Continuing South
Landscaping to Come, originally uploaded by lavocado@sbcglobal.net.
They're getting ready to put in the landscaping. I've got to say, the turquoise iron fencing is refreshing after all the chain link I've seen. A kite soared above the river, but Petey didn't like the bulldog that came along while I was watching it, so I left the trail and went into the streets of Cudahy. Mike Davis said that Cudahy is the second poorest suburb in the United States. Bell Gardens, just across the river, is the third poorest. He didn't say what the poorest suburb is.
Michael Cudahy was a wealthy meat-packer from Milwaukee when he bought a ranch in California in 1908. When he subdivided the ranch, he sold it in very large lots 50 to 100 feet wide and 600 to 800 feet deep. He did this to appeal to the farmers of the South and the Midwest who were leaving farms for factory work, but still wanted land for growing vegetables, fruit trees and chickens or horses. The gardens and livestock are gone now. A few houses are remeniscent of those times. They are more likely to have other houses, apartments or trailer parks behind them now. The future will probably look more like this, a place the current residents might not be able to afford. I see a landscape where the present reality contrasts with an older dream, and I see a future where the older dream has been forgotten.