The Mountain of Beverly Hills

Ubi aves ibi angeli

Today, an article in the LA Times reveals that 'The Mountain of Beverly Hills' is the 'city's finest piece of undeveloped land' sitting as it does at the highest point of the zip code 90210 with panoramic views only a winged creature should have. Its 157 acre site was originally listed for $1bn making it the highest listing ever in the LA County area. With over 2,800 billionaires in the world, listing agents were keen intitially to see a royal family from the Middle East or a Chinese billionaire purchase the property. Nevertheless, a corruption scandal has transpired and things are slowly going downhill for the so-called Mountain of Beverly Hills, and its dreams of being bought and made over. To make over is however to do over. That which is made over is inevitably done over too.

As a keen cyclist who regularly gazes from Glasgow's peripheral hills and imagines other cities in Glasgow's place, I have often wondered what LA would be like if she were here in Glasgow (after all, Glasgow, some might argue, already has LA in her). I have often sung the praises of Glasgow's hills for still being hills. I look at them all the time thinking that if this were LA that hill would be an estate, that one there would be the homestead for some billionaire's tasteless mansion, and those hills there would be so covered in properties that you wouldn't be able to see the hill anymore. To be sure, Glasgow and LA are not that unalike. Both have hills relatively near their city centre and both cities are sizeable spreads. From Glasgow's Kilpatrick Hills for example I can see the city 8 miles away towering up. If I look west I can see the ocean about the same distance away. With these parameters and a little imagination, I could be in Beverly Hills gazing into downtown and then out to the Pacific. Trouble is if I was really in Beverly Hills I wouldn't be able to see anything for all the buildings; I wouldn't be able to enjoy the silence and the space that would facilitate a spacing out as well as a gazing out because it would all be owned and developed. In short, if Beverly Hills were the Kilpatrick Hills, Kilpatrick would not have that old world charm anymore, nor would those blissful hills. If Beverly Hills were the Kilpatrick Hills I wouldn't be able to get anywhere near them for all the fences and big gates. And yet, Beverly Hills never used to be that 'owned' and populated. Once upon a time not that long ago it was all open land, undeveloped, uncontaminated, unowned. Now, it's the largest gated community in the world with some of the largest egos to boot. And I think, city of angels, are you kidding? Angels don't live in mansions and genital-compensating cribs, nor do they live in tents and informal settlements made from cardboard boxes. Angels have wings and can fly. As far as this is concerned Glasgow with its bird strewn hills (and its corresponding lack of ostentatious garishness) is more angelic than LA; its hills are still hills, and its birds (and people too perhaps) still angels.