Native son Robert Redford, an accomplished filmmaker and environmentalist, bashes the city where he was born in an article featured in the April issue of Esquire magazine.
The Oscar winner told writer Scott Raab in an interview at his Santa Monica office —Wildwood Enterprises — that he visits the city by the sea only when he has to.
“I’m never here more than two, three days at a crack,” Redford says in the article. “I get itchy — traffic, freeways, out-of-control development. There was never a land-use plan. This was a beautiful city once, and it isn’t anymore.”
Redford, who was born in Santa Monica in 1936, isn’t alone. Other longtime residents have expressed their heartache over Santa Monica’s transformation from a once sleepy beach town into a bustling suburb of Los Angeles that attracts hundreds of thousands of people on a weekend and is home to some of the most successful media and entertainment companies.
City officials are struggling with how to accommodate growth while still preserving neighborhoods. Traffic congestion was listed as a significant concern of residents in a recent survey conducted by City Hall.
To read Redford’s comments, go to www.esquire.com/features/robert-redford
People tend to dislike change, whether that change is objectively good or bad doesn’t matter as much as the fact that their neighborhood, as they knew it, is being re-drawn into an image they no longer recognize.
The idiots on the Council know Mike, but they don’t care. They know the idiot voters will re-elect them anyway!~{ The only thing that will put a stop to this insanity and greed is to throw the bums out of office! Recall ALL of them.
money talks and bullsh! t walks.
Hi Bob,
Believe it or not, SM just took a big step in a very good direction and are in good company with the fast-growing Comminity Rights Movement: http://celdf.live2.radicaldesigns.org/downloads/A_New_Civil_Rights_Movement_032813.pdf#.UVe6GNcMZ2Y.facebook.
Memo to Bob- Santa Monica will be the ultimate theme park of the future. Between our traffic congestion, traffic calming, share the road efforts and confusion; development(s) and homage to Green or Sustainability ( you can buy a t shirt that says it all) – we are the future!
It would be wonderful to have Robert Redford’s help with closing Santa Monica Airport, a major catalyst to the over development as well as a toxic polluter to bordering residential neighborhoods. I would love to discuss our concerns with him.
Martin Rubin – Director Concerned Residents Against Airport Pollution.
http://www.jetairpollution.com
The idiots that run the city of Santa Monica need to read this.