i have a love-hate relationship with Los Angeles. i celebrate its unique character and glorious ethnic diversity while bemoaning the income disparity between the ultra-rich and the direly underprivileged. i enjoy savory and sweet culinary delights from around the world (at reasonable prices), yet i cringe at the thought of navigating the clogged 60 fwy to get to my favorite taco place in the world (30 minutes to cover 7 miles?--i could do that on bike!). i hike the scenic mountains of the transverse ranges to enjoy the abundant southern california biodiversity, but am greeted by a view of a sprawling urban distopia united by smog.
i think you have be seriously blinded by complacency to love LA wholeheartedly and entirely. granted, every city has its share of troubles; no place is perfect and LA is far from it. but it is worse to think that LA could have become a metropolis much different (need i say, better?) from how it is today. i am reminded of the 1930 Olmsted-Bartholomew Plan for a "green" LA metropolis based on and around the natural elements of the basin. i feel gutted at the thought of such a monumental missed opportunity.
instead of "dead" space created by parking lots, empty parcels of land, liberal use of horizontal space for residential, commercial, and industrial buildings, Olmsted and Bartholomew envisioned "green" spaces--"parks, playgrounds, and beaches." instead of 71,000 acres (plus 91,000 in surrounding areas) of parkland, LA currently has a paltry 23,700 acres. the plan placed a park along the LA river, functioning both as recreational/scenic landscape and natural flood control (non-residential zoning). today, the LA river has been restricted to a concrete channel to accommodate senseless suburban sprawl.
i am deeply interested in the relationship between man and nature--in aspects of human reliance and impact on natural environments across time and space. like Michael Pollan, who, in Second Nature, uses the personal garden to explore the man and nature interface (and yes, one does exist), i believe that we would all benefit from being cognizant that cities and urban areas represent one of the most important interfaces between human and natural habitats. the LA of today has retained very little of its natural setting--unique in this world and may i say, graciously endowed with diversity and beauty. it could have been an eden by design and it is my hope that it still could be.
oh and it's earth day. i'm celebrating by imagining (and attempting to will into existence) a greener LA.
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Check out the population growth of LA and then compare it with cities like New York and Chicago...
At the dawn of the automobile age, Chicago proper already had over 2 million people, topped out at 3.5 million by midcentury, and has been flirting with 3 million ever since.... NYC was already getting close to 5 million people in 1910 and has grown to over 8 million in the hundred years since then.
All of LA county had just over half a million people in 1910, and has gained on average roughly a million people every 10 years since then..... that's pretty ridiculous. That's a lot of drivers.
Wow to think that thinking green has been around forever and yet the we are where we're at.
thanks for the read.
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