The inspiring, infuriating, even comic tale of how we defeated L.A.'s smog and why we may have to again

This is read by an automated voice.Please report any issues or inconsistencies here.

A city of swans, that’s us.From the world’s vantage point, Los Angeles can look like a place that glides serenely along beneath a beatific sun.But we know better.We know that underneath, we’re laboring frantically to keep going — sometimes, even just to stay afloat.Right now, especially now, we’re working hard, so very hard, to recover our mojo.

We’ve been dealt a nigh-unbearable hand when two of our communities were utterly savaged by fire.Our legendary powers of invention and reinvention are being mightily tested, and still, to use Maya Angelou’s phrase, we rise — most of the time.“Smoglandia,” my podcast and column series, that runs online here and in print over four days, starting Sunday, offers a look at a historic huge comeback model.

It’s the slow-motion success story that made L.A.’s air not immaculate, but at least livable.We achieved this sometimes by kicking and screaming, sometimes by the ballot box, sometimes by just following regulations that politicians and policy-makers created and enforced, like smog checks and carpool lanes, and sometimes by letting science and technology do their thing.Can we still get big things done? Can we remedy our disasters? There are quite a few examples in our rearview mirror past.California The Eaton and Palisades fires tragically exposed L.A.’s vulnerability.

The Times looks back at a devastating year, scrutinizes official response and makes the case for being better prepared next time.Some are nature’s doing.The 1933 Long Beach earthquake, magnitude 6.4, killed more than a hundred people, but it also made seismic safety a requirement throughout the state.

After the 6.7 Northridge earthquake in 1994, seismic retrofitting became a rule for many buildings, not an option.Some disasters have been made by human hands.Our two modern-day civil disturbances, or riots — whatever we call them — in 1965 and 19...