Mansionification of Jefferson Park

"I've got good news and bad news", I told my J-Park clients, of the recent past and not so recent past. "Mansionification is here!"

McMansions: that's when you know you've made it as a neighborhood, when the scale and rhythm of the street is shot to hell. When pleasing conformity is compromised by big house big shots. When the redevelopment potential outstrips collective values and historical import.

But hey, Jefferson Park is in a category now with all the best Westside neighborhoods: North of Montana, Ocean Park, Brentwood, you name it. The neo-cons pump their fists in testosterone-heavy delight, "Yeahhh, Palmdale's coming to the city baby. I'm gonna build me one of them O.C. style Mediterranean pleasure palaces with an extra large berth for my H3".

It wasn't so long ago, that we lived in a single room, with livestock, and a shared bed, in teepees, igloos and thatched huts. I don't know when single men decided they couldn't be happy without 3600 square feet, a drink refrigerator, and jet-ski storage, some time in the 1980s I guess, maybe earlier. Hey if you can afford it--have at it consumptionists; but, do you really need to tear down, to alter beyond recognition, and to impact that which is around you as surely as the unmuffled growl of a Harley chopper?

Is a fourth bath with his-and-her changing areas really that important?