Even as I remain a denizen of a small rural community in Alaska, I'm (still) an odd one indeed to be writing about the state of America's urban areas and Democrat/leftist jurisdictions. If you've been reading my work over the last few years, you know I grew up in a rural setting in Iowa and am now a content rural dweller myself. I have little time for cities, despite having lived in them for four decades. I find them unpleasant; crowded, noisy, and, to be honest, they smell bad. I like the clean country air of the Susitna Valley, and if that means I have to put up with the occasional bear in the raspberry patch, that's fine.
So, why am I still worried about America's cities? Because our cities are the beating hearts of our nation. Much of the country's economic activity happens there. Urban areas host much of the country's industry and academia. What's more, our cities used to be the pride of the nation, but that's less the case now. Case in point: Los Angeles, California, where the city is very nearly on the verge of becoming a lawless, dystopian nightmare, and where the city's elected officials seem determined to push the city over the edge.
First, the City of Angels' infrastructure, most notably street lighting, is now under attack by copper thieves and vandals, and the city seems unable to deal with it.
Los Angeles’s Sixth Street Bridge was supposed to be a triumph. Completed in 2022 after years of delays and cost overruns, the new structure connecting Boyle Heights to downtown L.A. was hailed as a civic landmark. At $588 million, it was the most expensive bridge project in the city’s history. Its ten soaring arches and thousands of LED lights led its designers to call it the “Ribbon of Light.”
Today, the bridge is dark. Within months of its opening, thieves began tearing copper wire from its electrical infrastructure to sell for scrap. By one estimate, nearly seven miles of copper were stripped from the bridge, extinguishing what was meant to be its defining feature. The city’s new showpiece soon became a monument to broader civic dysfunction: deprived of its lighting, covered in graffiti, and dangerous for pedestrians. Despite repeated efforts to secure the electrical system, the thefts have continued. Officials now estimate that repairing and relighting the bridge in time for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics will cost $2.5 million.
This is inexcusable. And it's not a local problem. It's not limited to this once-vaunted bridge project, which so quickly turned to ashes in the mouths of Los Angeles residents.
The bridge’s plight is mirrored across Los Angeles. Thieves have stripped copper wire from streetlights throughout the city, leaving entire blocks dark for months. Reported copper-theft incidents surged from just nine in 2006 to 4,534 in 2021, and to nearly 16,000 in fiscal year 2024–25. The Bureau of Street Lighting warns residents that repairs now take, on average, more than a year because of “severe wire theft and vandalism.” Today, roughly one in ten of the city’s 225,000 streetlights is out of service.
Copper thieves are only part of the problem. Theft accounts for less than half of current streetlight outages, say city officials. Most result from ordinary repair and maintenance failures that the city has neglected. Since 2020, service requests for streetlights have nearly tripled; the city now fields more than 45,000 streetlight service calls annually.
Note that street lighting, the importance of which was known as far back as the Roman Republic, is a major factor in keeping order and deterring crime in the nighttime hours. Goblins prefer to operate in the dark. This isn't just a matter of people tripping over a passed-out addict in the street. This is a problem with people being attacked in the street. Not even the Sixth Street Bridge, which was supposed to have been the pride of the city, is safe.
Read More: The Downfall of America's Cities: LA's Homeless Magnet Effect Exposed
The Downfall of America's Cities: How LA's Transit System Became a Haven for Crime
The other burgeoning problem is the city's expansive homeless enclaves. The city's new influx of "democratic socialist" (communist) politicians seems determined to encourage the growth of these encampments, covering them with a cozy blanket of stupid euphemisms.
A Los Angeles city councilman just coined a new appellation for the drug-addicted vagrants who colonize city streets. They are “our neighbors,” says Hugo Soto-Martínez, a member of the L.A. Chapter of Democratic Socialists of America. Who knew?
This new identity is even more cheeky than the original rebranding of such vagrants as “the homeless.” Soto-Martinez used the “neighbors” designation to persuade his fellow council members to allow homeless encampments near senior centers and libraries and around freeway overpasses. The previous occupant of Soto-Martinez’s seat had banned such encampments in his and, eventually, Soto-Martinez’s district, which includes Hollywood and Echo Park. Last Tuesday’s 10–3 vote repealed that ban. At present, the repeal applies only to what is now Soto-Martinez’s jurisdiction. But expect this green light for street squalor to extend more widely, as the Left pushes Los Angeles further toward uncontrolled anarchy.
Yes, you read that right. A member of the Democratic Socialists of America, or DSA, is advocating for anarchy in allowing homeless enclaves around public areas. Allowing them near libraries would mean allowing them in libraries. Allowing them near senior centers means that sooner or later, there will be "neighbors" preying on the seniors in those centers. Commies like Hugo Soto-Martínez have to know this is the inevitable outcome of their proposals. They simply don't care.
Why, we might very well wonder, is Los Angeles falling apart so catastrophically? Look to their elected officials. This year is the mayoral election in Los Angeles, and the inept Karen Bass is, inexplicably, favored to win over the even more inept "democratic socialist" (communist) Nithya Raman, a card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America. After the jungle primary that edged Spencer Pratt out of the race, the choices Los Angelenos face are far left and even farther left.
In other words, no matter how this mayoral election goes, Los Angeles loses.
It is the one primary goal of government, any government at any level, to protect the liberty and property of the citizens. Los Angeles is not only negligent in that task; the elected officials in that city seem determined to do just the opposite, to ensure that the decline of the city continues. That decline will continue until the voters finally kick the bums out; but this year's mayoral elections in Los Angeles do not give one much cause for hope.
