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Globalizing L.A.

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Contents

Tables, Figures, and Photos...........................................................................viiPreface...............................................................................................xiI Overview..........................................................................................11. "Gateway for the Pacific Rim"......................................................................32. Regional Trade Catalysts: Local Markets and Governments............................................21II Historical Development: Entrepreneurial Visions and Deeds, 1880-1992..............................433. Local Foundations: Creating the Global Gateways, 1880-1932.........................................454. Building for Regional and Global Markets: Leadership and Innovation, 1933-1992.....................77III Mounting Challenges: The Riordan Years, 1993-2001.................................................1135. Weathering Storms at the Ports.....................................................................1156. Building Trade Corridors...........................................................................1447. International-Airport Development: At Stall Speed..................................................172IV The New Millennium: At the Global Crossroads......................................................2018. Rethinking Global Los Angeles: New Challenges and Formulas.........................................203Notes.................................................................................................233Index.................................................................................................283

Chapter One

The development of this city as a gateway for the Pacific Rim in particular, but really the whole world, ... was something so clear to me that I never questioned it. International trade and the Southern California jobs created directly or indirectly by the Harbor Department prompted me to improve the Port of Los Angeles.... And the international terminal at the airport was something which I recognized was important.... I either called or visited the airport every day just to see how the construction was going.... [The port and the airport] have become a truly major force in the economy of Southern California, ... tied in with international trade, ... and I'm proud of that achievement. -former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, 1995

Central to our region's economic vitality is international trade. To be the Los Angeles of the 21st century, we must invest [in infrastructure] today to increase our capacity for international trade tomorrow. -former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, 1996

Globalizing L.A. is a study of trade, infrastructure, and regional development in Greater Los Angeles: from the fierce railroad and harbor battles of the late nineteenth century, to the twentieth-century building of one of the world's greatest trade-transportation complexes, to L.A.'s emergence as a leading trade center, and, finally, to new uncertainties regarding its twenty-first-century global future.

A major focus of this book is the epic battles fought since the early 1990s over the nation's most ambitious trade-infrastructure development plan: the development of the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports; the Alameda Corridor rail project; the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) Master Plan; the plans for a new international airport at the former El Toro military air base in Orange County; and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) border-infrastructure improvements. I consider the myriad of challenges to these mega-projects, pitting the forces of globalization and the economy against community and environmental resistance, and analyze the strategies devised by project supporters and opponents to shape Southern California's community, regional, and global future.

Los Angeles has become one of the world's great regional economies and global laboratories. In 2001, the five-county Los Angeles metropolitan area (consisting of Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, San Bernardino, and Riverside counties) had a gross regional product of $651 billion, making it one of the world's largest economies. Table 1.1 compares the Los Angeles regional product for 2001 with the gross domestic product of the top twenty-five national economies. If Greater Los Angeles were a nation, its economy would rank ninth in the world, below those of Italy and Canada and above those of Mexico, Spain, and India. Were L.A. County a separate country, its $390 billion economy would rank fourteenth in the world, below those of Brazil and South Korea but above those of the Netherlands, Australia, Russia, and Taiwan.

Greater L.A.'s global significance extends well beyond its world-scale economy. The region has become a premier crossroads for migration from the Pacific Rim, Mexico, and Latin America. The region is now home to one-fifth of the country's new immigrants. With Hollywood and major industries in multimedia, fashion, and design, L.A. is a capital of the global entertainment industry and a leading incubator of global culture and design innovation. Yet, Southern California also aspires to be the nation's leading Pacific Rim gateway and a major center for trade with Mexico under NAFTA. L.A.'s trade ambitions and the catalytic role of its trade infrastructure supply the main focus here.

Building L.A.'s Gateways and Trade

This study weaves together history and policy analysis to trace the arc of the region's trade, infrastructure, and economic development. I explore Southern California's meteoric rise historically as well as its still uncertain future as a leading center for global trade and transshipment. A primary concern involves the strategies devised to plan, finance, and build one of the world's great trade-transportation complexes-the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and LAX. These are the world's third busiest port and airport facilities. I also examine the development of major trade corridors, such as the landmark Alameda Corridor rail project, which connects the ports with the downtown rail yards, as well as the extensive network of rail, highway, and land port-of-entry links to Mexico and the rest of North America.

More so than most regions, L.A. trades on its superior infrastructure; its other trade-development efforts pale in comparison. Yet, as these pages reveal, the building of L.A.'s global gateways was an improbable and remarkable achievement. In 1900, Los Angeles lay a distant twenty miles from the ocean. The region had no natural harbor. San Pedro, then a separate city, had a small, inadequate port with shallow sloughs and unprotected open-sea anchorages. Neighboring Long Beach also had no natural harbor. The present site of LAX was a bean field. The region's seaport and airport sites originally lay in private, not public, hands. How the municipalities of Los Angeles and Long Beach improbably came to own these facilities and, despite daunting challenges, to publicly develop them (albeit with federal, state, and private assistance) into the mighty trade portals now globalizing the Southern...