Photos: carfree.com

One of the wonderful things about visiting Europe is walking down a narrow alley or dead end street and discovering some restaurant or cafe hidden away. Often these are located on dark and dim streets where the sun is filtered and shadows predominate.

In Los Angeles, we have many black, tar baked, sunny parking lots and stores that sit in the blistering hot sun. Think of North Hollywood at Victory and Laurel Canyon on a Sunday afternoon in July! In some areas of the San Fernando Valley, like Studio City on Ventura Boulevard, there are tall palm trees, but these do not shade the pedestrian. The palm treees are fashion accessories without function.

Architects and builders should think about creating denser spaces where streets are narrow–and we can get out of our cars and walk around in the shade. Some parts of Old Pasadena are like this–but more dark and narrow mysteries in the urban landscape might humanize our wide, open vacuousness.