Making Los Angeles More Livable

Los Angeles city agencies should conduct a sweeping overhaul of the way they combat illegal dumping, by sending cleanup teams into neighborhoods, adding thousands of additional trash cans and relying more on data to locate the hardest hit areas, a high-level official said Tuesday.

One week ago, Lauri Jutila walked out the back of his Mid-City apartment building and found a sprawling heap of construction waste in the alley: floor tile, trash bags, wood planks and other construction debris stretching more than 100 feet.

Today, we're talking garbage. That title is a riff on the punch line of a Borscht Belt joke about a rags bottles man (junk collector). But trash in L.A. is no laughing matter. In fact, it's so serious that a team led by City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana has prepared a report entitled "Improving Livability in Los Angeles."

Los Angeles needs to overhaul its approach to dealing with illegal dumping, dirty streets and trash-filled alleyways, a new report finds. The city lags behind other U.S. cities when it comes to offering residents access to trash cans in public spaces and monitoring the cleanliness of its streets, the findings showed.

A plan to overhaul the way Los Angeles cleans its streets, alleys and vacant lots moved a step closer to reality Wednesday with a City Council vote. "We're recommending a basic standard of cleanliness in the neighborhoods and using data as a way of determining where resources get allocated and ultimately where investments get made," said City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana, whose office wrote the plan.

The Los Angeles City Council agreed Wednesday to begin creating a citywide approach to cleaning up trash and picking up couches, televisions and other bulky items illegally abandoned on streets. City officials spent the past six months studying the issue, which included examining how other major cities such as San Francisco, New York City and Washington, D.C., handle abandoned waste.

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) - How dirty is the city of Los Angeles? City officials are expected to debate that question at a City Council meeting Wednesday as they consider a motion to develop a strategy to assign cleanliness ratings to streets and neighborhoods across the Southland.

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The city's streets are fertile ground for cast-off couches. Just ask photographer Andrew Ward On a moody gray morning I am crouched in a deserted alley next to photographer Andrew Ward. His subject is inert, bulky, and forlorn yet cooperative. Ward lovingly frames the object, putting it center stage in the shot.

There’s an apartment complex on my street that regularly erupts in flows of broken furniture and assorted household debris, which land on a particular spot on the sidewalk. This occasional (but all-too frequent) junk pile grows in width, breadth and unsightliness as other residents contribute their trash to the pile.

A report headed by a city official in Los Angeles suggests city agencies should implement a massive overhaul of the way the city deals with illegal dumping in neighborhoods. The report, "Improving Livability in Los Angeles," was spearheaded by City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana and includes recommendations to create a rating index system for gaging waste levels.

Los Angeles has launched a new program to clear trash from streets and neighborhoods, but the elected official who sponsored the plan admits it's not enough to solve the city's growing garbage problem. Councilman Gil Cedillo, District 1, championed a new $5 million plan, approved in October, aimed at cleaning up the piles of trash dumped on sidewalks and in alleys across the city.

Los Angeles officials are taking a new run at the politically sensitive issue of clearing sidewalks of personal possessions left unattended by the homeless, without running afoul of court rulings. A proposed ordinance making its way to the full City Council is the latest in a series of attempts to address a rising outcry tied to an entrenched homeless population.

KNBC Los Angeles investigative reporter Randy Mac's described the streets of L.A. as a "post apocalyptic scene," as he rode along with the cities one, 13-man trash crew for the nearly 500-square-mile city. Mac reported, "According to a report commissioned by the City Administrator's office, only 35 percent of LA's streets are cleaned regularly.

Los Angeles is a city overflowing: with culture, with movies and music, with people-and with trash. A recent internal report shed light on a big problem. Los Angeles has more trash than it can handle. Despite its size (nearly 500 square miles), the city only has approximately 700 public trash cans.

Los Angeles has a trash problem. Streets, alleys and vacant lots are so littered with debris and garbage that a recent internal city report warned that some neighborhoods look unsafe and ungoverned. Only one-third of city streets are regularly swept. There's a backlog of 400 abandoned waste sites - trash-filled lots and the like - that need to be cleared.

Image via Davin Sanchez] The LA Times got its hands on an internal city report this week that says Los Angeles is traaaaashy. Some of the findings in the report, compiled after a thorough investigation by senior livability advisor Mark A.

It's a bit early for spring cleaning, and yet that's apparently what a lot of Angelenos are doing - getting rid of old furniture, appliances and other junk, and leaving it on the street.

The holidays are a time for giving, and in Los Angeles, many have the good fortune to provide generously for others. But once everybody receives their new stuff, a lot of the old stuff gets pitched onto the street.

Los Angeles, where garbage is trashed. Where bodies turn up at waste processing facilities. Where fear of bodies inside garbage dumpsters prompts the dumping of their contents all over downtown streets. Where on the coast, it's on the land and in the sea This is a place where trash-talking is taken literally; Kobe Bryant recently said fellow Lakers were " soft like Charmin."

An internal city report recently determined something that all of us that live in Los Angeles can tell: Los Angeles has way too much trash. Obtained by the LA Times (probably by searching through the "obvious" folder at City Hall), the report was written for the office of City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana.

A report penned by City Senior livability advisor Mark A. Thomas outlines the issues facing Los Angeles as trash piles up in alleys and neighborhoods. The report places blame on the community, including residents and businesses, for disposing of waste, and on the city for its failure to enforce anti-dumping laws.

Few things about life in L.A. cause readers to gripe more than traffic. So it's no surprise that when the one thing thought to bring relief from road congestion (not driving) costs more in both money and stress, letter writers make their displeasure known.

Few things cause more anxiety for Los Angeles motorists than the sight of a parking enforcement officer writing tickets on street-sweeping day. The city's Department of Transportation is known for its aggressiveness in enforcing the rules, often sending swarms of parking officers to hand out those $73 citations that cost drivers more than $50 million a year.

The City of Los Angeles is not the dirtiest place on Earth, but its "international image is threatened" by the "constant state of uncleanliness" in some neighborhoods. That's according to City Hall's top insider, who's trying to locate the worst places and provide residents with resources for cleanup campaigns - as well as improving enforcement of anti-dumping laws.