Overview of Revenge of “A Good Walk Spoiled”
This episode is a follow-up to Malcolm Gladwell’s 2017 Revisionist History episode “A Good Walk Spoiled,” which argued that Los Angeles’s private golf courses are massively underused, heavily subsidized, and effectively act like private aristocratic enclaves on some of the city’s most valuable land. Ten years later, the episode reveals that Los Angeles City Council member Adrin Nazarian heard the original episode, connected the dots on golf course property taxes, and proposed a ballot measure to make the clubs pay something closer to their real public cost.
Core Argument
Golf courses as elite, subsidized land use
Gladwell revisits his long-running critique of golf as:
- an absurdly land-intensive sport,
- accessible to very few people at once,
- and disproportionately favored by wealthy elites.
His central complaint is that in a city short on public green space, Los Angeles’s private golf clubs occupy enormous tracts of land while ordinary residents are pushed to the margins.
The “highest and best use” problem
The episode explains a key property-tax principle: land should be taxed according to its highest and best use. For a plot in Beverly Hills or Brentwood, that would almost certainly not be a private golf course.
Yet LA country clubs received two major protections:
- a 1960 constitutional exemption for country clubs, secured with help from Bob Hope, and
- Proposition 13, which froze property taxes at low historical levels unless ownership changes.
Together, these created a tax system that lets elite clubs pay tiny amounts relative to the actual value of the land they control.
How the Tax Loophole Works
Bob Hope and the public-relations cover
The episode recounts how California country clubs used Bob Hope—the quintessential “everyman” celebrity and obsessive golfer—to help sell an exemption that protected private clubs from higher taxation. The irony: a deeply exclusive institution was defended by a man whose public persona was down-to-earth and broadly beloved.
Prop 13 and “spatiotemporal continuity”
Gladwell then explains how LA county lawyers argued that golf clubs had not “changed ownership” enough to trigger reassessment under Prop 13.
To dramatize this, the episode brings in the Ship of Theseus philosophical puzzle:
- If a ship is rebuilt board by board, is it still the same ship?
- The county’s lawyers essentially applied that logic to golf clubs:
- if members change gradually,
- and the club’s overall identity remains intact,
- then it can still be treated as the same property entity.
Gladwell argues this is a legal sleight of hand that preserves privilege.
The Scale of the Subsidy
Huge land value, tiny tax bill
The episode estimates that the major Los Angeles country clubs sit on land worth roughly $15 billion in total, but pay less than $1 million in property taxes annually.
For the Los Angeles Country Club alone, Gladwell suggests the gap between what it pays and what it would owe under normal taxation amounts to an enormous public subsidy—effectively hundreds of millions of dollars over time.
The New Development: A Real-World Response
Adrin Nazarian’s ballot proposal
The major update in this episode is that Councilmember Adrin Nazarian listened to the old episode, researched the issue, and introduced a proposal designed to make the clubs contribute more fairly.
His idea:
- a city parcel tax of about $4 per square foot on golf club land,
- structured to avoid conflicting with Prop 13,
- and set roughly to match what a normal “highest and best use” property tax would generate.
Why it matters
For clubs like the Los Angeles Country Club, this would mean a dramatic increase in annual tax liability—potentially enough to force them to:
- raise dues substantially,
- rethink their business model,
- or even shut down.
Nazarian reports strong initial public support, suggesting the issue could resonate as a populist reform.
Reaction from the Clubs
Panic behind the gates
The episode portrays the country clubs as quickly mobilizing:
- lawyers,
- board members,
- public-relations messaging,
- and quiet lobbying.
Gladwell frames their response as a sign that they know the issue is politically dangerous.
Clubs as aristocratic institutions
A key takeaway is Gladwell’s claim that LA’s private golf clubs function like modern aristocracies:
- inherited privilege,
- exclusionary access,
- and legal structures designed to preserve status across generations.
He argues that if they want to preserve this status, they should at least give something back—such as opening access to the public on evenings or weekends, or giving up some of the land as park space.
Conclusion and Call to Action
The episode ends as both a victory lap and a challenge:
- a long-dismissed podcast argument has finally influenced policy,
- and the idea that “nothing matters” is proven wrong.
Gladwell invites listeners to see the golf-course debate as a test case for whether powerful institutions can still be pressured to serve the public good.
Notable Takeaways
- Ideas can have delayed consequences: a podcast episode from 2017 eventually influenced a real policy proposal.
- Tax law can preserve inequality: obscure legal doctrines can protect elite institutions for decades.
- Golf is about more than golf: in LA, golf course land use is really a battle over public space, power, and wealth.
- Public subsidies should be visible: if the city is effectively subsidizing private clubs, the public should get something in return.
Bottom Line
This is a sharp, funny, and increasingly real-world-minded episode about how Los Angeles’s private golf clubs became protected enclaves on some of the city’s most valuable land—and how one city council member, inspired by a podcast, tried to make them pay their fair share.