The corner of Victory and Sepulveda in Van Nuys.

These two images sum up much of what makes our life unpleasant in Los Angeles.

There are the grotesque billboards, ramming their bulk into the sky, obscuring our view of the sky. The overhead powerlines, suitable for the late 19th Century, obsolete in our own times.

There are eight lanes of road, clogged with solo drivers sitting in traffic. Isolated and frustrated. Burning fossil fuels that help to supply funds to terrorists. Air pollution that makes our city the dirtiest in America. An unpleasant and unsafe place to walk. Contributing to obesity.

A corner mini-mall without residental buildings. Making car trips necessary to do one’s shopping. A building which presents a parking lot as its facade, instead of greeting the street properly with windows and doors.

Solutions?

Impose a 50 cent gas tax to fund public transportation and discourage SUV’s.
Outlaw visually blighting billboards.
Open our zoning regulations to allow residential construction mixed with commercial buildings.
Narrow the width of wide boulevards to make pedestrians more important than cars.
Bury overhead power lines.