Should there be any doubt that LA belongs among the big 6 urban US cities?

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by craigs

Los Angeles neighborhoods are not gentrified by "dreamers." Young would-be movie stars and immigrant families seeking the American dream don't generally have the money to buy and fix up a home in an up-and-coming neighborhood here.

Yeah, contra the post you’re replying to, that’s pretty much the case nowhere.

New Orleans, Austin, Portland, Nashville, Brooklyn, had swaths of inner city ghetto with a gritty but decent vibe that were filled in by developers maximizing their profit by buying cheap from landowners seeking an exit from the morass and selling high to the high income professionals that these cities spent the last three decades marketing themselves toward while also simultaneously crowding and pricing out the local artists and vibe-makers who were the reason why these areas were to desirable to developers to gentrify in the first place.

The artists, the gays, and the dreamers pre-date the gentrification and are usually the harbinger of the gentrification to come, not the other way around.

Washington, D.C. is no different. It used to have a fairly decent lgbt bar and club scene, but the city has seen most of them shut down over the last decade.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

The artists, the gays, and the dreamers pre-date the gentrification and are usually the harbinger of the gentrification to come, not the other way around.

Eh, maybe we have different definitions of gentrification. This isn't how it works in NYC. If you want to cash in on future gentrification, you just buy around the subway stops further out from existing gentrified neighborhoods. It was obvious Ridgewood was gonna gentrify years before it gentrified, bc it's the next neighborhood on the L train after Williamsburg and Bushwick.

And rent control generally keeps neighborhoods somewhat stable, which is why SoHo is still pretty full of artists, and why Chelsea still has working class Puerto Ricans, despite these areas being fully gentrified like 40-50 years ago.

[edale]

Originally Posted by craigs

Los Angeles neighborhoods are not gentrified by "dreamers." Young would-be movie stars and immigrant families seeking the American dream don't generally have the money to buy and fix up a home in an up-and-coming neighborhood here.

There are lots of trust fund babies who move to LA and bum around for a few years. Echo Park is full of these types of people. They might be 'freelance writers' or influencers, or work in a retail store or restaurant, but the rent/mortgage payment is coming from the parents. I know a number of these types.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by edale

There are lots of trust fund babies who move to LA and bum around for a few years. Echo Park is full of these types of people. They might be 'freelance writers' or influencers, or work in a retail store or restaurant, but the rent/mortgage payment is coming from the parents. I know a number of these types.

Would you classify the trust-funders you know as "dreamers?"

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Eh, maybe we have different definitions of gentrification. This isn't how it works in NYC. If you want to cash in on future gentrification, you just buy around the subway stops further out from existing gentrified neighborhoods. It was obvious Ridgewood was gonna gentrify years before it gentrified, bc it's the next neighborhood on the L train after Williamsburg and Bushwick.

And rent control generally keeps neighborhoods somewhat stable, which is why SoHo is still pretty full of artists, and why Chelsea still has working class Puerto Ricans, despite these areas being fully gentrified like 40-50 years ago.

Well, okay, New York obviously has some transit specific factors at play, and they have local measures to prevent the pricing out that happens in other cities. But the underlying dynamic is still the same as what I said, no?

The original spark of gentrification was artsy neighborhoods like Chelsea being affordable for developers to buy in and also safe for them to rent/sell what they build. After that, gentrification continues to spread down to the next subway station, and then the next, and the next. It's just that the original vibe that caused the gentrification isn't simultaneously destroyed by that gentrification (due to local rent control policies, among others I'm sure).

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by FromSD

I've always wondered whether the federal government foot the bill for a larger portion of the DC Metro than it has for other post war rail systems. Most cities have to fund transit expansion with locally levied taxes, even if the feds sometimes kick in for particularly worthy projects. Were the feds more generous in DC because the DC Metro served federal office workers in the region? That would help to explain how DC got such an extensive metro system in its core area within a fairly short span of time.

BART is different from every other postwar system because it was initially funded entirely by local revenue. Part of that was a multi-county tax and part was the state allowing excess Bay Bridge revenue to fund BART's construction debt (or at least the Transbay Tube - I can't remember exactly). The change to federal funding didn't occur until BART was well under construction. This meant that BART was designed to serve SF and Oakland as locals saw fit and wasn't sculpted around the metrics necessary to win federal grants. This fight for federal funds is a big reason why so many of the new light rail networks suck.

The Washington Metro benefited from the relative lack of interstate highways that were already mentioned. But it benefited most from the fact that the federal government owns most of the most valuable land in the district, meaning there weren't vying blue blood families attempting to get lines and stations built next to their property OR seeking to torpedo the whole thing since they wouldn't benefit directly or by a first phase.

I'd also guess that the red line, specifically, was designed to dip into central DC and then back out in the same direction, with no interlining, to make sure that the trains a)had no scheduling problems with interlined trains and b)completely turned over their passengers in the district. By contrast, the lines that travel completely across it carry passengers on long one-seat rides that don't empty every car in the center of town.

The Washington Metro is far from perfect, however, as maybe half of the suburban stations tend to be park-and-rides that have generated no TOD.

Meanwhile, the two LA heavy rail lines have nothing but good station locations with the exception of the two North Hollywood stations. The Universal Studios station isn't great. The terminal North Hollywood station ought to be the site of big-time TOD but instead is a big parking lot.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

Meanwhile, the two LA heavy rail lines have nothing but good station locations with the exception of the two North Hollywood stations. The Universal Studios station isn't great. The terminal North Hollywood station ought to be the site of big-time TOD but instead is a big parking lot.

North Hollywood is one of the fastest-growing parts of LA, and the Metro bus/subway hub there is slated for significant transit-oriented development. As planned and approved last month, it will create a new pedestrian grid, 1,500 homes, retail, 400k sq. ft. of offices, commuter parking, three new plazas, an additional subway entrance, and an upgraded G Line BRT terminal. And the developer retains the right to increase the residential densities.

[nito]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

The entire system has been replaced over roughly the past decade, but age has nothing to do with it. The system was designed so that most people are within a 10-minute walk of a subway station. Most train stations on a single line are spaced by roughly a 10-minute walk, so if you are directly above a train line you should always be roughly 5 minutes from a station. Express lines are meant to shorten the commute time from outer areas into Manhattan, while still maintaining the 10-minute walk window. Only the Paris Metro really matches the station density of the NYC subway, but the lack of express lines limits how far the system can be extended outside of central Paris. They lean on the RER to provide service to distances that NYC can serve using the subway.

I don’t doubt the station density, but it is a tad silly to claim that the entire system – including all those elevated structures – has been replaced in the past decade. New York probably has more historic assets at this point than London does.

The RER and Transilien in Paris provides a rail service that reflects the urban morphology of Paris and its catchment rather than act as an express service.

Originally Posted by Crawford

Barcelona Metro has 103 miles/189 stations. Barcelona suburban rail has 290 miles/109 stations.

Chicago CTA L has 103 miles/145 stations. Chicago suburban rail (Metra) has 488 miles/242 stations, and South Shore Line adds 90 miles/19 stations. Granted, there's overlap.

To me, Chicago clearly has a much larger rail network than Barcelona. Far more stations and track miles. Barcelona has a much better network, with much denser coverage serving a much smaller population, but they don't appear to be similarly sized.

And it isn't like Chicago is some rinky-dink system. The busiest suburban lines are typically three tracks, which is rare globally. The main Metra electric line was four tracks historically, until it got downsized. Chicago has four downtown terminals, two of which are quite sizable. This is a really big legacy system.

‘Rinky-dink’ would be unkind, but a core problem for Chicago – and a lot of North American systems – is that there is a surplus of infrastructure which is a burden rather than an asset. If you have lots of tracks, platforms, signals, etc... but few passengers, that means low fare revenue per asset which has to be supplemented by subsidies. What money is available is then more focused on maintenance of aging assets rather than line improvements (grade separation, digital signalling, etc..) and more services that could drive ridership and revenue. I think it is a strong reason why most North American networks look so dilapidated

Take the two-track c2c line out of London Fenchurch Street (a 4-platform terminus) with just 28 stations and a route length of 125km, yet it has a higher ridership than Metra. c2c’s Sunday timetable – which is always a good barometer of network utilisation – has 99 London-bound services, which compares to the entire Metra network managing just 87 Chicago-bound services.

So yes, the likes of Chicago technically has a larger network than that of Barcelona and many other European cities, but the service quality is unquestionably substandard, particularly when factoring in the potential catchment.

[Prahaboheme]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

BART is different from every other postwar system because it was initially funded entirely by local revenue. Part of that was a multi-county tax and part was the state allowing excess Bay Bridge revenue fund BART. The change to federal funding didn't occur until BART was well under construction. This meant that BART was designed to serve SF and Oakland as locals saw fit and wasn't sculpted around the metrics necessary to win federal grants. This fight for federal funds is a big reason why so many of the new light rail networks suck.

The Washington Metro benefited from the relative lack of interstate highways that were already mentioned. But it benefited most from the fact that the federal government owns most of the most valuable land in the district, meaning there weren't vying blue blood families attempting to get lines and stations built next to their property OR seeking to torpedo the whole thing since they wouldn't benefit directly or by a first phase.

I'd also guess that the red line, specifically, was designed to dip into central DC and then back out in the same direction, with no interlining, to make sure that the trains a)had no scheduling problems with interlined trains and b)completely turned over their passengers in the district. By contrast, the lines that travel completely across it carry passengers on long one-seat rides that don't empty every car in the center of town.

The Washington Metro is far from perfect, however, as maybe half of the suburban stations tend to be park-and-rides that have generated no TOD.

Meanwhile, the two LA heavy rail lines have nothing but good station locations with the exception of the two North Hollywood stations. The Universal Studios station isn't great. The terminal North Hollywood station ought to be the site of big-time TOD but instead is a big parking lot.

DC metro with its 98 stations is unique (in US) that it is an entirely heavy rail system that functions as both a metro system in urban areas and a commuter rail in the suburbs.

While the two heavy rail lines in LA with their 16 stations are in pretty good locations relative to the geography of LA, there is a reason why light rail is otherwise the preference there, as heavy rail is far to costly to reach across the entire metro area, although the Crenshaw line is a glaring oversight, IMO, as the airport connection really should have been a heavy rail express service to become truly effective. Maybe the Sepulveda line will correct that, in the distant future.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by nito

I don’t doubt the station density, but it is a tad silly to claim that the entire system – including all those elevated structures – has been replaced in the past decade. New York probably has more historic assets at this point than London does.

The tracks have been replaced. The stations have not, but I didn't think that's what we were talking about. NYC will probably never replace the stations since they consider them to be de facto historical landmarks.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Eh, maybe we have different definitions of gentrification. This isn't how it works in NYC. If you want to cash in on future gentrification, you just buy around the subway stops further out from existing gentrified neighborhoods. It was obvious Ridgewood was gonna gentrify years before it gentrified, bc it's the next neighborhood on the L train after Williamsburg and Bushwick.

And rent control generally keeps neighborhoods somewhat stable, which is why SoHo is still pretty full of artists, and why Chelsea still has working class Puerto Ricans, despite these areas being fully gentrified like 40-50 years ago.

The Puerto Ricans still in holding on in Chelsea are confined to the projects, though. And the artists in SoHo are quickly aging out. Young artists haven't been able to afford SoHo since before the first season of the Real World.

I do agree that other cities seem to shortcut gentrification in a way that is not as common in NYC (although it does happen here too). In NYC, the early gentrifiers are typically college students, musicians, artists, etc. Second wave are usually cost conscious young professionals trying to balance cost with commute times and convenience. You also start to see some of the pioneering affluent start to buy in neighborhoods during the stage by buying real estate in anticipation of a boom. Then comes the massive development boom that attracts the rest of the higher earning professional class. Those people start to push out the earlier gentrifiers and also spark a cultural shift in the types of local businesses in the area.

Long Island City went directly from pre- to post-gentrification, but that was because much of it was an industrial area being converted to residential. I suspect that might be happening in some other cities where a neighborhood just changes seemingly overnight.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by edale

There are lots of trust fund babies who move to LA and bum around for a few years. Echo Park is full of these types of people. They might be 'freelance writers' or influencers, or work in a retail store or restaurant, but the rent/mortgage payment is coming from the parents. I know a number of these types.

Some of these people form bands. I know of one that "toured" England - i.e. the dad paid for the band to fly over and play to 22 people in a few bars and then fly back a week or two later.

About 25 years ago I saw a four-piece girl band from Japan whose name I can't remember. About 75 people showed up. Part of their act was pretending that they didn't understand English. We all suspected that they were from rich families that financed their tour of the United States.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

Some of these people form bands. I know of one that "toured" England - i.e. the dad paid for the band to fly over and play to 22 people in a few bars and then fly back a week or two later.

About 25 years ago I saw a four-piece girl band from Japan whose name I can't remember. About 75 people showed up. Part of their act was pretending that they didn't understand English. We all suspected that they were from rich families that financed their tour of the United States.

Rich people wasting their money so that they don’t have to make their kids grow up is an economic evil.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

The federal government gave Detroit a check that would've basically covered the entire project. Gerald Ford sent them $600 million dollars in 1976 (~$3.2 billion in today's dollars), and they sent almost all of it back. The Detroit People Mover was the only thing to come of it.

Why God, why?

Was it rejected because of "motor city" mentality (ie. "we make cars here; we don't want no stinking public transit")?


Alternate history game: Detroit takes the money from the feds and builds a bonafide rapid transit system back in the '70s. What is the city like today 50 years later?

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Alternate history game: Detroit takes the money from the feds and builds a bonafide rapid transit system back in the '70s. What is the city like today 50 years later?

Atlanta would be the counterexample of the other segregated city, largely built around the car, that took the rapid transit money and did something.

Worth noting that when Atlanta got around to seriously planning a heavy rail system it had a metro population of just over 1 million people.

[Crawford]

I imagine it was likely "too late" for Detroit. A 1970's-era heavy rail line along Woodward would be cool, but likely wouldn't move the needle enough to be a gamechanger. Maybe the decline would have been slightly ameliorated.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Why God, why?

Was it rejected because of "motor city" mentality (ie. "we make cars here; we don't want no stinking public transit")?

I don't think it was that. Traffic was pretty horrendous in Metro Detroit in the 1960s and 1970s, so there was plenty of awareness that mass transit was sorely lacking. They were just not able to cobble together and fund the regional agency that would control the system. The only thing they were able to do to solve traffic issues was spread out the population.

One major impasse that I'm aware of was how to merge Detroit's bus system into the commuter rail system that was meant to become the regional transit agency. The city did not think they were being offered a fair value for the bus system. The new authority was likely reluctant to take on the liabilities of the Detroit system. They weren't able to sort this out before Reagan came to power and rolled back those generous programs to jumpstart rail transit projects in big cities that lacked them. The commuter rail system ceased rail operations in the early 80s and became the suburban bus system that still exists today.

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Alternate history game: Detroit takes the money from the feds and builds a bonafide rapid transit system back in the '70s. What is the city like today 50 years later?

It would be a fundamentally different place if that rapid transit system was built.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

It would be a fundamentally different place if that rapid transit system was built.

Do you think it would've been fundamentally different enough to replace "Los Angeles" with "Detroit" in the title of this thread?

Or would it have come too late and merely lessened the decline, per crawford's opinion?

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Atlanta would be the counterexample of the other segregated city, largely built around the car, that took the rapid transit money and did something.

Worth noting that when Atlanta got around to seriously planning a heavy rail system it had a metro population of just over 1 million people.

An interesting counter example, though I'm not sure how apt it is.

Detroit started out with WAY more pre-war urbanism than Atlanta has ever dreamed of.

[jd3189]

Detroit's fall is just very tragic and is the epitome of how this country has viewed its urban areas as a whole. To think, a city that was one of the richest and most productive in the world. It was in the top 10 most populous in the US, also being once in the top 5. It had a shitty decline, due to factors that we should all be ashamed of today.

[38 Geary]

I don't know if a rapid transit system would've prevented Detroit's decline since it had little to do with its root causes. The reliance on a single declining industry as well as decentralization and suburbanization as a result of this over-reliance on the auto industry, would still be present, as well as deindustrialization, racial segregation, urban riots, and corrupt leadership.

If anything, we'd likely see the same Detroit we see today, but with a similarly decaying rapid transit system that no one uses.