Rezoning for property development puts poor, minority population in the city at disadvantage


Given the increase of corporate interference internationally,  landmark Supreme Court decisions like Citizens United give businesses unprecedented power in the bureaucracy. This is just one of the examples that the socioeconomic dynamics in America are  heavily skewed. The priorities of the common man have been supplanted by revenues — after all, priority is to the shareholders first, and then to the rest of society. Yet even in metropolitan Los Angeles districts, recent rezoning laws are being criticized as inherently biased against the city’s poor and disadvantaged, making it more difficult for minority representation. In a world heavily skewed in favor of those with money, this comes as no surprise but reveals flaws in the American economic structure.

With America’s capitalist structure, inequality is inherent. It, however, supports the growth of massive corporations, answering how frameworks of inequality have become frequent in this country. Such ventures desire greater profits, and the lobbying system in American politics allows these corporations to gain unequal representation in the legislatures. The lack of legal precedent for overturning such a practice has also led to its continued growth — the Founding Fathers certainly left no addendum in the United States Constitution concerning a corporate hijacking of the representative democracy.

As lobbying allows companies sweet-talk politicians for economic advantages, it is undeniably easy for the government to hastily draw new district boundaries. According to the Los Angeles Times, the infamous Operation Rezone, which netted the FBI and CIA prominent Fresno developer (and crooked racketeer) John Bonadelle in 1998, is just one landmark case of many in which entrepreneurs might use extra-legal means to take advantage of rezoning. This gerrymandering, which undoubtedly continues to this day, allows massive retailers and developers, especially those specializing in luxury goods, to redraw zoning lines to allow an influx of rich customers into political bounds where they have clout. In the businesses’ eyes, this is a win-win strategy: they make use of useful political lobbying infrastructure and gain massive profits, while benefitting shareholders and the districts’ constituents.

Yet while the corporate stogies and their indifferent consumers do their respective victory laps, they forget the other side of the story. They leave no sympathy or money for the indigent, who are often thrown into ghettoes or projects while their previous homes are bulldozed for utopian suburbia. With the Los Angeles Times reporting that more than 27 percent of all those in Los Angeles County lives under the poverty line according to a 2011 census, it is easy for entrepreneurs to justify moving their more expensive projects into neighborhoods such as South Central, where they claim that their strip malls and elite shopping centers will infuse prosperity. It’s no wonder that while so many city governments, like that of Los Angeles, claim credit for gentrifying “dangerous neighborhoods,” which only tell half the tale. They rearrange the neighborhoods, shoving the poor to the sidelines. After all, those in power find minorities easier to manipulate  than their other, wealthy  constituents — they have so much to gain and so little to lose.

In ignoring the poor, companies have perpetuated a cycle of poverty, nearly impossible for victims to escape. It is time for this horrific practice of economic disadvantage to end. There needs to be a stand against this discrimination, and not one that merely involves words. Too often have we have let social causes die with our passive advocacy, our hashtags and social media posts; these issues fizzle out as soon as the media loses interest. It’s not just the futures of current residents on the line — it’s that of future generations as well. We must advocate for immediate reforms in the L.A. redistricting legislation and allow the poor of this city greater representation, to have an audible voice in deciding where and how they live. Begin a petition. Verbalize the issue. Or perhaps even bring in the attention of the local media.

If these people are tossed aside, their lives bulldozed along with their homes, then this is no longer a land of the people, by the people, or for the people. Inequality is crushing the poor and driving them further away from the American Dream. Students, therefore, should not stand by and allow such corruption to affect fellow Angelenos.