The Ark of the Lost Raiders

by Joliecat

Angeles is a weird sports city. The Dodgers play to lots of empty seats from the 1st to the third inning and then from the seventh inning on because everyone is trying to stay ahead of traffic on the 101.

There is not even one NFL team in the nation's second largest metro area, but there are two basketball teams including one no one cares about, the Clippers. There are also two NHL teams and about five or six possible venues for them to play in, this in a region of the country that has the best weather between October and April.

Everything happens first in California, as cultural observers have been saying for decades. While there are big controversies over illegal immigration and entire neighborhoods and even school districts where English is a foreign languages there are other, subtle and interesting changes occurring. There is a rehabbing renaissance going on in the downtown area and other inner-city neighborhoods with lots of condo building. Ralph's, one of the largest supermarket chains out here, has put a location in downtown LA for the first time since the 1950's!

And, quietly, the LA area has put together a very good commuter rail system called Metrolink. It is possible to go from my neighborhood to either Anaheim/Disneyland, San Juan Capistrano and the beach communities of San Clemente and Oceanside. I have seen people take bikes and boogie boards onto the train. There might be a huge paradigm shift starting as people are refusing the two hour commutes and the orrible freeway traffic not to mention gasoline prices sprinting toward $4 per gallon.

So maybe that's why the NFL wouldn't work here anymore, because tailgating wouldn't work and neither would one of those state of the art sportsplexes with miles of parking all around. But a neighborhood stadium with train and subway rotundas? Maybe.