There is no there There! This has been the description of LA by a mix of people for a long time. So what is already there, what should be done and the most important question is what can be done? This perspective comes from the eyes trained in Architecture and Urban Design and having worked internationally for 28 years both sitting on the design side as well as the development side and working closely with governments.
Let me first start by asking myself the question, what do I like and dislike of LA? The top of my list would look like this:
LIKE
1. Weather
2. Beach
3. Mountains - Snow
4. Cultural melting pot
5. Casual Atmosphere
6. Sports Culture
7. Hollywood
8. Old Small Communities
9. Old Downtown
10. Diversity of Choices
Let me first start by asking myself the question, what do I like and dislike of LA? The top of my list would look like this:
LIKE
1. Weather
2. Beach
3. Mountains - Snow
4. Cultural melting pot
5. Casual Atmosphere
6. Sports Culture
7. Hollywood
8. Old Small Communities
9. Old Downtown
10. Diversity of Choices
 |
| Redevelopment of Old Culver City |
DISLIKE
1. Traffic
2. Sprawl - Spread
3. Smog
4. Lack of human interaction
5. Reliance on cars
6. Crime
1. Traffic
2. Sprawl - Spread
3. Smog
4. Lack of human interaction
5. Reliance on cars
6. Crime
 |
| LA Freeway Traffic |
So addressing the questions, from the eyes of an Architect, looking primarily from the perspective of physical planning which is usually the first thing that is immediately apparent to me.
What is already there?
1. Metro has been in operation since 1990, an extensive network of over 1,600km (1,000miles) of tracks exists both above and underground. This is a great infrastructure already in place, but for me still some fundamental flaws in its reach. This can be seen in the limited number of riders for the size of the network and population base. There is far too sparse a population within walking distance of most of the stations. Although there exists the park and ride, one still needs to get into the car to get there and once in the car for short distances, it ends up more convenient to drive!
2. Santa Monica 3rd Street Promenade and Ocean Blvd. One of the most attractive places to live in the Greater LA area in my opinion. There is a mix of high rise, low rise and single family housing. All within a short walk or bus to the amenities such as the pier, beach and 3rd Street Promenade. Housing prices there reflect the quality of the location.
1. Metro has been in operation since 1990, an extensive network of over 1,600km (1,000miles) of tracks exists both above and underground. This is a great infrastructure already in place, but for me still some fundamental flaws in its reach. This can be seen in the limited number of riders for the size of the network and population base. There is far too sparse a population within walking distance of most of the stations. Although there exists the park and ride, one still needs to get into the car to get there and once in the car for short distances, it ends up more convenient to drive!
2. Santa Monica 3rd Street Promenade and Ocean Blvd. One of the most attractive places to live in the Greater LA area in my opinion. There is a mix of high rise, low rise and single family housing. All within a short walk or bus to the amenities such as the pier, beach and 3rd Street Promenade. Housing prices there reflect the quality of the location.
 |
| 3rd Street Promenade, Sanata Monica |
3. Westwood Village the front door to UCLA one of the prime universities of California. The village is bustling with life from the large university population and one of the locations where down the road on Wilshire Blvd exists one of the few belts of high rise condo living in LA.
4. Little Tokyo at one end of downtown where the historic street combined with the pedestrian mall, community center, museums, commercial and a significant amount of medium density residential added over the last 20 years all within the cultural back drop of the Japanese American community.
5. Americana in Glendale is a relative new development which urbanizes an area adjacent to the existing shopping mall. The development is built around a plaza / park with a large musical fountain and a replica of the Eiffel Tower and includes both retail, F&B and residential. All a bit kitsch, but the right idea and proven to be what the dwellers appreciate by the residential property prices.
6. Beachfront Strand / Boardwalk stretching from Santa Monica beach all the way south about 20miles to Torrance Beach with a few sections connected by road side bike paths. The most famous section the stretch through Venice beach with shops, and a variety of recreation areas such as the famous Muscle Beach, basketball courts, etc. Probably one of the most valuable and desirable belts of residential real estate in LA.
7. The standard suburban lots of 50’ x 100’ are slowly being replaced with smaller lots and denser development due to land cost and shortage of land. Other areas like Long Beach are also moving to high density high rise living in some locations as well as revitalizing the old town urban districts.
8. These are just a few of the things that I quickly come to mind based on where I normally travel in LA and what I have seen lately. I am sure the list can go on and on as the city is so large and spread out this is the problem that the small pockets of something are sometimes hard to find.
How would I change LA?
1. First of all with the beautiful climate, I would target to make a good part of LA into a walking city. When I say a good part maybe this means maybe up to 40% by land area? This would result with Urban Clusters at various locations throughout the city. Well one might ask why and then followed by how?
2. Let’s address the why first. Having lived for over 30 years in LA, I can safely say I wasted a good portion of my Life just commuting! As well as a good portion of my money on my car including gas, insurance and maintenance in addition to the car itself. A lot can be summed up from my earlier blog of why I prefer urban to suburban, but the basic conclusion is that it provides more choice within a close distance saving me both time and money and allows me to better decide how I choose to spend my time and money. Not yet the mentioning the richness of interaction urban settings offer.
3. Now addressing the next question of how. I would start with the Metro lines and its various stations and hopefully those that coincide with the old town centers and redevelop the walking distance to the stations to be the centers of the New Urban Clusters. These would be the high density areas where people would live and not need to own a car, but of course could still have one if they felt necessary. I would make sure all the clusters had a sufficient critical mass of a mix of residential, commercial, retail and of course all the amenities of clinics and schools as well as public services such as police posts. Certainly within these areas recreational facilities such as parks would need to be included to give some relief and contrast to the denser urban living. The residents of the clusters would surely result in a high quality of life from the community feel and also from the fact that walking will lead to a healthier lifestyle. Those that need to do longer commute by the Metro would then be free to spend the half hour to hour reading or just relaxing and free from the stress of driving in traffic jams.
4. How else would this clustering be beneficial to the general public? Well greater density means infrastructure services such as fire department, police, water and power distribution will be more concentrated and supported by taxes of a larger population of properties. Density provides larger customer base for consumer businesses and therefore should also provide greater variety. So along with variety of businesses should come jobs all within walking distance of one’s home. With more people generally walking, traffic on a whole should be reduced and those driving will be subject to less traffic jams. The Metro, I understand is still not operationally self-sustainable so the greater ridership will support this expensive but necessary strategic investment. Basically economies of scale means lots of winners!
What can be done?
1. Is it possible to redevelop large areas of land around existing stations? It will certainly involve relocating a number of residents and businesses and the question is legally, socially and politically can this be done?
2. There exists a law of Eminent Domain, where the government can take or buy your land if necessary for public use not sure if the courts would see this as in the interest of public use, probably not or what the implications of this would be? See Wikipedia definition.
3. If we take a hard look at the state of oil consumption and the finite resources available as well as the skyrocketing costs, surely this should qualify as a reason to reduce oil dependency as public good! This combined with the concern of global warming, the reduced dependency on cars and gas can only further help this cause. (My earlier blog about Urban Planning, Lifestyle, Natural Resources and the Environment parts 1 and 2.)
4. If all else fails, then the government should just rezone all the land involved and either buy the land back at large profits for sellers and then redevelop or sell to private developers to redevelop. Certainly changing the zoning for a lot from single family residential to say 20 to 30 story mixed use can afford paying double current market rate to acquire the land.
5. In the end, the LA City Governments with all the small cities need to be unified with one vision of transforming LA into what could become a true mix of urban and suburban and this can result in perhaps the greatest city in the world.
6. Is there a person or agency that can initiate and take the lead to drive this vision? Would it be a politician, a private developer or a government agency? For a city to transform like this it would most likely be done under the direction of an Emperor or King and maybe the cost of democracy and capitalism is that we have to settle for the LA we have today?
Let’s hope not!
 |
| Nogouchi Plaza, Little Tokyo |
5. Americana in Glendale is a relative new development which urbanizes an area adjacent to the existing shopping mall. The development is built around a plaza / park with a large musical fountain and a replica of the Eiffel Tower and includes both retail, F&B and residential. All a bit kitsch, but the right idea and proven to be what the dwellers appreciate by the residential property prices.
 |
| Park Plaza and Musical Fountain at the American, Glendale |
 |
| The Strand, Hermosa Beach |
7. The standard suburban lots of 50’ x 100’ are slowly being replaced with smaller lots and denser development due to land cost and shortage of land. Other areas like Long Beach are also moving to high density high rise living in some locations as well as revitalizing the old town urban districts.
8. These are just a few of the things that I quickly come to mind based on where I normally travel in LA and what I have seen lately. I am sure the list can go on and on as the city is so large and spread out this is the problem that the small pockets of something are sometimes hard to find.
How would I change LA?
1. First of all with the beautiful climate, I would target to make a good part of LA into a walking city. When I say a good part maybe this means maybe up to 40% by land area? This would result with Urban Clusters at various locations throughout the city. Well one might ask why and then followed by how?
 |
| Las Ramblas - Barcelona, Spain |
2. Let’s address the why first. Having lived for over 30 years in LA, I can safely say I wasted a good portion of my Life just commuting! As well as a good portion of my money on my car including gas, insurance and maintenance in addition to the car itself. A lot can be summed up from my earlier blog of why I prefer urban to suburban, but the basic conclusion is that it provides more choice within a close distance saving me both time and money and allows me to better decide how I choose to spend my time and money. Not yet the mentioning the richness of interaction urban settings offer.
3. Now addressing the next question of how. I would start with the Metro lines and its various stations and hopefully those that coincide with the old town centers and redevelop the walking distance to the stations to be the centers of the New Urban Clusters. These would be the high density areas where people would live and not need to own a car, but of course could still have one if they felt necessary. I would make sure all the clusters had a sufficient critical mass of a mix of residential, commercial, retail and of course all the amenities of clinics and schools as well as public services such as police posts. Certainly within these areas recreational facilities such as parks would need to be included to give some relief and contrast to the denser urban living. The residents of the clusters would surely result in a high quality of life from the community feel and also from the fact that walking will lead to a healthier lifestyle. Those that need to do longer commute by the Metro would then be free to spend the half hour to hour reading or just relaxing and free from the stress of driving in traffic jams.
4. How else would this clustering be beneficial to the general public? Well greater density means infrastructure services such as fire department, police, water and power distribution will be more concentrated and supported by taxes of a larger population of properties. Density provides larger customer base for consumer businesses and therefore should also provide greater variety. So along with variety of businesses should come jobs all within walking distance of one’s home. With more people generally walking, traffic on a whole should be reduced and those driving will be subject to less traffic jams. The Metro, I understand is still not operationally self-sustainable so the greater ridership will support this expensive but necessary strategic investment. Basically economies of scale means lots of winners!
What can be done?
1. Is it possible to redevelop large areas of land around existing stations? It will certainly involve relocating a number of residents and businesses and the question is legally, socially and politically can this be done?
2. There exists a law of Eminent Domain, where the government can take or buy your land if necessary for public use not sure if the courts would see this as in the interest of public use, probably not or what the implications of this would be? See Wikipedia definition.
3. If we take a hard look at the state of oil consumption and the finite resources available as well as the skyrocketing costs, surely this should qualify as a reason to reduce oil dependency as public good! This combined with the concern of global warming, the reduced dependency on cars and gas can only further help this cause. (My earlier blog about Urban Planning, Lifestyle, Natural Resources and the Environment parts 1 and 2.)
4. If all else fails, then the government should just rezone all the land involved and either buy the land back at large profits for sellers and then redevelop or sell to private developers to redevelop. Certainly changing the zoning for a lot from single family residential to say 20 to 30 story mixed use can afford paying double current market rate to acquire the land.
5. In the end, the LA City Governments with all the small cities need to be unified with one vision of transforming LA into what could become a true mix of urban and suburban and this can result in perhaps the greatest city in the world.
6. Is there a person or agency that can initiate and take the lead to drive this vision? Would it be a politician, a private developer or a government agency? For a city to transform like this it would most likely be done under the direction of an Emperor or King and maybe the cost of democracy and capitalism is that we have to settle for the LA we have today?
Let’s hope not!
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| View from Downtown LA of the cityscape as it extends to the beach, c1986 |
Jiwa Studio
Singapore, December 2011
http://jiwastudioweb.blogspot.com/
Think most people in LA would rather drive their car down the street than walk a couple blocks. Those that would rather walk or take subway move somewhere else.
ReplyDeleteCam W, LA