LAANE Executive Director Madeline Janis

The “good news” for Los Angeles, according to the survey, is that Santa Monica has replaced L.A. as the “costliest” place to do business in Los Angeles County. The study is flawed on its own terms. It does not account for the differences in the cost of land or utilities, which typically play a greater role in business location decisions than local business taxes.

But what concerns me more is the anti-government, low-road agenda that underlies this annual bean-counting exercise. The assumption is that a city’s desirability for business rests solely on tax rates. But businesses (like the rest of us) must consider a whole host of factors when deciding where to locate, including the availability of land, an educated workforce, access to transportation and markets, quality public schools, and affordable housing for workers.

In some of these areas, Los Angeles cities would score high, and in others, it would score near the bottom. What’s clear is that we need a strong and effective public sector to ensure that we have the kind of quality of life that will make Los Angeles a great place to do business and a great place to live.

Our campaign at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach illustrates for me how government neglect undermines L.A.’s business climate. Deregulation of short-haul trucking at the ports has produced mind-boggling inefficiencies, with trucks idling for hours, spewing cancer-causing diesel pollution, as they wait to pick up containers. Needless to say, the costs in lost productivity and compromised public health are not accounted for in the Kosmont-Rose Institute survey.

We need to redefine a healthy business climate, and what it means to foster it. A healthy business climate should provide the infrastructure and support to allow businesses to thrive and workers to earn a decent living in an setting that is free from environmental hazards. Let’s see how Los Angeles County cities—and the region as a whole—rank in a survey that incorporates this vision.