In a state with the likes of Yosemite, Griffith, Balboa, and Golden Gate, the development of a neighborhood park scarcely larger than a Trader Joe's parking lot may not seem particularly noteworthy. But the pocket parks, community gardens, and micro-recreation areas of the City of Los Angeles' 50 Parks Initiative are intended to be landmarks in some of the state's neediest communities.
The mere existence of Planning Los Angeles speaks volumes about its subject. It's hard to imagine any other city � especially one as relatively young as Los Angeles is � that could inspire a book with over 40 distinct essays by an impressive array of academics and practitioners.
Today, on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the Los Angeles civil unrest, my sense of frustration remains intact with all parties: the Los Angeles Police Department and former Chief Darryl Gates; the looters who torched and ransacked small businesses in my former neighborhood in West Adams; and all-white juries in suburban communities, with their curious reluctance to convict policemen accused of using excessive force.
While cities around the state have been, reluctantly, agreeing to serve as undertakers for their respective redevelopment agencies, the Los Angeles City Council indicated this week that the city will not do so.
Quick: what economic sector most reminds you of Los Angeles? Hollywood? Aerospace? Yoga? According to sports and entertainment giant AEG and a certain pastoral insurance company, it's none of the above.
Last week AEG announced that Los Angeles' nonexistant downtown football stadium, to be developed door to Staples Center and LA Live, will be funded in part by a sponsorship by Farmers Insurance. Thus, the world will know Los Angeles as the home of -- I'm not kidding -- Farmers Field.
One of the things prominently on display at this year's California Chapter, American Planning Association conference was the evolution of the City of Los Angeles from a gargantuan suburb into a true "big city."
New mixed-use and adaptive reuse projects are located all around the conference site in Hollywood, often within easy walking distance of a Red Line subway station. Conference attendees who ventured onto the Red Line encountered a bustling public transit system no matter the time of day.
A breakout session on Tuesday explained the city's adaptive reuse ordinance and related programs. But what the session highlighted was the re-birth of downtown Los Angeles as a desirable place to live for more than 10,000 people.
It could almost be a story from a Charles Dickens novel: Nearly 800 lower-income households find themselves evicted from an apartment complex in the Venice district of Los Angeles by developers who reportedly want to build luxury housing. The City Council opposes the deal but is defeated in court. After various attempts at mediation, the developers beckon sheriff's deputies to lock out hundreds of renters from their apartments, only to call off the authorities at the last minute. >>read more
It was a case of hopeless infatuation in 2001, when the City of Los Angeles finally landed a developer who was rich and optimistically cock-eyed enough to build that long-dreamed-of-but-never-consummated project, the convention center hotel. >>read more
You learn in school that planning is about vision, but in the real world planning usually boils down to numbers � numbers about what's going to happen in the future. But you can never really know what's going to happen in the future. The best you can do is guess.
California is the land of wide-open spaces. And everybody moves here from the East Coast to get away from those big, crowded cities. Right? Not anymore. In some ways, California is just as crowded as � or maybe even more crowded than � the East Coast. And it's only going to become more so during the decades ahead.
