We welcome historian/author/activist Michele Zack as our new columnist on all things Altadena.
by Michele Zack
Many of us are puzzled and disappointed by Altadena’s sparse commercial life. We love the place, wouldn’t live anywhere else, but feel aggrieved at the dearth of places to locally and enjoyably spend our money. We can’t will restaurants and interesting shops and services into existence, even though when it comes to food, there’s a lot of interest.
A healthy alternative economy in home-produced and grown food is rising. About 350 turned up at the first Altadena Urban Farmers Market at the Zane Grey Estate last weekend, all happily signing up for a “club” that really just means we trust our neighbors — since everything at the market was home-produced and thus outside of California’s regulatory system. (My fruit pies, at $12 a pop, were gone in half an hour!)
No matter our income level, we all must spend money to live. Why don’t we spend more of it closer to home? I and my pie money were soon parted: before leaving Zane Grey Estate my home-based culinary efforts were transformed into hand-knitted and felted slippers, fabulous bread, earth-friendly cleaning products, and seeds and plants for our winter garden. I’d rate myself “extremely satisfied” with the day’s commercial activities, services, and economic transactions.
So why don’t our 43,000 inhabitants also vigorously support conventional Altadena shopping and services? Looking at a few exceptions is instructive: The Coffee Gallery is generally well-animated, with patrons hacking away at novels or meeting up in pairs or groups, the latter in rooms thoughtfully provided by management. Expeditions to Super King can be perilous, but bargains trump parking and other obstacles to provide fodder for conversation. This morning I survived a walnut riot that broke out as I attempted to exit the produce section. I generally go there following visits to another lively Lincoln Crossing business: 24-Hour Fitness. Some of us turn up our noses at national chains, but this is a success story and clear response to community needs and desires. It is always busy. Along with Super King, it anchors Lincoln Crossing, and ideally should draw patrons to a plethora of small, more individuated businesses. (That was the vision; parking and other problems have so far prevented its realization and will be the focus of a separate column.)
Why don’t we have more successes? Why don’t we patronize the businesses we have to help turn them into going concerns?
Altadenans come in flavors from hip and cool to traditional and conservative. We are a poster town for racial and economic diversity, and — despite lingering perceptions to the contrary — affluent enough to support shops, restaurants, and other services. Median family income in Altadena was $86,000 according to 2007 US Census figures. Income is never evenly distributed, but this figure does provide a sort of community “GDP” for comparison purposes. Household incomes here are lower than La Canada Flintridge’s, close to Sierra Madre’s, and higher than in Pasadena, Monrovia, Glendale, or La Crescenta/Montrose.
Despite current hard times, and with a quarter of our population, little Sierra Madre hosts a dozen restaurants and many other businesses (with nary a national chain); ditto Montrose, with fewer than 20,000 to support such commercial activities, and La Canada Flintridge, with just a few thousand more. Don’t get me started on Monrovia: we have five or six thousand more residents and are more densely populated, but have you seen Monrovia’s downtown lately? Block after block — it goes on forever — of pedestrian-friendly small businesses clumped around a civic center teeming with people and pleasantly “calmed” traffic. Plenty of parking, including my favorite, head-in parking.
Our community’s unincorporated status, and therefore lack of a civic center, must be partially accountable; cityhood confers both motivation and tools for economic development. But being a “real” city is not necessarily the deciding factor in commercial success: consider LaCrescenta-Montrose, Hacienda Heights, or for that matter, Marina del Rey. Most of Los Angeles County does not fall within a city boundary, and across this vast area many commercial centers flourish — in communities incorporated and un-.
Altadena’s history, geography, culture, shopping habits, and reliance on Pasadena defy mere census numbers and income levels to explain its residents’ and would-be entrepreneurs’ economic behavior. But there are knowable and mutable factors involved in our community’s commercial condition. I hope to explore these with readers in future columns, get your feedback, and conduct a conversation about what Altadena wants to be. I am especially interested in looking at our specific history to help frame ways of looking to the future.
Here are a couple things to consider:
Altadena used to have three active commercial corridors as we developed as a streetcar suburb in the late 19th and early 20th century: Lincoln, Fair Oaks, and Lake. Is local geography destiny? The fact that all are on a north-south axis, with steep grades (Lake being the worst), as opposed to east-west (think of Sierra Madre, with its trolley running parallel to the mountains in a nice flat Boulevard) might seem arbitrary, but is perhaps under-considered as an explanation for our current commercial lethargy. Taking the larger historical view, what has happened in Altadena has occurred across the nation as well-capitalized national chains push out small operators, those on flat as well as steep sites. What deciding factors determine economic success or failure in today’s world and today’s Altadena?
Please join me in pondering these and other questions in future columns!
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Michele Zack is the author of Altadena: Between Wilderness and City and Southern California Story: Seeking the Better Life in Sierra Madre.
