     William L. Seavey's crusade can be summed up with his toll-free num-
ber:  1-800-OUT-OF-LA.
     For 10 years, he has sermonized on the downfall of "the Los Angeleses, 
the New Yorks and the Detroits."  He has devoted himself to telling people 
to move out of a city many weren't ready to leave.
     But what with the crime, the crowds, the traffic-and of course the 
riots, fires, floods and earthquakes-Angelenos could be excuse these days 
if they wondered whether Seavey didn't have a point.
     Southern California, Seavey said in a news release he circulated after 
the Jan. 17 Northridge earthquake, is "the most dangerous urban area in the 
United States."
     In the wake of the quake, Seavey shook into action.  He dashed out 500 
pieces of mail to San Fernando Valley residents, dropped off brochures at 
emergency shelters, wrote guest editorials for local newspapers.
     Convincing people to leave urban areas is Seavey's mission, and help-
ing them escape is his livelihood.  And he's not the only one.  Entrepre-
neurs like Tom Evons and Constance See are players in the dugout business.
     Last year, when 900 people packed a room in La Jolla to hear Evons 
give his speech on "Escape San Diego," Evons knew what his next move would 
be.  He expanded his operation to include "Escape L.A." and "Escape San 
Francisco."
     See promotes leaving any risky place.  She sells a map of the United 
States emblazoned with the question, "Are You Safe Where You Live?"  It 
is overlaid with statistics on rapes, murders, prison escapes, Superfund 
sites, breast cancer rates, earthquakes and other recipes for a short life-
span.
     "I'll show you where the cancer, crud and crime are across the United 
States," says See, who runs City Seekers out of her home in Olympia, Wash.  
     After broadcast appearances in Los Angeles and San Francisco last 
fall, See was barraged with phone calls:  900 from Los Angeles and 700 from 
San Francisco.
     About 15 percent of the callers went on to become clients.  They paid 
See US$25 to compile information on particular cities and US$45 to be 
matched with their own personal Eden somewhere in the country.
     Some would say that idylls are getting harder to come by.  When Matt 
Holbert left Galveston, Texas, for Boise, Idaho, he thought he was bidding 
adieu to urban clutter, gangs and graffiti.
     Not so, Boise is beginning to grapple with some of the name "big city" 
plagues.  Growth rates in Boise have been running at six percent for the 
past three years-two percent is about the norm.
     "If it keeps growing at this pace," said Holbert, "we'll find a small-
er city.  But it's hard to get away from this growth."
     At a recent rally to stop the building of a bridge across the Boise 
River, protesters sported T-shirts emblazoned with the word "Boiseangeles" 
enclosed in a circle with a red slash through it.
     The same sentiment is widespread on the coast.  About 65 percent of 
Allied Van Lines 1993 California relocations were outbound, up from 58 
percent in 1991.  United Van Lines reported similar figures for 1993.  In 
Los Angeles County deportees outnumbered arrivals by more than 2-to-1.
     The subscription list for Seavey's quarterly newsletter has grown from 
100 to 2,000 in three years with the largest growth coming in Southern 
California.
     "That's where the action is," said Seavey, a former resident of Los 
Angeles who now lives in Pahrump, Nev., (Population:  10.000."
     These days, he spends most of his time on the road, living out of his 
motor home and extolling the virtues of small town life at each stop.
     He sells all kinds of relocation accessories; audio tapes and books on 
everything from setting up a home-based business to "Selling your Southern 
California Property When No One's Biting."  He runs a "Meet, Match and 
Move" support group and oversee a network of "Hinterland Host," rural folks 
who serve as a welcome party to the newly relocated.
     Seavey isn't sure how to react to others, like Evons and See, who have 
climbed on the get-out-of-L.A. bandwagon.  On one hand, he says he's re-
luctunt to give out any competitors' names for fear of drawing attention to 
them.  But then he adds.
     In some sense, the more the merrier People need to Know what the 
alternatives are to living in big, crowded, unsafe places.
     "And that is our mission."
     Rangoon, Burma-The Ministry of Hotels and Tourism has allowed 147 pri-
vaately owned hotels and inns to operate in the country, the official news-
paper New Light of Myanmar reported yesterday.  There are now over 2,100 
hotel rooms in Burma.  Foreign investors from six countries are currently 
building 17 more hotels, investing over US$500 million, the newspaper re-
ported.
     Chicago-Amoco Corp. plans to announce a major restructuring next month 
that will sharply reduce the size of its corporate staff and replace the 
company's three divisions with 17 separate groups.  The company has said 
previously that the restructuring would cost jobs, but has not been spe-
cific.  The corporate staff would be cut to about 400 positions from more 
than 6,000, but many of the workers would be transferred within Amoco and 
won't result in layoffs, spokesman Jim Fair said Wednesday.  The 17 groups 
will answer to three vice presidents, formerly the chiefs of the three main 
groups.  The separate staffs for the three divisions will be reassigned or 
disappear, Amoco told employees.
     Tel Aviv-Israel released several hundred Palestinian prisoners Thurs-
day, but a watchdog group said the releases lagged far behind what was 
agreed.  The army spokesman's office said those released were not members 
of militant Islamic groups opposed to the peace process and had not killed 
Israelis.  The statement gave the number of released only at "several 
hundred."