| - | East/War Zones | West |
|---|---|---|
| AGREE | 22% | 35% |
| DISAGREE | 71 | 55 |
| NO OPINION | 7 | 10 |
Should the center of the national government once again be reestablished on the East Coast, that is, moved from Los Angeles?
| - | 1993 | 1992 |
|---|---|---|
| AGREE | 38% | 39% |
| DISAGREE | 45 | 42 |
| NO OPINION | 17 | 19 |
Do you support the recent demands made by some groups for dividing the United States into two permanent regions, e.g., West and East?
| - | 1993 | 1992 |
|---|---|---|
| AGREE | 47% | 47% |
| DISAGREE | 50 | 48 |
| NO OPINION | 3 | 5 |
Los Angeles
It is the greatest city in the United States. In size, San Francisco isn’t even close.
Jim and I found it nostalgically complex, a vast mechanical toy full of buses and clanging trolleys and more cars than either of us have seen in one place in years.
It looks like fun, and the tension in the air reminds me a little of New York.
As much as there are things that are here from the past, there is something from the present that is missing. It is the sense of having suffered—the subtle tension that hangs between friends and strangers alike, everywhere else we have been so far. California didn’t suffer too much from the famine, and few people here were weak enough to be killed by the Cincinnati Flu. Radiation sickness is almost unknown, except among refugees.
On our first night in the bright streets of Los Angeles, I found myself returning to my old metropolitan habits, moving with quick anonymity and never meeting anybody else’s eyes.
There is a much stronger Japanese influence than ever before.
The streets are packed not only with Japanese businessmen but also with clerks and factory workers and children with American nannies. And there are cars: new Nissans that whistle when they accelerate and get 130 miles to a gallon of gas, sporty Toyota Z-90s, Isuzus and Mitsubishis and the occasional Mercedes-Benz.
There are also a few Fords, big and beautifully made at the new plant in Fullerton, and a great improvement over the notorious Consensus with the plastic windows. Despite its size, the new Thunderbird gets sixty miles per gallon. It also has a sensor that sounds an alarm if any radioactive particles should be taken into the air- conditioning system.
More, though, than its prosperity, L.A. has the feeling of prewar America, the cheer, the confidence, the cheek that one associates with former days.
I indulged myself shamelessly. In Little Tokyo there are dozens of open-air fruit and vegetable stands where melons and tomatoes and lettuce and carrots and squash and dozens of other things are stacked in abundance. Little Tokyo, by the way, now extends all the way to Sixth Street. It must be four times its prewar size. In Little Tokyo I bought an enormous vine-ripened tomato for two cents and ate it like an apple. I have not eaten such a thing in years. It was rich beyond belief, dense with a flavor that swept through my nostrils, heavy with juice. If I could design hydroponics that would grow tomatoes that flavorful, I’d get rich.
