from the mesmerizing human stories that have filled our screens for the past week.
Read the whole thing. Brown is a great writer.
California is now the poster state for incompetent government. The backlash within the state will be huge, with more following Justine Bateman, the unlikely new face of anti-woke politics in Hollywood. Mel Gibson is back in vogue. Without affordable housing in California, burned-out families will relocate to Texas, Florida, or North Carolina, spreading their anger across the country.
Winds of Change
The winds of change are coming. Hurricane-force winds coming off the ocean are spreading burnt embers across our country. The devastation in Los Angeles will extend past city boundaries and have a national impact. Hopefully, the disaster will lead to positive changes resulting in cleaner cities, stronger homes, and better politicians.
The danger is that this crisis will burn too hot, resulting in thoughtless reactionary politics. We don’t need lynch mobs that guillotine scapegoats, without addressing long-term reforms.
