The recent history of Los Angeles can be told by a tour of its malls from the sprawling shopping centers designed for the car-mad post-World War II years to the present where retailers are competing for affluent shoppers, battling online merchants, and trying to figure out the future of a city flirting with alternate means of transportation such as Uber and expanded public transit.

Those problems no doubt are behind plans to remodel the monster eight-story Beverly Center at Beverly and La Cienega boulevards into something that might catch the eye of Angelenos. Beverly Center, ponderous when it was new in the 1980s, now must compete with such flashy attractions as the Third Street Promenade, Old Town Pasadena, the Grove and the revamped Century City. All of them offer customers daylight and sunshine, major ingredients of a Southern California lifestyle that was missed by Beverly Center designers.

I’m writing about malls because of a combination of journalistic curiosity and self interest. The new Century City mall has poached Nordstrom’s, the best store in our neighborhood mall, the Westside Pavilion at Pico and Westwood Boulevards. With Nordstrom’s going and only Macy’s remaining—along with a number of marginal shops—the future of the Pavilion, opened in 1985, seems dim with the exception of the Landmark theaters and a couple of restaurants in the building across Westwood Boulevard.

What makes this more than a neighborhood story is opening of the Expo rail line. The final stretch from Culver City into Santa Monica is almost completed. There are stations at Westwood and Sepulveda boulevards, and the prospect of train service is heating up interest in L.A.’s favorite business, land speculation and development. The Westside Pavilion, minus Nordstrom’s, is headed for big change, and all of us in the neighborhood are curious about what will happen.

I asked the Pavilion’s owner, Macerich. I was referred to Karen Maurer, a company official, who asked me to email my questions. I did, but she never replied. I got the story anyway from Barbara Broide, a longtime leader of the Westwood South of Santa Monica Blvd. Homeowners Assn. She said Macerich Vice President for Development Bob Aptaker told a meeting of our homeowners’ group in November the company plans to empty the mall of its remaining tenants once Nordstrom’s leaves. The interior will be gutted. An ugly wall on Pico will be torn down and new shops, bigger than the old, will be open to Pico, with plenty of glass. Whole Foods is being mentioned as a possible tenant, as is Dick’s Sporting Goods. Macerich hopes the Expo line will provide some customers.

But nobody has seen a final plan and some are speculating that the main Pavilion structure will be torn down and replaced by something more profitable. Will Macerich, now talking about a fairly modest project, go for a multi use development—retail, offices and housing--that would require a change in city zoning laws and regulations? That sort of thing is happening all over the city, particularly along the route of the new transit lines. Resentment of such plans in Hollywood has led to an anti-development proposal to put a restrictive measure on the city ballot in November.

The Coalition to Preserve L.A. is pushing a ballot measure that would impose a moratorium of up to two years on new development projects including housing that would require City Council approval. The proposal would also make it difficult to amend the city general plan to permit more development.

Development plans from the Westside to Hollywood and into the San Fernando Valley will be at the center of political controversy as developers and property owners maneuver to profit in the changing L.A.

Secretary of State Alex Padilla conceded that the five Los Angeles County Board of Supervisor districts are big. But he declined to say whether he still favors plans that would increase the number of districts to boost Latino representation and to possibly help the election of an Asian American.

“A district of 2 million people is a lot,” he said. “Those are big districts.” But when I pressed him about how he felt about the proposal, he wouldn’t say.

Padilla spoke at the Los Angeles Current Affairs Forum, presided over by public affairs consultant Emma Schafer, who also compiles the web site Emma’s Memos. He is a former Los Angeles city councilman and state senator from the San Fernando Valley.

I wondered about Padilla’s feelings on board expansion for a couple of reasons. As the top elected Latino official in the state—and a prospect for future office—his opinions are important. And as a state senator, he introduced legislation that would have given judges the power to expand boards of supervisors if they found minorities were being denied representation. It was part of a bill to strengthen the state voting rights act. Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed the legislation. He did not touch on the board expansion issue. He said the present voting rights act is sufficient.

But the expansion issue remains. There is a Latino on the five person county board, but Hilda Solis’ presence doesn’t disguise the fact that Los Angeles County’s Latinos should be better represented. Same with Asian Americans.

Latinos comprise about half of Los Angeles County’s population but the board has opposed proposals to draw new districts or to add two more districts to give them a better chance on election day. That is why Padilla and other Latino politicians and activists pushed for giving judges the power to expand boards. No doubt board expansion advocates will be back at Padilla for help again.

Mine wasn’t the only question Padilla ducked. Peter Jamison of the Los Angeles Times asked Padilla if he would run against Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti next year. “I am not running for mayor,” Padilla replied, without letting on whether he might run in the future.

But I left in a good mood. Padilla gave a ringing endorsement to my favorite section of the secretary of state’s office, the archives. My wife Nancy and I spent many days in the state archives doing research for my biography of Jesse Unruh. It’s a great place and if you’ve got some spare time in Sacramento, make sure to visit.