For years, being rich in Los Angeles meant you were near the pinnacle of global success: Wealthy, surrounded by other wealthy and famous people, and luxuriating in a subtropical paradise made of glitz and steel and chrome.
These days, however, the glitz is gone and all the steel and chrome are being re-deployed for more utilitarian purposes:
Private security contractors report that a recent string of high-profile retail robberies and home burglaries in upscale Los Angeles neighborhoods has caused a dramatic uptick in requests for their services and prompted many of their wealthy clients to change their routines out of a mix of caution and fear...
According to agencies who provide private security — as well as others who work with Hollywood's A-List (including an estate manager, a business manager and a top Beverly Hills real estate agent) — clients are seeing the headlines and taking increased precautions.
Here's pretty much the calculus that rich people in Los Angeles are running right now:
That's about the long and short of it. When a crime wave stays confined to the lower classes, the rich can safely ignore it. They don't live in those areas, they have gates in front of their houses, and they have alarm systems and other layers of protection meant to keep that chaos from their doorstep.
But when all that crime starts to move up the economic ladder? That's a very bad sign; it means that the crime is getting qualitatively worse, insofar as criminals are now willing to take much bigger risks with bigger targets.
Perhaps most importantly: If they're getting that bold with rich people, how do you think they're going to treat regular people? Not good.
