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AnAnd Los Angeles boosters around the world wept. But it only gets worse...
Not weeping because unlike you we know more than what you might cherry pick from an article. Allow me to clue you in.
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“After a concert in San Francisco,” says Shoup, “the streets are full of people walking to their cars, eating in restaurants, stopping into bars and bookstores. In L.A.? The bar next door at Patina is a ghost town.”
LA's streets are fairly full as well, but it just happens that the concert halls are on top of a very steep hill surrounded by office buildings that are disconnected from where most of the restaurants and bars are. The bar next door to Patina sits by itself and is pretty pricey and isn't really a place where people would want to hang out. Those that do will head down the hill to the more popular places where all of the people are. It might change in a few years when that area gets a rail station. The existing one is 2 blocks up a steep hill walking through a semi-deserted office area (much like downtown NYC outside business hours).
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L.A. mandates it. In Los Angeles we attend dinner parties and wish out loud for more pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods, increased urban density, more mass transportation, less congestion, less air pollution, less reliance on our cars—and cheap, abundant parking wherever we go.
There you go. And that's what's happening.
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San Francisco or New York might have ten times the parking each has now if they had buildings like 1100 Wilshire, where the first 15 floors are all garage. But the downtown areas of those cities won’t allow it.
LA would have 10 times the parking that it has now if all buildings were like 1100 Wilshire. It's not typical of LA buildings although for sure LA buildings have more parking than both NYC and SF. SF isn't that different from LA though.
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Hmm...I guess Ray will dismiss this article too because it was written in....wait, what? Two months ago! But I'm sure Los Angeles has radically changed its infrastructure since December.
LOL.
No need to dismiss it. As you can see we only need to explain it and hope for intelligent responses.
And Los Angeles boosters around the world wept. But it only gets worse...
Hmm...I guess Ray will dismiss this article too because it was written in....wait, what? Two months ago! But I'm sure Los Angeles has radically changed its since infrastructure since December.
LOL.
Parking lots are a huge issue for LA in terms of its urbanity. Even though a lot of the parking requirements are met underground and in multi-level parking garages, it's still an issue, but there's a fair bit of activity on the pedestrian-level of the streets due to the population density and commercial activity. I'm a fan of Stroup's, however, this isn't saying that Los Angeles isn't urban only that the parking lots compromise its urbanity. It's more a recognition of how much better Los Angeles can and should be. Why does LA seem to punch beneath its weight (it's a huge city and metro with the second largest metro economy in the US) while all the cities here are much smaller and can hold their own (and by some accounts, beat) Los Angeles in terms of urbanity? It's just sort of sad--but it still leaves Los Angeles as a contender for this bracket of urbanity though it and nowhere else here is even close to New York City when supposedly Los Angeles should be vying for that instead.
As with all the cities mentioned in this topic, there are strengths and weaknesses to each city's claims. Los Angeles is just stranger because the profile of its strength and weaknesses are much more dissimilar to the other ones listed than any of those are compared to each other.
Los Angeles has a good case in:
- a comparable mass transit system in absolute size and reach
- often greater population density when looking at small regions
- definitely greater population density when looking at larger regions
- year-round weather good for walkability
- large areas of diverse retail close to densely inhabited neighborhoods
- active ethnic and cultural entities tied to neighborhoods
Los Angeles pales in:
- more parking lot frontage and the issues associated with that
- generally broader streets
- downtown affluence (the inner city is still on average much less affluent than the other cities--this isn't a value judgment really, but it is hard to really take part in some of the urban experience when much of it is considered less attractive to the middle class or wealthy)
Los Angeles is odd in:
- having multiple centers of activity
- a huge suburban metro compared to its urban areas (though the urban area is larger than any of the rest when in absolute terms)
- a huge population in the urban areas that conducts business in another language with different customs (they aren't unwelcoming most of the time, but it is hard for a lot of people outside the culture to take full advantage of the neighborhood goods)
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 02-05-2012 at 06:44 PM..
The quote says per acre and you said per capita. Per capita means per person and per acre means per area. Hope that helps.
Is that the best counterargument you could make? Do you care to address the point Shoup made that Los Angeles "can never create urban density with the parking lots we’ve built?" Are you just going to run away from that?
Not weeping because unlike you we know more than what you might cherry pick from an article. Allow me to clue you in.
Apparently you know more than Shoup, too, who has studied urban design in Los Angeles for more than thirty years. Where are your books and interviews, btw?
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Originally Posted by 2Easy
LA's streets are fairly full as well, but it just happens that the concert halls are on top of a very steep hill surrounded by office buildings that are disconnected from where most of the restaurants and bars are. The bar next door to Patina sits by itself and is pretty pricey and isn't really a place where people would want to hang out. Those that do will head down the hill to the more popular places where all of the people are. It might change in a few years when that area gets a rail station. The existing one is 2 blocks up a steep hill walking through a semi-deserted office area (much like downtown NYC outside business hours).
C'mon, man. You're smarter than that. The article was focused on how LA's auto-centric design hurts the vibrancy of the entire city, not just a hill on top of which a concert hall rests. That's why the article begins by saying, "That prized garage space or curbside spot you’ve been yearning for may be costing you—and the city—in ways you never realized."
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If you grew up here, the earliest and most essential phrase drilled into you by adults—“Remember, we’re in blue Mickey”—was uttered in a parking lot bigger than Disneyland itself. Angelenos can immediately recognize outsiders, lost souls seen wandering through parking garages with no memory of where the Corolla sits. We valet at Macy’s and at the dentist, at Christmas parties and Oscar shindigs: When Bob Shaye, head of New Line Cinema, threw a party to celebrate The Lord of the Rings in 2004, 900 cars showed up on his cul-de-sac.
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Originally Posted by 2Easy
There you go. And that's what's happening.
The article said that they were "wishing out loud" for those things to happen. Still, L.A. is way behind the other cities it's being compared to in this thread.
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Originally Posted by 2Easy
No need to dismiss it. As you can see we only need to explain it and hope for intelligent responses.
And I just need to keep posting statements made by urban planners and wait for knee-jerk dismissals and weak explanations.
Last edited by BajanYankee; 02-05-2012 at 06:41 PM..
Is that the best counterargument you could make? Do you care to address the point Shoup made that Los Angeles "can never create urban density with the parking lots we’ve built?" Are you just going to run away from that?
If so, it's a very important distinction given your earlier mischaracterizations of what Shoup actually said. First off, this is how Shoup starts the article:
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THE POP CULTURE IMAGE of Los Angeles is an ocean of malls, cars, and exit ramps; of humorless tract homes and isolated individuals whose only solace is aimless driving on endless freeways. From Joan Didion to the Sierra Club, LA has been held up as a poster child of sprawl. This is an arresting and romantic narrative, but also largely untrue.
To the extent that anyone has a definition of sprawl, it usually revolves around the absence of density, and Los Angeles has since the 1980s been the densest urbanized area in the United States. This would make it the least sprawling city in America. Compared to other US cities, LA also does not have inordinately high rates of automobile ownership.
Sound familiar? It should because it's what LA forumers have been trying to tell you.
Secondly, the area that Shoup is discussing in the article is only downtown Los Angeles. And in 2004 he was right on the mark. Not that he's wrong, but a lot has changed in the last 8 years. There have been dozens of residential conversions that have added thousands of residential units. Most of them have no parking. Secondly many of the parking lots have been developed. Even the Disney lot that he mentions in the article is due to be replaced. In short, the problems with downtown have been or are being addressed. Even the parking requirements have changed. Developers are still building what many (myself included) may see as too much parking, but it's largely developer driven and not zoning driven. Parking is relatively cheap and units with parking sell for more.
Apparently you know more than Shoup, too, who has studied urban design in Los Angeles for more than thirty years. Where are your books and interviews, btw?
Hardly. What you perceive as me contradicting Shoup is entirely due to your lack of reading comprehension unless we're discussing separate articles.
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C'mon, man. You're smarter than that. The article was focused on how LA's auto-centric design hurts the vibrancy of the entire city, not just a hill on top of which a concert hall rests.
Nope. Downtown. Maybe you can read it before responding.
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The article said that they were "wishing out loud" for those things to happen. Still, L.A. is way behind the other cities it's being compared to in this thread.
In many ways LA is behind, but in some ways LA is better positioned for the future. I'm not trying to debate the "more urban" topic of this thread. It's entirely subjective and you and Fitzrovian have a tendency to confuse your preferences with fact. I only stepped in to point out your significant inaccuracies.
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And I just need to keep posting statements made by urban planners and wait for knee-jerk dismissals and weak explanations.
That can be mitigated in the future if you read the entire article before posting said statements!
If so, it's a very important distinction given your earlier mischaracterizations of what Shoup actually said. First off, this is how Shoup starts the article:
Sound familiar? It should because it's what LA forumers have been trying to tell you.
Secondly, the area that Shoup is discussing in the article is only downtown Los Angeles. And in 2004 he was right on the mark. Not that he's wrong, but a lot has changed in the last 8 years. There have been dozens of residential conversions that have added thousands of residential units. Most of them have no parking. Secondly many of the parking lots have been developed. Even the Disney lot that he mentions in the article is due to be replaced. In short, the problems with downtown have been or are being addressed. Even the parking requirements have changed. Developers are still building what many (myself included) may see as too much parking, but it's largely developer driven and not zoning driven. Parking is relatively cheap and units with parking sell for more.
You would agree that Los Angeles generally doesn't have as much attractive urban areas though, right? It's got fairly dense tracts over a far wider area than any of the places mentioned, but there are some structural issues that are being dealt with, but are far from really being solved. There are plans out there to fix this such as the Millenium Park-esque plan to make a covering over the Hollywood Freeway for pedestrians), but those aren't really in place yet. These are still big issues, but it's good that at least some of them have been fixed over the last two decades and especially over the last ten years. Also, wouldn't you agree that Los Angeles hits way below its tier given that it's the second largest city, second largest metro, has the densest urban area (urban area as defined by census), and the second largest economy?
@ OyCrumbler. to say that L.A. should be NYC-dense or near it is missing the point. L.A. intentionally went away from the NYC style decades ago, and population EXPLODED thereafter. People like it the way it was/is and love where it's going.
If so, it's a very important distinction given your earlier mischaracterizations of what Shoup actually said. First off, this is how Shoup starts the article:
Sound familiar? It should because it's what LA forumers have been trying to tell you.
And you ignored where Shoup says that he's referring to the "urbanized area" when he says "Los Angeles." Nobody is arguing that Los Angeles is not dense. Nobody is arguing that the urbanized area is not dense. That completely misses the point.
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Originally Posted by 2Easy
Secondly, the area that Shoup is discussing in the article is only downtown Los Angeles. And in 2004 he was right on the mark. Not that he's wrong, but a lot has changed in the last 8 years. There have been dozens of residential conversions that have added thousands of residential units. Most of them have no parking. Secondly many of the parking lots have been developed. Even the Disney lot that he mentions in the article is due to be replaced. In short, the problems with downtown have been or are being addressed. Even the parking requirements have changed. Developers are still building what many (myself included) may see as too much parking, but it's largely developer driven and not zoning driven. Parking is relatively cheap and units with parking sell for more.
Apparently Shoup's observations had not changed much between 2004 and December 2011. Note the date on the subsequent article. And you're acting as if Downtown Los Angeles is the only area of the city that suffers from an abundance of parking lots. Excessive parking results in "increased disruptions in the urban fabric" not only in Downtown LA, but also in neighborhoods like Koreatown and West Hollywood. We know this because, as Shoup stated, the city imposed minimum parking requirements. There's no reason to think that regulations that generate excessive parking in the CBD also would not generate excessive parking in other parts of the city.
@ OyCrumbler. to say that L.A. should be NYC-dense or near it is missing the point. L.A. intentionally went away from the NYC style decades ago, and population EXPLODED thereafter. People like it the way it was/is and love where it's going.
They liked it the way it was until the 70s and 80s hit and a lot of people shifted away from the dense downtown core--people voted on this by moving out of the urban core. Luckily, there was a large population of Latin American and East Asian immigrants who came in and filled in that void, and now other people due to realizing there's a lot to be offered in an urban environment. Los Angeles going back to what it was like before (and arguably more NYC-like) is only the last two decades, and I do love where it's going from there. I do think Los Angeles's poly-centric approach is a good idea as there are polycentric cities such as Tokyo who have managed to create an incredibly dense and rich urban experience. If there was any model that I would want LA to follow, it would be Tokyo's (as well as other East Asian cities and Latin American cities) and not NYC, Chicago or the other cities in this poll.
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