How come Los Angeles is not dense like Tokyo? (Fontana: buy, construction)

[wburg]

Tokyo was a major city, centuries old, when Los Angeles was still a sleepy little cattle ranch. Los Angeles' first land boom came with the railroads in the 1880s, and was accelerated by electric streetcars and interurbans in the 1890s and early 1900s. The folks who built out Los Angeles made money by buying cheap farmland way out in the country, building an electric railroad line to it, subdividing the land as residential property, then selling it. The result was a broad spiderweb of electric railroad lines (the mighty Pacific Electric) and many far-flung suburban communities. Later, automobiles and freeways became the dominant form of transportation, and filled in the gaps in between the railroad lines, which were later abandoned.

Square mileage doesn't quite tell the whole story. Japan is a small, mountainous country with a high population. The United States is an enormous country with some mountainous parts and some very big flat areas. Los Angeles is one of those big flat areas, nestled in the hills, and when it was being built, the fashion was to build low-slung horizontal suburbs, not vertical cities. Electric trains and then cheap gas-powered cars and government-subsidized freeways accelerated this. Water also limited Los Angeles' growth until major aqueduct projects provided more water to the thirsty valley.

The densest cities in the United States barely even approach the densities of cities like Tokyo. There are some American cities that are dense and walkable, mostly cities that were built not just before the automobile, but before the streetcar or even the railroads. Most of the United States was not yet conquered by Europeans then.

Los Angeles won't look like Tokyo until the United States runs out of space to expand, our population density starts to resemble that of Japan, or a dramatic shift in American culture (which currently places a high value on individual home ownership, private automobiles, and having a piece of land to call your own, even if it's just a patch of grass in front of a tract home.)

[vdy1985]

Originally Posted by KnoxTown

Apples to Oranges.

I think the better question is...

Why isn't Tokyo less dense like Los Angeles?

[bikky]

japan is an island. only place to go is up

[cowman809]

Originally Posted by squeezeboxgal

The country of Japan is an island, which means there's limited opportunity to spread out. The alternative is to build UP. Los Angeles, on the other hand, was able to sprawl, and its residents' love affair with the automobile means that people can live at a distance and still commute to the city center.

What center?

[Green Irish Eyes]

Originally Posted by cowman809

What center?

LOL -- good question ...

That's probably not the right term, so let me amend my comment to say that people can live at a distance and still commute to their jobs -- where ever they may be.

[majoun]

Originally Posted by ZenMaster2008

I think Freud talked a bit about this.....

Nobody here's mentioned that Mayor Tony views Tokyo as a model for what L.A. should be like.....

[graciously]

really he probably just saying those thing like for fun.

[traveler36]

Los Angeles is interesting because it once had a much more efficient subway system in construction that would allow a vertical growth and a denser city centered more towards downtown LA. With the creation of the automobile Auto companies actually bought up the underground railways during their construction and sealed them off in an effort to get more car use and car sells. This caused the city to become much more spread out. It also caused smog and the reason for the cities traffic jams.

It had all the ingredients to become a Tokyo but the automobile took it into an entirely different direction.

[Vicman]

Is it possible to un-seal these routes and use them again?

Originally Posted by traveler36

Los Angeles is interesting because it once had a much more efficient subway system in construction that would allow a vertical growth and a denser city centered more towards downtown LA. With the creation of the automobile Auto companies actually bought up the underground railways during their construction and sealed them off in an effort to get more car use and car sells.

[traveler36]

Originally Posted by Vicman

Is it possible to un-seal these routes and use them again?

GM and other american car companies were the major purchasers of these lines. Now with the oil prices, auto companies failing, population increase in LA and a more energy concious state of california it makes sense to get these lines open and connect with the current lines. Im not sure if the city is investing in taking it to that level but they are all intact.
I saw it on the Discovery Channels Cities of the Underworld. The host was walking through these lines and most of them are intact with platforms and everything in place. All it needed was to unseal the blocked off passage ways that connect them all and maybe upgrading the tracks from old railway to the newer electric rails. Most of the lines were now owned by the building owners above, but im sure the city would buy them back without a problem.