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I get your point urbanolgist and it's been repeated several times. The wall-to-wall kind of urbanism has to be put against the huge retail, job, and residential density though. If you have strip malls or retail complexes which offer the range and number of services all around and in close proximity to dense retail, you are going to end up with an active walking neighborhood. I understand that doesn't fall into what your take of urban is, but it does fall into the definitions of others and it is an urban/walkable neighborhood.
I'm curious about what you think of the neighborhood of Palms in Los Angeles and the adjacent and denser parts of Culver City. Take a look around there on google maps and also maybe do a yelp search around the area to see what kind of amenities are offered. It's a weird neighborhood given its location and has a huge number of dingbat apartments (large apartment complexes where the street-frontage has second floor apartments overhanging small open garages for cars.
Do not even worry about it anyone read a silly post or they can simply look at the pics I posted on the last page. Honestly for most of the early 20 century Chicago was the largest city and not to mention it's the birth place of the skyscraper. So Chicago does look like the second largest cities but at same LA does look like it's top 3 the skyline is not representative for it's size but LA is undoubtedly urban.
The Los Angeles metropolitan area is 12,828,837 but only 4,850.3 sq. mi this is similar area to Boston 4,511 sq mi but nearly 4 times the population that speaks for itself in terms of density. You got to also put in prospective the area also includes mountains and undevelopable area. Most of the Greater LA regions looks Staten Island maybe Hempstead-ish so no "Mayberry" wouldn't be appropriated. And LA also tend to have super suburbs Long Beach, Santa Ana, Anaheim, Glendale, Irvine, Burbank, Santa Monica, Torrance and etc.
LA does have a lot warehouses buildings but any one who think the vast majority of the buildings on the last page aren't anything but lofts and apartments need to go to the eye doctor.
LA culture is base on the car, it doesn't matter how dense area is. Folks need really to separate this. At one end the city is very dense and walkable, at the other end people are going to drive cars anways it just the culture. Many cities have a strong culture with car clubs but LA is known to be materialistic. I think the want of a car is much higher than the need for a car. But regardless of the Car culture people walk along street retail, it's LA.
Does anyone else reckon that LA would be in for a huge construction boom if they lightened up on those parking requirements? I wonder if there's some long range plan to do that in conjunction with the current mass transit expansion for 30/10 i.e. America Fast Forward? I know Measure J just barely missed the two thirds mark, but that's not the end of it is it?
Does anyone else reckon that LA would be in for a huge construction boom if they lightened up on those parking requirements? I wonder if there's some long range plan to do that in conjunction with the current mass transit expansion for 30/10 i.e. America Fast Forward?
Probably - or at least a lot of those tiny empty lots that have absurd parking requirements would finally be built on because it would make financial sense. Who is going either 1. cut the lot size down even more for a surface lot or 2. pay huge amounts (I think triple per spot?) to have an underground lot, which would take forever to pay for itself.
Not sure it would lead to a full-fledged boom, honestly I think the city is approaching building boom status in Hollywood and DTLA (and the areas in between). Nothing splashy really other than the Grand Wilshire but loads and loads of 7 story mixed use complexes.
I posted earlier that Villaraigosa has approved the creation of a Transit Oriented Development Cabinet (or something along those lines) that would basically help organize those developments, i.e. building TOD with the transit instead of after the transit has arrived. Maybe this cabinet can help get those parking regulations pared down (or in a dream world) eliminated. I think Weho has a parking-credit plan that LA could model, where businesses can pool together on a lot or structure instead of having to have it on the property itself.
Probably - or at least a lot of those tiny empty lots that have absurd parking requirements would finally be built on because it would make financial sense. Who is going either 1. cut the lot size down even more for a surface lot or 2. pay huge amounts (I think triple per spot?) to have an underground lot, which would take forever to pay for itself.
Not sure it would lead to a full-fledged boom, honestly I think the city is approaching building boom status in Hollywood and DTLA (and the areas in between). Nothing splashy really other than the Grand Wilshire but loads and loads of 7 story mixed use complexes.
I'd think a full-fledged boom due to a lot of interested foreign investment and the fact that retail would be able to capitalize on the huge population densities already in place in much of the city core. For some reason I thought the Wilshire Grand was cancelled due to the recession, but I guess it's still going on. Sounds neat.
I'd think a full-fledged boom due to a lot of interested foreign investment and the fact that retail would be able to capitalize on the huge population densities already in place in much of the city core. For some reason I thought the Wilshire Grand was cancelled due to the recession, but I guess it's still going on. Sounds neat.
There's the Grand Ave Project which was sort of cancelled though Grand Park got built, a residential tower got built and the Broad Museum is under construction and opening in 2014 I think. That is more "on-hold" and I think eventually will get built. Maybe that is what you were thinking of?
The Wilshire Grand project is going to dismantle the Wilshire Grand hotel and then build what was going to be LA's tallest tower but now it sounds like will be around even with the Bank Tower, or slightly shorter. I think it'll be a nice addition to the skyline but I am more excited about all the infill buildings going into South Park, the Historic Core and Little Tokyo.
Don't get me wrong folks I'm not denying that LA is urban. I use to grow near Miami and LA reminds me of SFLA. It's just has a different style of urban. Based on volume of course it's going to over lap New Orleans with more amenities, sidewalks, and people. Despite seeing the number of parking lots it's much more less compared to when first step foot in that city in 1983. The last time I was there was in 2007. It has completely change in the last 30 years. Eventually, as the population continues to increase along with the expansion of rail transit more of those parking lots will fill in. Speaking of rail transit does anyone see LA passing DC or SF?
Don't get me wrong folks I'm not denying that LA is urban. I use to grow near Miami and LA reminds me of SFLA. It's just has a different style of urban. Based on volume of course it's going to over lap New Orleans with more amenities, sidewalks, and people. Despite seeing the number of parking lots it's much more less compared to when first step foot in that city in 1983. The last time I was there was in 2007. It has completely change in the last 30 years. Eventually, as the population continues to increase along with the expansion of rail transit more of those parking lots will fill in. Speaking of rail transit does anyone see LA passing DC or SF?
I'll tell you that thought LA might remind you of South Florida, it's well above and beyond in terms of large walkable areas. It's got the density, it's got transit that often goes into actual useful parts and on top of that, it's not muggy as hell come summer time.
2007 is already a long time when talking about how LA has changed. In my own experience, LA was still kind of crap when it came to being walkable. During that time though, the downtown population boomed, Koreatown and other parts of the city rebuilt at much higher densities (a decent number of vacant lots courtesy of the '92 riots), the bus system went through massive improvements, smartphones became popular enough that a lot of formerly hesitant and confused people could make use of the massive bus system, and both commuter rail and light rail were expanded.
In regards to rail transit, I can see LA passing SF pretty soon, but DC is unlikely. DC had/has some serious financial backing to improve its system. If the kind of funding commitment DC transit had were put into LA, or basically any of the major dense cities, then you would be seeing a whole new ball game. LA's Wilshire corridor subway to the sea is probably one if not the most cost-effective and useful piece of transit infrastructure that could be built, but funding just isn't coming in for it to be built anytime soon despite the incredible retail, job, entertainment and residential density that has been built up along the linear core/corridor of Wilshire. I do think a polycentric city is better design on the macro level and makes far better use of rail transit that doesn't try to bunch up in peak directions towards one place or another. It certainly wasn't incredible planning that created that potential for LA, but since it's there, it should be utilized.
Nonsense. I think we can all agree that Chicago has a more extensive mass transit than LA or the bay but that's all it beats them on for now IMO.
Also when it comes to urban residential highrise living Chicago is 2nd to NYC. If LA ever built this much it certainly won't happen in our life time. Chicago's urban core density is more vertical. If it built more vertical density a few miles west and north to Evanston (10 miles from downtown) it be the same size as Manhattan. The number of highrises along Chicago's waterfront could cover one side of Mahattan but that's it the rest of the infill west of it is pretty dense walkable urban neighborhood but not on Mahattan's scale.
LA's urban core structure is nothing like this. Not even close
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