Have you been to Los Angeles recently? It feels like being on the set of ‘Back to the Future’, the famous 1985 film shot in the studios of the Californian city. On the street you will not find flying cars like the one Michael J. Fox traveled in, but driverless taxis that roam undisturbed through the busy streets of the city (see photo below). Robotaxis are cars that drive themselves, which stop at traffic lights, indicate when turning, and avoid obstacles and pedestrians. All without there being any human being inside. It really feels like we’re in the future.

But you also see lots of space-shaped cars, like Tesla’s indestructible cybertruck, and then 7-lane highways completely blocked at rush hour. No motorway toll booths because the toll is paid with the electronic pass, a sort of Telepass that draws directly from the credit card. In Los Angeles you have that feeling, that thrill inside, that leads you to think that sooner or later technology can really take over human beings.

To check in at the hotel there are machines that automatically read your passport data, verify your booking, payment and give you the room key. In Beverly Hills there was once also an ATM that churned out cupcakes, delicious and soft American cakes, while today on the sidewalks of the city little cars wander around as if they were nothing, delivering food to your home in perfect autonomy. At all hours of the day and night, weekdays and holidays, with sun and rain (see video below). However, Prime Air’s test for drone deliveries failed, while the first experiment was carried out in Italy. In the United States, however, the service has only changed address, it has moved to Arizona.

In short, what is famously called ‘the city of angels’ appears more and more like the city of the future, but it is a shame that technology cannot solve its gigantic problems, such as that of the ‘homeless’. Just take a walk on the ‘Walk of fame’, the road with pavements full of pink five-pointed stars with the names of film and music stars inside, to understand that the population (and the administration) has now resigned .

When the spotlights go out on Oscar Night, the ceremony that awards the most prestigious film award in the world, the streets around the Dolby Theater are once again invaded by homeless people and drifters (see photo below). From zombies doubled by Fentanyl, the powerful drug that in 10 years has caused 2,100 deaths in Los Angeles alone. People died of overdoses in alleys, in parks, in cars, in the thousands of tents built with scrap and waste on the side of the streets. Walking as a tourist in one of the most iconic areas in the world shakes the conscience, because it represents the direction in which the societies of the most industrialized countries in the world are going, that of indifference. Including Italy, albeit at a much slower pace.

A world where the middle class no longer exists but where the number of people with large assets increases year after year. Nations where the super rich buy 150 million dollar villas as if it were nothing (see photo below) and where working people can’t pay the rent. In Los Angeles the housing crisis is frightening, there are around 75 thousand homeless people. They are everywhere, on the outskirts and in the main tourist areas. You will surely find one (different every day) in front of the hotel entrance. Or in fast food restaurants to fill up on carbonated drinks for free thanks to ‘free refill’, the possibility of refilling the glass several times with the drink you want without having to pay each time.

Los Angeles is the kingdom of those who are doing well economically, with its villas on the hills and luxury skyscrapers. A pack of chips costs $5 while it takes more than $100 (each) to spend a day at one of the city’s largest playgrounds. A place where social differences have become so acute that they no longer touch each other. Perhaps this is precisely why no one notices the parades of shacks along the edges of the streets (see photo below).

“They are good, they are not dangerous”, assure people who deal with frightened tourists, psychologically not ready to see so much misery in the city of ‘Movie Stars’, luxury and entertainment. However, among them there are also those who are not vagabonds by choice. Maybe their salary is too low to pay the rent, or someone who becomes ill is no longer able to work and goes to live in a car because they can’t count on the help of relatives and friends. Human beings that the State does not take care of and who end up among those 6 homeless people who, for one reason or another, die every day in the city.

Just like what happened to Marco Magrin in Italy. A 53-year-old man who had a regular job in Treviso but a salary that was too low to pay the rent. After being evicted he ‘moved’ into a garage. That’s where they found him dead, with a heavy jacket and a hat pulled down on his head to protect himself from the cold. Alone in the third most populous province of the Veneto region, but above all in the fifth richest provincial capital in Italy. Just as it happens before everyone’s eyes in what everyone knows only as the glitzy Los Angeles.