There is an old adage, “When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.”
The folks of Los Angeles County of Southern California have been given a bushel of lemons, figuratively speaking.
- They have consistently had some of the most questionable people in politics.
- They held a recall election for Governor Gavin Newsom in 2021 which failed.
- They have consistently remained a Blue State.
- They trusted their political leadership to serve and protect them.
- They passed referenda to allow more taxes for special projects such as water reservoirs.
- They paid in billions of extra dollars in taxes.
- They saw their public services cut without their permission.
- They saw bad decisions made about their infrastructure (dams blown up).
- They saw their Southern Border left wide open with unvetted invaders entering their state.
- They saw incompetent new DEI hires replace highly qualified previous hires.
All of this led to the worst fire disaster in American History since the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 in terms of both loss of life and property. For those keeping score:
- 16 lives lost
- 16 people missing
- 10,000 homes and businesses burned to the ground
- 15,000 acres burned up
- 7 days of out of control wildfires
- 50-100 mph winds to fan the flames
- Multiple arrests of arsonists and looters
- Some of those arrested are illegal aliens
- $150 billion in losses
- Many homes were uninsured due to poor water supply and forest management
It is time to make the lemonade. It is time to learn from past mistakes. From Google as a source:
“After the (Chicago) fire, laws were passed to prevent the same thing from happening again. Materials like brick, limestone, marble and Terracotta tile became the preferred building materials and wood was banned as a material in the downtown area.”
For California from now on; Roofing materials should be metal or clay tile and no trees should be allowed to grow over any buildings. No landscaping should be adjacent to any buildings such as vines growing up exterior walls of houses unless those walls are concrete or stone and even then must be kept away from roof overhangs. All homes must contain emergency generators with exterior sprinkler systems connected to swimming pools or underground fiberglass cisterns (rainwater storage tanks).
Steel construction members must be used instead of wood.
There is a pretty terrible story going around on the Internet that this entire catastrophe was planned to rebuild LA as a “smart city” before 2028 and the Olympics to be held there.
They have a Smart City planned for LA projected for 2028, the incompetence and mismanagement was all planned. This is a land grab. Watch Black Rock offer to help rebuild… @CAgovernor
— Give a mouse a cookie and it turns into a Democrat (@Kaseyswife4life) January 13, 2025
And @MayorOfLA need to Resign or better yet, go to jail!!
pic.twitter.com/hdXUVAmUOM
I hope this is not true but, if it is true at all, Google defines a smart city as:
“A ‘smart city’ is an urban area that utilizes digital technologies like sensors and data analysis to improve the quality of life for its residents by making city operations more efficient, sustainable, and responsive,…”
The thing is though, you cannot build a “smart city” without “smart homes” and Elon Musk and Tesla have already been pioneering this development in their Tesla Homes.
CONCLUSION:
Elon Musk started out in California and then moved to Texas due to what he saw as a poor political leadership in California.
I have been a big fan of Elon Musk for a long time ever since one of his early Tesla automobiles almost backed over me at a green energy trade show (it was impossible to hear an early Tesla EV coming at you on carpet). I regard and respect Elon Musk as the Albert Einstein of our time and anybody with an IQ over 80 should as well.
Back in May of 2020 Musk made the decision to sell his luxury mansions in Bel Air for over $60 million. He then opted to move into a 375-square-foot prefabricated Tesla tiny house in Boca Chica, Texas, valued at approximately $50,000. His tiny home, manufactured by Boxabl, is in real contrast to the lavish properties he previously owned. He moved his entire Tesla, Space X, Starlink, and X social media platform out of California shorting thereafter.
“Inside Elon Musk’s $50,000 Box Tiny Home” – Property Passion
Elon Mush is a true genius of our time. He loves challenges that cause his brilliant mind to go wild in free form critical thinking. It would be pretty easy for him to sit down with a good California leader (either Democrat or Republican) and reinvent LA County in a short amount of time and “get people back home”.
One could imagine Musk coming up with Class A fire rated homes that were also smart homes and earthquake resistant. There is a backstory going around on the Internet that President Donald Trump may take control of California using Emergency Powers to rebuild it before the 2028 Olympics as Governor Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass have now made LA County a National Security Threat due to their proven incompetence.
The lemons could be the fires of 2025 that caused the lemonade to be created in the engineering labs of Tesla. Their new designs could stave off the future loss of even more Californian lives when the eventual “Big One” (earthquake) comes. That would be pretty awesome because that would mean the lives lost in the fires of this year would not have been lost in vain.
You can hate Donald Trump and I get that. But if you hate Elon Musk because he likes Donald Trump, you are biased to the point of being mentally ill.
Musk is not just smart but he is a genuinely good and caring man. He gave access to his Starlink satellite system to the victims of hurricane Helene in North Carolina and just did the same to the fire victims in LA County of California.
“Elon Musk to provide Wi-Fi to wildfire-stricken areas using Starlink, Cybertrucks” – FOX Business
I am sure Elon Musk sees the burned empty city lots of LA County like a blank canvas for him to create on now. He sees them as an opportunity to turn some frowns upside down!
Another tall cold glass of lemonade from these lemons would be the thousands of people Musk would need to hire to build these prefabricated smart homes for LA County and that factory could possibly be built right in Los Angeles.
I have been an instructor of architecture for 40 years. I hold a degree in OSHA safety that gave me a background in fire science as well. I believe Elon Musk could create practical and safe functioning homes for the folks of LA County that would offer them good feng shui (Chinese practice of arranging interior building spaces to promote inner peace and harmony) in form.
And by the way, they would not have to be tiny homes either!
© 2024 by Mark S. Schwendau
