Comment by mag7269
19 hours ago
Paradise? LA was a big giant horrible underdeveloped wasteland in Spanish/Mexican times which, at the time in 1849, had 1,600 residents. Most of them had a largely pastoral life and life was brutal there.
LA under US rule is the prime example of what industrialized people can do to a place that lacked nearly everything of what it is at this moment: a world-class city.
Objectively, if it had stayed under Mexican rule, it’d resemble Yuma at best or Tecate at worst. I should know, my family lineage goes back to that era to both sides of the border.
One's "underdeveloped wasteland" is someone else's untouched paradise. Particularly someone like Joni Mitchell.
Was it that a big, giant, horrible wasteland because it was undeveloped? That is, was there something bad about it other than being undeveloped? Personally, I love living in the city AND land in its natural state.
Also, GP was quoting a song lyric.
I think the best intro to LA is Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner (it's really about the entire West and its relationship to water, but I think the first few chapters explain LA better than many other books.)
Funny. It's concrete hell.
It's part of a very popular song from the 70s by Joni Mitchell called "Big Yellow Taxi".
Counting Crows did a cover in 2002.