Amazon
Quote:
Originally Posted by malumot
But look at it this way - I think you would also agree that an early-20th Century Los Angeles would never have allowed a large parcel adjacent to City Hall to slumber for four decades in a way that a late-20th Century Los Angeles has.
Or consider this - I'll bet that in the same time it took the Gold Line to go from draft proposal to actual in-service running (over already-existing R.O.W. I might add), the PE and LARY laid hundreds of miles of track and put dozens of routes in operation from one end of the Basin to the other.
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Well, 1900 = apples; 2011 = oranges. A fraction of the land area; a fraction of the population, and one that was homogenous vs. polyglot; year-by-year accumulation of political interests and purposes; myriad and differing civic goals; and Harrison Gray Otis. The book pictured above is sort of interesting, though I'd recommend getting it from the library or buying a used copy--the introduction especially is almost comically, obtusely academic. The book itself does remind you of how much was accomplished 100 years ago, but it also helps you understand that, as history has shown, getting the trains to run on time can sometimes involve tyranny. Anyway--Viva Los Angeles, then and
now!