Secessionist majority thinks 'the Valley' is, like, not L.A.

For lifetime San Fernando Valley resident Bob Scott, the issue is a no-brainer – except in name, he doesn't really live in Los Angeles.

"It's not so much about lack of representation and not getting our fair share of city services ... it's about having a sense of place," says the business consultant who grew up in this northernmost edge of Los Angeles sprawl.

In his 50 years here, Mr. Scott has watched ranchland and orchards morph into a polychromatic mosaic of homes, churches, recreational and industrial parks, freeways, and malls. Dubbed "America's suburb," the Valley is the spawning ground of Americana such as "Valley-girl" speak, low-rider roadsters, air-soled sneakers, and wheat-grass juice bars.

It wants to be its own place.

And a secession measure – called city "reorganization" by proponents – is headed for the November ballot.

A Los Angeles Times poll last week suggests the secession movement, a grassroots effort that began quietly six years ago, may have gained the political support it needs to succeed. A majority of Valley residents – 55 percent – believe the region should secede, and nearly half the electorate citywide – 46 percent – agrees. By state law, at least 50 percent of city voters need to approve.

"We've sat out here languishing since 1915 as a place that since the beginning really ought to have been its own city," Scott says, naming the year the region was annexed into L.A., primarily to preserve water rights for top city business owners.

If successful, the breakaway of the 80 Valley communities and their formation into one, yet-to-be-named city would bump Los Angeles back from second largest US city to third, behind New York and Chicago. The new Valley city would be among the largest 10 US cities.

"This has become a very serious matter from something that few thought had a chance of getting off the ground," says Larry Berg, of the Jesse Unruh Institute of Politics. "City officials have been ostrich-like in thinking this would go away. They better figure out why this has gotten so big and deal with it."

National and state observers say the Valley secession move is a localized matter, unique to the specific politics and geography of Los Angeles.

Indeed, Hollywood and the harbor area have also petitioned for secession and may join the Valley on the November ballot too.

"I would call this separation movement, if anything, a countertrend to what is going on nationally," says Doug Peterson, an analyst at the National League of Cities. "Elsewhere, there are more moves afoot for cities and their surrounding suburbs or counties to merge, rather than separate."

But because the area is – like other suburbs adjacent to large cities – caught between the older downtown to the south, and newer suburbs to the north and east, the secession story is a window on the development of another American-community prototype, the "midopolis."

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