Cesar Carbajal – the Blog

Two weeks ago, I attended my first South Central Neighborhood Council meeting. The most prominent agenda item was a discussion about the Reef “SoLA Village” which is a project that if approved, will dramatically change the landscape of the area. This project will add 3 high-rises to the block between Broadway Ave, Main Ave, Washington Blvd and 21^st St in Los Angeles.

According to The Reef representatives, this huge project will have apartments, condominiums, a hotel, a gym/yoga studio and a 30,000 square-foot grocery store. In addition, the complex will have 40,000 square-feet for restaurants and bars and 55,000 square-feet of retail space.

It’s huge, isn’t it? It is huge for South Central standards. It seems to be a great project for the community, lots of jobs and a commercial complex where locals could go to find lots of options for entertainment. The lot where it will be built won’t be vacant any more, it will bring life to the area.

Wait! Is it really for our community?

At the meeting, the Reef representative could not say how much the condos will sell for or how much would be the monthly rent for the apartments. He did mentioned that they want to build something similar to what has been built in downtown LA. Does this mean that the monthly rent will be similar to those lofts and apartments in Downtown LA? If that is the case then most likely South Central residents won’t be able to afford living in this complex. The MHI is too low in the area, where a big percentage of families live on the limits of the poverty line.

Let’s take a look at some data:

1.  Historic South Central ranks 249 out of 272 Los Angeles neighborhoods for Median Household Income (LATIMES)
2.  The Median Household Income for Historic South Central $30,882 – ranked # 249
3.  The Median Household Income for Bel-Air is $207,938 – ranked # 1

Graphic – Credit city-data.com

According to the Reef representatives, this complex will create thousands of new jobs, the concern here is about the types of jobs that will be created. Hotel and Restaurant jobs are in the low pay range, which means that they only help perpetuate low income levels for this community. Having jobs is nice, but those jobs will only help maintain people near the poverty line

This is what I see:

•  Apartments and Condos – inaccessible for the local residents, high rent, no affordable housing for students.
• Restaurants and Shops – do not fit the profile of the community – residents will only walk by, unable to pay for the amenities/restaurants in the complex.
• Grocery Store – 30,000 sq ft – most likely not for low income families.

This complex seems to fit more into the new Downtown rather than South Central. Saying that the profile of this community doesn’t fit the profile of this complex doesn’t mean that I’m ok with it, it only means that I wish I could improve it. I don’t like it the way it is, we are very hardworking people, family oriented, we need more opportunities to improve our quality of life.

Having this complex in South Central is nice. But, is this all we can do? What could be other solutions?  Let’s work together to close the gap.

This is how we rank (MHI) in Los Angeles, it is up to us to change it.

Graphic: credit LATIMES

Cesar Carbajal

In the last 10 years, I’ve launched a few websites with the intention of finally hitting the jackpot. I started registering domain names in 2004, trying to get that unique name that somebody would buy from me for millions of dollars. I had many ideas for e-commerce, but I acted on it very slowly. Never asked for advice, I was very afraid that somebody would steal my BIG idea. At the end of the day, my little efforts and lack of vision took me back to the real world where it takes more than just a BIG idea to hit the jackpot. Honestly, I still don’t know what it really takes to get a big hit.

Fast-forward to 2014, time that was budgeted to give my body my standard 8 hours of sleep, have been used to work on my next BIG idea. This time around, a mobile app for networking that will help millions of professionals around the world.

Uh?

What?

Oh yeah, you can do that in Word Press.

Sure, use a template from Godaddy.com and that’s it.

Besides the questions and wise advice, what I constantly get is a bunch of weird looks when I explain what the app will do. It seems to be that it’s only me who understand the functionalities of the app. It might be that I lack to ability to clearly communicate my thoughts or maybe, people thinks that I can’t pull it through. Or, they still don’t know that they need this app.

For me, every weird look that I get is encouraging; for every 100 people who listen to my pitch, I get at least 1 or 2 that somehow think that my idea could work. The remaining 98 are non-believers, which I think are potential users, they just don’t understand what this app will do for them, until they see it.

Do I think this one will be the BIG one for me? The idea is cool, I’m working on the execution and all those weird looks that I get tell me that I’m into something. I have a vision, (and a dream), I’m working hard, I’m getting advice, I’m moving fast, and the most important thing, I’m still trying. Let’s welcome all those weird looks.

Back in Acapulco, out of thirty boys in my elementary school classroom, only fifteen made it to adulthood. At least 50% were killed in this violence-ridden city. Surviving this environment made me a successful person in my neighborhood.

In my late teens, I was able to finish high school, that put me in the 10% of teenagers from my neighborhood that got a high school diploma. Once again, that made me a successful person.

Then came the time to emigrate to the US, illegally, and I made it through the cold southernmost point of the border. It was January, 1992. It was raining and the smuggler told us to take our clothes out, we would put them in a plastic bag and would hold it above our heads while we walked through the wetlands west of San Ysidro, CA. The mud was cold, with little pieces of ice getting between my toes. I wanted to get caught, it was so cold, but the Border Patrol had their hands full already with some other people they had caught. So, I made a successful crossing.

In the US, I enrolled in ELS classes to learn English, starting from the Kinder Garden level and subsequently advancing until I got my GED diploma. Once again, that made me a successful person.

After 20 years in the US, I’m a US citizen, I have a steady job that I’ve held for 17 years, I’m a homeowner, receive rental income, have a car, own a website and a blog and have a nice family. Seems to be that all the ingredients are there to consider myself a successful person as some people says it. Really? Is this how success is measured?

There are several public figures that many of us consider successful, we look up to them and wish we could attain some of the things they’ve achieved. But, it happens to be that their personal lives are a mess. Domestic violence, drug abuse, sex scandals, you name it. Still, they are successful in what they do. Right?

Then, what does it mean to be successful? Can you be successful in one area but fail in others and still be considered a successful person? My personal life is not perfect but I strive to be successful in all areas of my life.

The way I see it, success is the sum of achievements, goals that we accomplish during our life time, whether small or big.

How would you define success?

According to my LinkedIn profile I have 635 connections and according to my activity report, my LinkedIn activity touches only about 100 of my connections. Between messages, profile views and posts views, my monthly activity is composed of about 400 “touch points” (indicates some type of interaction).

When looking at how I rank in profile views among my connections, I found out that I’m in the upper 50% of my network. A rank that is not good but not bad either, depending on how people use LinkedIn.

It is really interesting to see that in the top 10 viewed profiles in my network, there are 9 female professionals with very good-looking appearance. Don’t get me wrong, all of them have a very solid professional career and I’m sure people want to connect with them. The only male in my top 10 is Governor Jerry Brown, I guess some of us really want to know if he will ever reply to any of our messages.

LinkedIn is without doubt the leading online platform for professionals, but it has gotten to a point where people might be confused about its purpose. Sometimes it seems to be an online Rolodex that you open only when you need something. Some other times people think it is Facebook and they add posts that are not business related. Others also think it is cool to show that they have thousands of connections; that never connect with them.

Maybe, there is room for another online platform that caters to these type of users. For me, I will keep using it to establish professional connections.

What do you think?