Allen David Heskin After the Battle is Won, Political Contradictions in Santa Monica, UCLA Lecture and unpublished ms. Fall, 1983. 1983, 1982, 1981, 1980, 1979, 1977.
"What protest there has been has been primarily concentrated in the heavily renter, "alternative lifestyle" beachfront neighborhood of Ocean Park. A redevelopment project in the neighborhood which was intended to create a Miami Beach high rise beachfront has been a source of discontent for years, and efforts to privatize the very popular recreational pier and build an enclosed suburban type shopping mall in the areas that adjoin the neighborhood were major issues. Much of this, however, is more related to coastal politics that led to the formation of the Coastal Commission than to traditional urban politics. Outside of Ocean Park, including the more working class and minority Pico neighborhood, no such history of protest is known.
"As a result, the Santa Monica "shift left" was much more a case of SMRR seizing the moment than winning after building through years of struggle. The moment was created by the passage of Proposition 13. The inflationary spiral in real estate was steeper in very few places than in Santa Monica. Buildings were turning over three times a year, condos were rising, and Santa Monica was on its way to becoming Beverly Hills by the sea. The stakes were high and the elected officials in power unwilling to compromise. Santa Monica was the focus of an immediate fight between those who were benefitting from the inflation and those [who] were not, i.e., between those who owned property and those who did not. Those who did not were in the majority.
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"There was a base of spontaneous tenant organizing in the early period following the passage of Proposition 13 from which to build, but the mobilization was far from spontaneous. The campaigns were run like military operations, incorporating broad scale organizing and the latest electioneering technology. It was this combination of mobilization, i.e. people, and technology that proved so effective. Over a quarter of those who had disputes with landlords organized at the building level to fight the landlord (nearly 50% of the dispute was about rent levels), and over a third of these people were brought into the campaign. The technology consisted of polling and computer assisted targeting and getting out the vote campaigns."