A Turnaround For One Infamous L.A. Neighborhood

The "once-graceful" Rampart neighborhood, which unfolds along Wilshire Boulevard, between downtown L.A. and MacArthur Park, descended into chaos in the 1980s when it became the entry point for refugees from the civil war in El Salvador. Violent gangs of "lost boys" divvied up the territory for various black market businesses. "In 1991 and 1992, homicides in Rampart peaked at world-class levels of savagery, with 138 deaths in 1992 alone." Then, in the late 1990s, the LAPD's Rampart Division became infamous when an officer was found to have stolen cocaine from an evidence locker; this led to other revelations of police abuse.

Yet conditions in the neighborhood have dramatically improved. Homicides are at the city average, and businesses, new housing, and middle-class residents have returned, notwithstanding that "a high percentage of Rampart residents are poor minorities living in crowded and unforgiving circumstances."

The recent transformation serves as a demonstration of the forces that affect urban neighborhoods beyond the design and infrastructure issues that preoccupy so many planners.

Thanks to Frank Gruber