The American Dream, Bent, But Unbroken

FIFTY MILES NORTH OF LOS ANGELES, ROUGHLY, is California City, population about fifteen thousand, far less than it was intended to be. It is the third largest city in the state, in area, much farther from the top in population. Vacant lots drastically outnumber houses, still visible in outline, though mostly overgrown with weeds, and shattered dreams. Between 1950 and 1960, during the post world War Two great American economic boom, the most prosperous era in American history, Los Angeles grew by fifty percent, amid the great baby boom. Along came Cy Mendelsohn, and his dream of riches and glory. He would personally oversee the rise of a new city which would rival and then dwarf nearby L.A., up on the high desert, in the days before we knew about climate change, during the relatively wet nineteen fifties, when drought wasn't the urgent problem it is now in California, and promises to remain. In recklessly optimistic anticipation and advance of the incoming hordes of settlers, Cy installed a sewer and water system to rival any in the western U.S.,, complete with pipes, not long since rusting and leaking, badly. He marked off sites for future shopping malls, public parks, sports arenas, roads and bridges, a complete city marked off right on the ground where it was to be built. Then he began the biggest real estate sale in history that ever went bust. You can mark off a place where a house should be built, and you can promote, advertise, and plan the future house built and full of people, but you cannot relocate free people without their approval. California City never became the mega city that Cy Mendelsohn imagined, people never came, and he went bell up, but it still exists today, proof positive that the best laid plans oft gang aglee, and the American dream can at times go seriously awry. But also, California city is a testament to the big dreaming legacy of the people who made America what it is today, the can do spirit of risk taking and free enterprise. Just ask Donald J. Trump.