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Hi there,
From the COVID-19 pandemic, to our nation’s racial reckoning, a contentious election, and everything in between,
this past year has forced us to reexamine our communities and our place in them. Above all, we ve been challenged to look critically at our lives and determine what belongs and what doesn’t.
We hope that as you conduct this necessary, existential spring cleaning, you find space for KCRW.
I cover the business of Southern California for KCRW.
Because of
, I am able to bring you in-depth reporting on issues of consequence: how small business owners are strategizing for a post-pandemic future; why your neighbors are leaving town and heading for California’s rural communities; and stories that uplift Angeleno voices, from lower-wage workers to residents who are unhoused and undocumented.
Listen 11 min MORE The Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Mall has been declining for a while, and the coronavirus pandemic accelerated that downward trend. There is zero traffic in the mall now. May 3, 2021. Photo by Amy Ta.
If you walk around the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Mall these days, especially during the week, you can see that many of its businesses are struggling.
“There is no traffic in this mall. This is not how a mall right now should be looking,” says Malik Muhammad, who has owned and operated Malik’s Books at the Crenshaw Mall since the early 1990s.
Malik Muhammad standing inside his bookstore at the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Mall. He’s been at this location since the early 1990s. Photo by Benjamin Gottlieb.
Listen 11 min MORE Craig Higgins (right) spending time with the Madisons, his new neighbors, in Wonder Valley, California. Photo by Benjamin Gottlieb.
Craig Higgins has lived and worked in big cities all over the world: New York, Seattle, London, Paris. But he most recently bought his dream home in the middle of Southern California’s high desert.
“Every property I looked at sold within two days above asking price, so I knew something was going on here,” Higgings said.
“Here” is Wonder Valley about a two and a half hour drive from Los Angeles. Population? About 700.
Eventually, Higgins said, he got lucky and bought a small house directly from its owner in an all-cash deal of just under $50,000. That’s a far cry from LA County’s sizzling real estate market, where the median home price is more than $700,000, according to the financial services company CoreLogic.