“The landscapes of California have been largely transformed by man”

If Los Angeles has developed as it has, it is largely due to its idyllic setting. This environment, considerably modified, is condemned to be disrupted by climate change, explains academic Elsa Devienne.

Dor a week, Los Angeles has been burning. And, with it, a part of the Californian dream. That of living as close as possible to the ocean, the Hollywood hills and the canyons. But this dream was built on a certain number of illusions, recalls academic Elsa Devienne, specialist in environmental history and urban history of the United States. Author of the work The Sand Rush. An environmental history of Los Angeles beaches in the 20th century (ed. La Sorbonne, 2020), it traces the history of the City of Angels and its contradictions.

What do the dramatic news affecting Los Angeles mean to you?
I find that what attracts people to Los Angeles is also what makes it a city inevitably doomed to disaster, especially in the context of climate change. These spectacular landscapes of wide avenues surrounded by hills backed by grandiose canyons, a blue ocean, majestic palm trees… When you are there, you are struck by the smell of the flowers, the magnificent weather and the rugged terrain that surrounds the city. But all these decorative elements present dangers: the city, crossed by the San Andreas fault, is subject to earthquakes, the sunny climate bodes terrible heatwaves and droughts, and the rising waters of the Pacific threaten the coastline.

How can we explain the destruction by fire of entire neighborhoods in such an urbanized territory?
These destructions are out of the ordinary. Los Angeles is a huge urban area, within which we find both almost wild spaces and extremely dense and urbanized spaces. The residential district of Pacific Palisades, to the west of the city, which is one of the most affected by the fires, is a “suburban” district typical of the region: alleys of individual houses with gardens, on the outskirts of the center urban. These areas, at the interface between the city and the forest, are the most at risk. What is striking is that for six or seven years, the fires are no longer limited to these neighborhoods, but are spreading to parts of the city with little vegetation, in particular because of dry and powerful winds.

To what extent is the “wild” image of California a human construct?
The landscapes of California, particularly those of the South, have been largely transformed by man. The Los Angeles river was concreted in the 1930s to expand the city while avoiding flooding; species of trees emblematic of the region such as palm trees or orange trees are not native at all but were imported to reproduce the environment of the edges of the Mediterranean, the beaches were created by bringing mountains of sand to develop the coastline. As for the green lawns of the pavilions, they have more of their place in England than in California…

American sanctuaries were imagined based on a European conception of nature, which places it at a distance, instead of adapting to it.

Several movements, from the second half of the 19th century, attempted to protect American nature, starting from California…
The first national park in the United States, Yellowstone, created in 1872, is actually Californian. The American desire is then to protect exceptional and emblematic landscapes, to protect what is seen as an original creation, in opposition to European natural spaces already largely transformed by human activity. The problem is that these spaces were not empty and pristine as has been claimed. They had to be emptied: the Native Americans who populated them and found their livelihood there were chased out and moved to reservations. This is what environmental historian Guillaume Blanc calls “green colonialism.”

These sanctuaries were imagined based on a European conception of nature, which places it under cover or at a distance, instead of adapting to it. This ideology has caused great harm to both the environment and humanity. One of the most terrible examples is the ban on indigenous tribes from burning parts of the forest, even though this practice allowed them to survive and prevent fires.

How did the urban sprawl characteristic of Los Angeles, a so-called “horizontal” city, come about?
From the beginning of the 20th century, Los Angeles was thought of as a city that would be different from those on the East Coast, with their unsanitary neighborhoods and overcrowded buildings. Los Angeles wants to be a rather sparse city, to favor its population’s access to nature and offer them a healthy lifestyle. In the 1920s, the elites who ran it nevertheless observed that the center was becoming congested and decided to decentralize the city by creating urban cores around it, access to which was facilitated by a very efficient tram system, which would be abolished for a few decades. later.

The demographic explosion experienced by Los Angeles from the 1950s, as well as the development of the individual car, will accentuate this effect of urban sprawl even into the surrounding valleys. Finally, the serious housing crisis which has affected California since the 1990s and which continues to worsen pushes the least privileged households ever further to the outskirts. And urban space continues to be spread out instead of being densified.

A handful of privileged people [profite] places that are not made to be transformed into living spaces.

How has the film industry transformed the region?
Since the origins of Hollywood, there has been a special relationship between landscapes, climate and cinema. Among the many reasons that pushed the film industry to move from the East Coast to the West Coast in the early 20th century were California’s weather, the ability to shoot outdoors most of the year, and the multiplicity of landscapes within vehicle reach. This relationship will take on less and less sustainable proportions when the stars will want to live in ecosystems hitherto without habitation, like Malibu. [ancien quartier de Los Angeles devenu une cité balnéaire pour ultrariches, ndlr].

The first to buy land there were Hollywood stars and bigwigs from the film industry. They built on the hills, to be on the beach while getting away from the crowds and ensuring their privacy. Living in Malibu, rather than downtown Los Angeles, is then a sign of distinction. The sumptuous and excessive constructions will follow one another and generate a lot of money, Hollywood creating a culture of splendor on the Californian coast. The silent film star couple Harold Lloyd and Mildred Davis built a one hundred and eighteen room villa with a theater, tennis court, golf course and Olympic swimming pool on the edge of Santa Monica beach in the 1920s…

A text by the American anthropologist Mike Davis, in which he defended in 1998 the idea of “let Malibu burn”, resurfaced with the news. What does it remind you of?
Mike Davis’ analyzes of Los Angeles defy time and remain striking in their accuracy and clarity. He stressed that these dry hills, rich in vegetation, conducive to conflagration, should have been transformed into public spaces and not into residential areas for the richest. What outraged him the most, and which remains true, is that public subsidies finance this way of life which is by definition unsustainable. The state of California spends enormous amounts of money trying to protect these spaces from fires. The entire population pays taxes which allow a privileged few to benefit from these places which are not made to be transformed into places to live. To this social justice issue has been added the climate issue.

California today has an image as a leader in the fight against climate change in the United States. Does she deserve it?
To a certain extent. In 2006, the State of California imposed limits on greenhouse gas emissions and committed to beginning a transition to a sustainable economy. Ten years later, it renewed and strengthened this commitment by setting the objective, by 2030, of a 40% reduction in its emissions compared to 1990. At the same time, California also committed to large-scale use majority of renewable energies, with a target of 100% by 2045. Regulations are stricter regarding exhaust pollution, and infrastructure for electric or hydrogen vehicles is more developed than elsewhere.

But California is basing much of this transition on techno-optimism: the belief that it is technology that will change the climate situation, for example with carbon sensors, widely contested devices. Let’s not forget that this is the State of Silicon Valley… The Californian lifestyle remains extremely energy-intensive, with public transportation lagging behind and agriculture far from sustainable.

The risk of financial bankruptcy is great in the face of the multiplication of disasters.

What awaits California in the years to come?
Repeated fires, more frequent, more intense and more destructive megafires. More deadly heatwaves, reduced or destroyed crops. A rise in water levels, particularly in San Francisco Bay. And, consequently, inevitable migrations of populations outside California. People are already leaving because of the cost of living, and many more will follow with climate change. These phenomena will accentuate class and racial inequalities between those who can protect themselves from risks, or mobilize help around them, and others.

Today, the governor of California has only one word on his mouth: rebuild, rebuild, rebuild. However, the risk of financial bankruptcy is great in the face of the multiplication of disasters, and with it the impossibility for the State to come to the aid of residents. A collapse of public infrastructure, due to lack of funds, becomes possible. The future of California is, unfortunately, particularly bleak.