Race, Class and the Battle for South Central Farm

For years the City, the Harbor Department, developers and citizens groups have played a shell game, switching land for money, while trading schemes for sweatshops and trash incinerators in LA's most polluted corridor for the dreams and demands for a better life in LA's most prominent oppressed neighborhood.

It has become all-but a cliché to point to the fact that the Farm - the nations largest urban garden ­ arose "from the ashes" of the 1992 Los Angeles Rebellion. Here's the reality. The rebellion meant the loss of huge investment opportunities in the area for the rich, and the city set out to fix that problem for them. The plan aimed to make high risk investments profitable for the investor by sinking government money into their development schemes.

They were "making deals that make a difference" ­ to everyone but the people whose suffering and oppression had fueled the famous rebellion. The plan the city developed demanded of local citizen's groups that they make a trade. The City demanded a virtually unrestricted access for industrial development in what is called the Alameda corridor ­ the site of the Farm - in return for bankrolling investor's plans to set up strip malls and mini-marts in devastated South Central. Otherwise, post-rebellion redevelopment in South Central would grind to a halt. It was an offer the citizen's groups couldn't refuse, and the city knew it.

The city and the developers were playing chess ­ a game with profits in the millions as the stakes ­ on the backs of the most oppressed and outraged people in the city.

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