urbanMSP

Check out this in depth look at LA's most famous boulevards: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/ne ... .htmlstory

So far, writer Christopher Hawthorne has covered 6 of LA's most well known boulevards. I've read a couple of them and really enjoyed the picture they paint of the different areas of LA. They also feature photos and video to flesh out the character of these boulevards and the neighborhoods along them.

This blew me away. Wish they would have come to Minneapolis/St. Paul when L.A. turned them down (although the same thing probably would have happened sadly). Ray Bradbury was pissed.

http://www.monorails.org/tmspages/la1963.html

Sad. If only.

Who knew that until recently, all LA skyscrapers were required to have a flat top with a helipad? No more. Pointy-topped high rises come to the left coast!

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/10/22/us ... rdens.html

I often confuse the LA skyline for Minneapolis when it's done in quick takes in ads and on TV shows. I suppose this might change things, though of course buildings here are fairly flat-topped despite not having a helicopter pad rule (as far as I know). Heck, Capella Tower has a crown that fakes the look of a helicopter pad even though it's just HVAC equipment up there...

I often confuse the LA skyline for Minneapolis when it's done in quick takes in ads and on TV shows. I suppose this might change things, though of course buildings here are fairly flat-topped despite not having a helicopter pad rule (as far as I know). Heck, Capella Tower has a crown that fakes the look of a helicopter pad even though it's just HVAC equipment up there...

They both have a decent bell curve too.

More awesome geography/mapping stuff from LA Times: http://maps.latimes.com/neighborhoods/

www.urbanize.la is the best resource for all of the new projects popping up all over LA. It seems like every week there is another announcement for a new stick or tower project replacing parking lots or squat auto-oriented buildings. At the same time a number of midcentury and googie gems are getting spiffed up and finding new uses. As a current LA resident the excitement is palpable, and the impression I get is pretty much everyone under the age of 60 is in favor of this current wave of urbanizing and densification.

All that said, inequality and housing costs continue to spiral out of control, and the development politics are especially poisonous. For example, the NIMBYest lawsuit ever forced the city to revoke the building permits of the Sunset Gordon project in Hollywood AFTER it was completed, and the 40 residents that had already moved into the tower now have to leave.

As an urban geography geek, the sheer size of LA is just daunting. It's a friggin enigma. For the most part, you can take your concentric growth model that defines pretty much every American city (dense urban core, slightly less dense inner city, inner burbs, sprawly burbs, rural/farmland) and throw it out the window. Pretty much all of LA County is like uniformly medium density, no matter how far you get from downtown or from the coast. Ignoring the hills/mountains, it's all grid based too (though many, many different grids all smashed together). There's not much "sprawl" in the traditional sense of winding streets and cul-de-sacs until you get way way out into non-costal Orange County or Inland Empire

As an urban geography geek, the sheer size of LA is just daunting. It's a friggin enigma. For the most part, you can take your concentric growth model that defines pretty much every American city (dense urban core, slightly less dense inner city, inner burbs, sprawly burbs, rural/farmland) and throw it out the window. Pretty much all of LA County is like uniformly medium density, no matter how far you get from downtown or from the coast. Ignoring the hills/mountains, it's all grid based too (though many, many different grids all smashed together). There's not much "sprawl" in the traditional sense of winding streets and cul-de-sacs until you get way way out into non-costal Orange County or Inland Empire

I expected not to like LA when I went for the first time as an adult, but the uniform density, the commercial boulevards that go on forever, and the funky mash ups of uses, cultures, and people on those boulevards were better than I imagined. LA does not have the traditional urban form you see in Eastern cities, but it is organic in the way it developed, and it has its own unique kind of energy. I really like it.

Hollywood will not be getting its high density make over, says a judge.

http://www.laweekly.com/news/judge-thro ... ct-5530876

I just returned from six days in the LA/Orange County area and had a few thoughts about the metro region that stuck in my head as I drove around...

–Lane-splitting motorcycles. This was a culture shock. Seriously threw me off, thinking there was an epidemic of jerk bikers. Turned out this is legal there!

–Bike lanes along 65 mph highways (CA 133). And they were used heavily! I couldn't believe my eyes...

–Motorized skateboards. These are a small thing.

–Ped crossing enforced and ticketed. Obeyed universally, drivers stop for crosswalks everywhere. I was told there were a few years where police enforced this, extreme penalties, can still get pounded for not stopping but drivers so willingly obeyed crosswalks I never once saw a driver not stop. Plus, crosswalks all have buttons that cause blinking lights in the pavement. Difficult to miss.

–Triple left turn lanes all over. As much LA gets a hard time for their highway abundance, I think they need the highways badly now. The LA area has bought in on stroads in a way that the Twin Cities can't imagine.

–Neighborhoods very packed, tiny lots nearly no yards in certain places. Inside/outside lifestyle makes this work well. Lot sizes for homes are quite smaller in comparison to Twin Cities SFR lots. It also seems to be a thing in parts of Orange County where stroads are stroadiest to have entire neighborhoods physically walled off by tall masonry walls from the street.

–Very little public park space. However, where Minneapolis did with preserving its lakes, the LA area did with the oceanfront.

–A lot less honking, by my observation, but I wasn't driving during rush hour work traffic ever.

–A lot less "distracted driving", by that I mean device-distractions. Texting, phone-driving, etc. probably just as many sights-distractions though.

–Here and there, scattered, are amazing commercial streets, business districts packed with small shops right up to the sidewalks.

I noticed much of the same back in June. The biggest mind-f**k was the traditional storefront (zero setback) commercial strips along wide, busy stroads. Better than the alternative of surface parking lots fronting the street, but I still can't get over the "How?!" did things develop like that.

LA (particularly central, south, & westside) is a fascinating specimen to the urbanist/planner/urban geographer mind. It's dense. It's massive. It's simultaneously car dependent (regionally) and walkable (locally). It's simply unlike anything else.

Oh, and for entertainment sake, I drove this.
Traffic Circle on PCH by Eric Anondson, on Flickr
Minnesotans would go out of their friggan minds in. As you can see there are up to three lanes feeding into this from all different directions, and zero lanes painted within the circle.

New thought about something I saw...

There was a remarkably high number of tiny dogs everywhere going places with people. We started spotting stores just for dog owners. I wouldn't be surprised cities were measured in per capita dog ownership, the LA area was among the top.

An article going over some appreciation of what makes LA appealing, and difficult to live in. Plus speculation about self-driving cars being its savior making LA more appealing than NY or SF or London.

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2 ... atest-city

That is the first time I have ever heard anyone call LA real estate cheap. Although in comparison to the superheated SF and London markets, it probably is.

Venice Beach is losing its weird. Priced out by tech titan Snapchat.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ ... story.html