Op-Ed: Eli Broad, leader for a city that doesn't want to be led (via latimesopinion)
The story of Eli Broad and Los Angeles has something of the dynamic of the unstoppable force meeting the immovable object. As a young man, Eli came to L.A., full of conviction and ambition and certitude, and arrived in a place that was famously — then and now — resistant to leadership.wherever he landed. He was strong and visionary.
Broad did not accept that Los Angeles could not be led. That was most apparent when the 1992 riots that followed the state verdicts in the Rodney King case drained Los Angeles of its self-confidence. In the fear and anger exposed by the riots, it seemed plausible that L.A. was doomed to fall apart. Time magazine wondered out loud whether Los Angeles was “going to hell.