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Last year, when Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley abandoned plans to build a trash-to-energy incineration plant in South-Central Los Angeles, victory parties extended well beyond the poor and predominantly black neighborhoods near the proposed site.
Environmental activists, lawyers and homeowners from the Westside, San Fernando Valley and several suburban communities joined the celebration. Their opposition to the plant was credited with persuading Bradley to scrap the project.
Leaders of the city's slow-growth revolt-some of whom joined the incinerator fight-offer that unlikely alliance as proof that their movement has appeal beyond the city's middle- and upper-income neighborhoods. So-called quality-of-life issues that have fueled the revolt in those neighborhoods-traffic, parking, congestion and pollution-cross ethnic, racial, economic and social boundaries, they say.
No Unanimity
But some residents in the city's poorest neighborhoods disagree. Quality-of-life concerns in those areas focus less on traffic and parking than on crime, housing and jobs. While they may not want a trash incinerator in their back yard, residents of several distressed communities, particularly in South Los Angeles, are trying to attract-not scare away-new development.
"To a child who has lived on ice cream his whole life, it is an annoyance to tell him there are going to be another 31 flavors on the corner," said Ozie Gonzaque, a 44-year resident of Watts and member of Los Angeles' Housing Authority Commission, explaining the difference between her community and areas with strong slow-growth support. "But to a kid who can't have ice cream every day, it is a luxury. It is a treat."
In Watts, residents waited nearly 20 years following the 1965 riots for the area's first shopping center to open-an event that attracted several hundred celebrants. Today, they still need industries that will provide jobs for local residents. And they want more housing-even high-density condominiums, if they are affordable-and movie theaters and sit-down restaurants.
"We would love to have a Sizzler," said Alice Harris, a 28-year resident of Watts and head of Parents of Watts, which runs educational and relief programs. "We all have to go to Compton for a nice meal...