Customer Reviews

Smogtown: The Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I must admit that what first drew me to this book was its cover. When I saw that it was a history of LA pollution, I almost put it down because I was afraid to read more bad news about how the world is falling apart. I am so glad I gave it a chance, though, because this book is amazing! It is scandalous and tightly written, filled with captivating anecdotes and charged with style!

I have been keenly interested in smog since I first experienced it in Downey, California, in 1953. I thought that was when it started. I had no idea what caused it or how long it had been around. Through the years, I've read snippets here and there but every one had a different slant and was as deep as the water overspray on my driveway from my sprinkling system. The research that Jacobs and Kelly put into their effort is incredible. I now feel like an expert!

I am a free lance writer; emphasis on free! When I was young, I thought I was a good basketball player until I played against Carl Braun (New York Knicks in the 50s) in the army. That was the day I realized I wasn't very good. I felt the same way this morning when I turned the last page of this book.

The book is, at once, alarming and encouraging. Every American needs to read this book and take a look inside and around. We are at a crossroads. The decisions we make today could save or doom our progeny.

For those of us who grew up in L.A. during the '60s and '70s, this book is a must read. Memories abound of oppressive brown skies, endless smog alerts, lost school recesses and piercing pains to the chest. Sadly, we took it all in stride, assuming it was a necessary--albeit painful--evil of living in the southland. Smogtown's authors, Chip Jacobs and William J. Kelly, do an outstanding job exposing the heroes and villains behind the 'great smog curtain'. Both informative and entertaining, this caliginous tale is the most comprehensive book on air pollution you'll ever read. Train in the Distance

Alright for those not from Los Angeles, you might have to use a thomas guide to find those tiny towns, such as Pasadena the writers reference in this tome but be sure, back when smog was a commodity in the valley of haze, finding those towns any other way would've been impossible.

Ever walk to school, as a kid in the morning, having forgotten a giant mountain range just to the north actually exists, having lost that memory due to a blanket of brown encrusted air that enveloped them like a cloak of invisibility? That happened day in and out during the 50's thru the 70's along the San Gabriels.

Smogtown captures the time and paints, lovingly in a muted gray. Despite the blur the writer's memories remain clear, drawing on their own experience growing up clean-air challenged as well as delving deep into their research. This book is an entertaining bit of education for those either from or not from, sunny Southern California. Be thankful the airs cleaner now but know that things could change in an instant. So get informed and read Smogtown. It'll bring a shortness to your breath.

For anyone who has lived in Southern California for some portion of the past few decades, thick and noxious air you could cut with a knife has been at least an occasional companion, a nose-singeing reminder of the downside of living where we do.

"Smogtown" benefits from Kelly's insider knowledge and Jacobs' investigative chops. It's also a well written and accessible history populated with vivid characters, political wheeling and dealing and good science. Not nearly enough histories of issues with scientific, political and cultural elements can nimbly tell a sometimes complex and winding tale well. This one succeeds.

It is a useful recounting of how Southern California got where it is, what that's meant for the region and its residents, and how it has changed the nation as a whole by helping drive the modern-day environmentalist movement. The book and I share some optimism about the continued progress the region has made to improve conditions since their mid-century nadir. Given the potential consequences otherwise, I hope we're right to be optimistic.

I've been a journalist for decades. I grew up in Smogtown where it was expected, not an exception, to retch when you ran track in high school. The book affirms the bad history and looks to a cleaner air future. The interest in the telling of the story. it's like an airborne version of the movie "Chinatown." All they need is Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, Roman Polanski, and maybe to update it, the air quality maven Mary Nichols.

As a former Valley girl, I was taken back to those days of dense gray skys and being forbidden to play outside, never walking when one could drive, and the right to burn our trash. This was normal. Moving away, smog stopped being a pivotal part of my world..until I visit again, or until I picked up this book. Jacobs and Kelly provide the scary history, unique personalities, inalienable rights and politics that have created, and attempted to tame the monster, or divert the masses. An interesting and thoughtprovoking read, and a new addition to my library.

Coming from a family whose been in California since the 1850's I love reading books on the different regions of California. And being a walk the talk frugal green living person since I was born, I found this book utterly fascinating.

To how smog became such a huge problem in such a brief period of time 30's-50' and how some Angelenos could see the smog and some even knew it was the car society that was a big part of the problem, but between the warm weather and outside lifestyle that is the norm in California no one wanted to really see that cars were the big issue and that something needed to be done.

And the authors writes what so many of us know, regarding looking outside if you live where you can see the mountains east of Los Angeles come winter, or after a rain, yet once the weather warms up they fade from view.

Back in the 60's they pretty much stayed out of site year round. The book is simply a well put together piece of how Los Angeles came to be, how it has evolved and how some people really are trying to get back to the clean air period before the influx of the automobile society.

I am in general agreement with all of the reviews, however, I have noted that the most favorable reviews come from LA-area reviewers who would share the authors' stereotypes and general knowledge of the region. The authors do not provide the sociological background and historical data that would permit a non-Angeleno or even a recent transplant to fully appreciate their work. The names of cities such as Pasadena, Altadena, Bell or Fontana are invoked in a fashion that presupposes a common shared sterotype for that town's residents and occasionally assumes similiar level of geographic literacy; oh, there are no maps.
The text could have used one more edit. There are references to the 'Brat' Pack of the '50's rather than the Rat Pack, the University of Riverside vice the University of California at Riverside, public relations 'hunks(?)' and a smog sieze.

Smogtown is a deeply disappointing book. The research is spotty, the narrative is convoluted, and the authors are far more concerned with self-conscious turns of phrase than with accuracy. University of Riverside? No such place. Atlantic Ritchfield? No such company. Dictionary? Apparently, no such item on the desk of either author. They get a few things right, and it's a great topic for a book. Unfortunately, this book falls far short of its ambitions.