This is basic for any community of business that aims to play an appropriate role in a profitable and sustainable marketplace.

The photo on the left is from the 700 block of South Ardmore Avenue, just south of Wilshire Boulevard, and shows what’s been the scene for months in front of a vacant lot there. The property is fenced off, and it’s anyone’s guess what goes on day or night amid the weeds, garbage and graffiti in the enclosure.

The mess you see here is on the public parkway and sidewalk. Children and elderly folk must traipse through it or risk the cars that whiz by in a regular race for rare parking spots in the densely packed neighborhood. A wrong step could change a child’s life – or end an elder’s – with a poke from a dirty needle or some other danger-laden detritus.

The photo on the right is from the 900 block of South Mariposa Avenue – same neighborhood, only a few blocks away. It shows an unlocked book case in a tidy and pleasant seating area facing the sidewalk. Anyone can drop by and borrow a book for free at anytime.

This is our suggestion before anyone says another word about quality of life, public health or safety: Send representatives of city departments and nonprofit agencies engaged in those areas, along with some representatives of the business community, which counts on a basic level of civic propriety as a baseline for staffing their enterprises, creating and producing goods and services, and selling them.

Present the scene on Ardmore to them as a challenge.

Point to the situation on Mariposa as a case of best practices.

Tell them to figure it out.

Then scale it up.