Los Angeles 'is a Third World city'

Last Updated: 1:53am BST 23/04/2008
telegraph.co.uk

Los Angeles is becoming a "Third World city" with immigrants making up half its workforce, says a new study.

A third of immigrants have not graduated from high school and 60 per cent do not speak English fluently, the Migration Policy Institute found.

It said this left immigrants ill-equipped to fill California's fastest-growing occupations, such as computer software engineering and nursing. The organisation added that as the so-called baby boomers reach retirement age, a similar pattern will spread across the US.

advertisement
Ernesto Cortes Jr, of the Industrial Areas Foundation, a think-tank that specialises on social change, claimed Los Angeles was at a crossroads.

"The question is are we going to be a 21st century city with shared prosperity, or a Third World city with an elite group on top and most on near poverty wages?" he said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... wla123.xml