Where the hell is Hollywood?

This is a map of 'Hollywood'.

The red border is defined, in painstaking detail, by California law, but unlike the Civic Paradise to our West, Hollywood isn't actually a city.

It doesn't have a mayor. It no longer even has an honorary mayor. It can't collect your trash, or give you a parking ticket.

In fact, Hollywood is, from a civic perspective, just another part of the City of Los Angeles.

Now The City of Los Angeles has a mayor. It has has trash collectors. And it loves to collect parking tickets. It also has has a 15-member city council. Each of those council members represents a district. But none of them represent the 'district of Hollywood.'

Because that would be too easy.

Instead, large chunks of three different city council districts fall within that red line. There's also a system of neighborhood councils, the nitty-gritty, grass roots level of participatory democracy.

Your cranky old neighbor? He's at all the meetings. He's also hangin' out at the Police Advisory Board meetings and, quite possibly, digging in your trash.

In addition to your city council member, the neighborhood council, and your cranky neighbor, the citizens of Hollywood are also represented by:

• a county supervisor
  
• a state assembly member


• a state senator


• a member of the U.S. House of Representatives


• two lovely U.S. Senators


• and of course, Mr. POTUS.

The City of Los Angeles has a nifty (if slow-loading) map that tells you exactly who represents you in all these capacities. Just click on the NBH icon above the map and enter your address. iMapLA provides even more slow-loading detail.

But none of these people actually govern 'Hollywood'. So why does this map even exist?

Because in August 2006, Assembly Bill 588 became California law. The law requires certain state and city agencies to provide statistical and demographic data about Hollywood as if it were actually a city.

Why?

In a word: Bid-ness.

Hollywood has a Chamber of Commerce, which has been promoting business development since its inception in 1921. (We'll save the business improvement districts for the advanced class).

But any developer who's considering dropping major millions on a new condo wants to know what's going down in the neighborhood. And, not so surprisingly, according to AB 588:

"This critical data is either inaccessible or not collected at all. It is also often scattered among multiple city agencies and departments or not reported on a regular basis."

You don't say.

So they passed a law, requiring data to be collected about the 'community of Hollywood.' And economic development spread through the area like a ravaging, incurable disease.

(All Hail The Waffle! All Curse The Waffle!)

Still, this ephemeral 'community of Hollywood' can't pick up my trash; it exists only on a map, and is best expressed by a collection of head-numbing statistics which may or may not have even been collected yet.

But I kinda like it. It defines my place in this world. And when someone in Fresno, CA asks me where I'm from, I can say "I'm from Hollywood," and know exactly what I'm talking about.