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

Development threat to iconic Hollywood sign
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.

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.

The US Census Bureau last year predicted that by 2050, minorities will account for half of all residents across America.

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It registered the largest numerical increases in minority residents in metropolitan Los Angeles, Riverside, in California, Dallas, Houston and New York.

In 2000, according to the Census Bureau, whites were in a minority in 262 US counties, up from 183 in 1990.

Nationally, the number of minorities topped 100 million for the first time in 2006, to make up about one third of the population.

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

Im not very familiar with Los Angeles so there is little I can say as far as giving my 2cents about what it's like. maybe some of you who are from there can give a little bit of input about the article. to me It just seems like another article, not even from the US, 'blaming' immigrants for whatever reasons. But agian, I do not know a whole lot about LA's stats on dropout rates, jobs, immigrants, etc...
US students are also dropping out in alarming rates... that right there is probably a bigger chunk of the problem for the entire Nation, imo.

Here is an almost related article from time.com

Drop out nation

In today's data-happy era of accountability, testing and No Child Left Behind, here is the most astonishing statistic in the whole field of education: an increasing number of researchers are saying that nearly 1 out of 3 public high school students won't graduate, not just in Shelbyville but around the nation. For Latinos and African Americans, the rate approaches an alarming 50%. Virtually no community, small or large, rural or urban, has escaped the problem.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 46,00.html

chances are that before 2050 the u.s will be a third world country...

Funny...my brother likened L.A. to Calcutta some years ago.