Can we all agree that Los Angeles is the 2nd largest CITY in the U.S.?

[anrev]

Originally Posted by ryanms3030

Actually, I'd say we (as in human beings) can't agree on anything.

If you don't care what anyone thinks, life is great.

I give a **** what anyone thinks about anything....people can call LA whatever they want. Hate on it all they want. Fine by me. I love it here. Haters can hate, as long as they don't move here and add to traffic.

[edsg25]

Originally Posted by anrev

If you don't care what anyone thinks, life is great.

I give a **** what anyone thinks about anything....people can call LA whatever they want. Hate on it all they want. Fine by me. I love it here. Haters can hate, as long as they don't move here and add to traffic.

response from Chicago (one time second largest city in the US): you're right....LA is a great city by any measure and you have every reason to love it. It is utterly insane not to recognize LA as the blockbuster city it is. We all have our list of what are the true major, truly great cities in the US....to me, the ones that truly make the grade (going from east to west) are Boston, New York, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco....to me, no other cities can compare with those.

[Californiaguy2007]

I understand what you mean...L.A for it's size doesn't have the magnitude of skyscrapers or pedestrian traffic in it's core that either NYC or Chicago has,so it gives an impression of a more suburban type city with a predominant low rise appearance.

I was recently looking at photos and videos of Dubai in the UAE and I was in awe struck on how magnificent it's skyscrapers were and even though Dubai Metro has only around 2.7 Million,you would think it was a much larger city from the amount of high rises and construction going on...Even the cities in China are building at an incredible speed.

L.A has reached buildout,so the only place to grow is upwards or to continue jumping outwards towards the desert and the central valley,so seeing all the new construction projects going on in downtown is really uplifting so to speak,because it's great to see downtown being revitalized.

With modern engineering to build earthquake resistance structures,i'm sure you'll see more high rises being built in downtown and throughout L.A as time goes by,and more people continue to move into downtown as well which is making it more vibrant

Originally Posted by Chicano3000X

And like all cities, Los Angeles enters stages of growth?

From wetlands, to farms, to a bustling town, to a nice little city and into a suburban phase. Los Angeles grew into it's limits.

It has reached a transitional phase where spreading out is no longer feasible and it's time to add layers.

Why do folks still wanna treat it as a suburb? Why are we holding it back with this new measure?

Do you honestly believe that Los Angeles should forever act like a suburb? Do you really think that is sustainable?

[Californiaguy2007]

Yup you got that right....L.A continues to grow outwards and upwards,because it still attracts people from all over the World....I read online that The Greater L.A Region now has over 18 Million+ and growing.

Originally Posted by HipsterDTLA Yuppie

People who think LA has reached a peak limit of sprawl are dead wrong and have obvously never been to the extreme outskirts of the enormous Tokyo-like metro. There's still tons of construction happening in Hemet, Palmdale, Eastvale, and anything along the 215 freeway by Temecula.

That's the amazing thing about LA. It can continue to densify in it's core while also spreading out neverending.

[Lovehound]

There isn't really any good definition of what constitutes a city. Los Angeles tends to peak downtown and then the city has diminishing but ever present effect over greater and greater areas, and what constitutes a suburb.

Then consider subsumed cities such as San Fernando and Glendale. And what of county? Is L.A. County part of Los Ageles? (IMO yes). And if so, is the City of Santa Clarita part of Los Angeles? (IMO yes.)

What about adjacent counties? Like Orange County? They are arguably part of Los Angeles.

When I lived in Simi Valley (Ventura Co.) I felt like I was still in Los Angeles.

I think in some ways the word "city" is losing its meaning as suburbanization spreads.

[jm1982]

This is an interesting article .

Building a better ‘burb: The race to design a sustainable suburbia is also making the suburbs kind of cool - Salon.com

There aren't too many parts of the city of L.A (within the city limits) that feel too suburban.

We are seeing more density and there aren't really new single family homes being built unless they are the small lot type of homes.

Not sure how it's being treated as a suburb, because we still have single family homes?

Even in NYC you can still find single family homes outside of Manhattan.
NYC is much denser overall versus L.A but L.A has more density than many other large cities if you take a look here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._by_population

NYC is a great city of course, but many people in L.A don't want L.A to look like NYC and I don't think that's a bad thing.

[Lovehound]

Los Angeles is currently in the process of increasing urbanization as population increases while the land area stays the same. There are limited buildable areas to expand into and most of them are in outlying areas and thus undesirable.

You can see this effect long term by observing increasing traffic, like in my case in SFV where I lived for many decades.

[jm1982]

Originally Posted by Lovehound

Los Angeles is currently in the process of increasing urbanization as population increases while the land area stays the same. There are limited buildable areas to expand into and most of them are in outlying areas and thus undesirable.

You can see this effect long term by observing increasing traffic, like in my case in SFV where I lived for many decades.

Yes and now we are seeing building occur near the la river and places like that .
Lots of small lot home developments happening in the SFV and I imagine that will continue .
In Warner center there is a lot of development planned too .
Also North Hollywood area where the Macy's with the massive parking lot is .

New development like this is better than a run down Macy's and a massive unused parking lot
Here’s what’s next for the former Laurel Plaza Macy’s in North Hollywood