Turning Los Angeles into a normal city

[DaveKCMO]

The Economist: Tackling the hydra

Los Angeles has long epitomised car-oriented sprawl. As early as 1946 the historian Carey McWilliams judged it “a collection of suburbs in search of a city”. So rare are neighbourhoods where basic needs can be met without hopping into a car or bus that estate agents tout the few where they can as “walkable”. Urban planners elsewhere routinely invoke the city as an example of what to avoid. Yet even as they struggle to avoid becoming like Los Angeles, cities such as Atlanta, Phoenix and San Jose are copying it by spreading out and, hydra-like, growing new centres.

The original metropolitan miscreant is now trying to reform itself so fundamentally that Joel Kotkin, an urbanist at Chapman University, compares it to rewriting a DNA code. Last summer the city council changed zoning rules to allow tiny apartments to be built in and around downtown Los Angeles. On March 19th it rejected a plan to put 5,600 homes on the city's northern frontier, signalling that the metropolis must now grow up, not out. From next month developers will be allowed to build blocks of flats up to 35% bigger than previously, so long as they include some cheap housing.

is there a cultural end to sprawl approaching?

[Joemoney]

You need to clean up that place if you want to urbanize it.

[dangerboy]

The city is also making big investments in all modes of mass transit... subways, commuter rail, light rail, BRT, etc. 

[ShowMeKC]

Another interesting thing I learned this week, is that NYC is looking to add bike lanes and other bike amenities to the cities, even in Manhattan. They sent several people to Copenhagen to look at the city, and the people that went there were extremely impressed and had stated they wished NYC were more like that. Apparently moves are going to be taken to make NYC more bike friendly. Could this start a movement to making NYC more similar to European and Asian cities?

It'd be great to see cities like LA and NYC spearhead the movement towards Urbanism. If we could only get cities in the Midwest to join in.

[skim82]

hmm...

I realize you need a car to get around L.A., but I do think it's possible to utilize the public transport if need be. 

Now, I'm not talking about Ventura Co. or the I.E. or O.C., but i guess when i go out i only hang out in more "urbanized" areas like K-town, Hollywood, Santa Monica, etc.  Those areas seem to be pretty dense, and I see signs for the rail system and many packed buses.

But as a whole, L.A. is nowhere as dense as let's say N.Y. (although I've never been) or maybe large cities on the east coast. 

I guess it's all relative.

[DanCa]

I'm in L.A. (Huntington Beach) all week for work and on the news they were talking about some gas tax and car tax rate hike in L.A. County specifically to raise money for mass transit.  Although it's a move in the right direction, I doubt it will happen considering how expensive gas is right now and everyone out here seems very worried about jobs and the economy.

[KC0KEK]

it's a move in the right direction

It's been moving in that direction for quite a while. For example, part of the federal gas tax has been going to mass transit since 1983. I don't know if any states are doing that, though.

[kcmetro]

Wait a second. LA is as "normal" as it gets in this country. There are far more LAs than there are NYCs.

[ShowME]

LA is the reason I will NEVER drive a GM car again.