Bedrock Values in Beverly Hills

If granite is good enough to slice fresh kohlrabi on a gleaming new kitchen counter, why not walk on the stuff, too? The latest luxury trend in urban infrastructure is granite sidewalks. Melbourne, Australia has some; Manhasset, on Long Island's North shore, has some; the stretch of Pennsylvania Ave. in front of the White House has some. Now the city of Beverly Hills is preparing to replace all the concrete sidewalks in its prime shopping area with Kenoran Sage. Writing in the Aug. 25 Los Angeles Times, Bob Pool reported that City Manager Roderick Wood argued to the Beverly Hills City Council that unless the city repaves Rodeo Drive and its environs in granite, that high-priced shopping district will lose ground to Las Vegas, Vail, Martha's Vineyard, and ... Dubai! Concrete is perfectly all right for California cities like Riverside and Indio, Wood sneered. But it simply won't do in Beverly Hills.

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Timothy Noah is a senior writer at Slate.

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