Quote:
Originally Posted by alki
I guess I am not making myself very clear. The same attitude which let DT deteriorate and ignored slumlords who were doing nothing to maintain their buildings is the same one that thought putting an important museum on top of a hilltop on the Westside was the best possible move.
And that attitude didn't start 20 years ago..........it started right after WW II when GM was allowed to buy up the old street car lines and rip them up so the city would buy its buses. Its the same attitude that thought anything east of La Brea was crap and should be ignored. Its the same attitude that allowed freeway after freeway to rip up one LA neighborhood after another. Its the same attitude that thought strip malls were the best thing since haagan dazs.
Its the same attitude that decided LA was cutting edge and could ignore the old urban paradigm of a central city surrounded by viable neighborhoods. Sixty years later, LA is trying to play catch up and recapture the DT it turned its back on many decades earlier.
Citywatch, if you're going to ignore the big picture, then stop with the nitpicking over telephone poles, overhead lines and parking lots. After all, they are the least of LA's problems.
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Hard to agree with much of this. Let me try a different approach.
During this "disaster period" of LA it out-grew every city in the country (probably the world) and became the only city generally in the top 10 of world importance that basically didn't exist in 1870. It's basic structure (nodal) has become the paradigm for London, Paris and pretty much every new city or expanding old city, because the old paradigm didn't work (the center became over-crowded and couldn't adjust to modern transportation, utilities, etc.) Paris bulldozed its core in the 19th century and has built satellites for the last 40 years, London tears out the old and puts in redone plazas and low-rise in its core constantly, with high-rise mostly across the river and at the docks, Berlin and Frankfurt had their centers destroyed and created a lower-density, spacious urban center, etc. Rome, Madrid, Amsterdam, Istanbul, etc., are building surrounding high-rise nodes with good car and transit connections.
While LA and surroundings was booming, DT lost its appeal by trying to cling to old city paradigms; it went into serious disrepair but is now making a comeback. This is hardly unique among cities (ever hit NY, Chicago, DC, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, etc., in the 1970's?). What is holding it back really is what you call the little things: streetscape, surfaces, amenities, quality of education, security. This is what attracts people and this drives EVERYTHING else.
What failed for LA was that someone got the idea that putting a bunch of highrises on a hill would make DT LA a world-class city. This squandered funds for about 40 years, with some results, but mostly with low-occupancy rates. This idea that a complete re-do of the city structure or freeways or massive projects to make DT the only center of LA is much more harmful than helpful.
But now we have the right idea: trying to get the kinds of things that made WeHo, BH, SaMo, Pasadena successful. Attractive and safe streets, good education, medium-rise (excluding those cores where highrise is permitted), transit, etc. This attracts modern retail, hotels, tourists, etc. And a few larger projects find they way in when the demand is there.
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over the story of the glass tower proj originally planned for a site across from the elleven condo tower, which at first sounded like it really was going to be built. 
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