Looking at these photographs of Lisbon taken from carfree.com
I’m struck at the details of architecture, density and design that makes the city so vibrant and humane:
1) A narrow residential street with four story apartments over retail stores abuts a streetcar line. The sidewalk is paved in a mosaic pattern, and a hanging lantern lights the walkway. Spotlights above the first floor are directed upward to illuminate the buildings.
2) A retail/residential street with wavy paving: Awnings are pulled out to shade the shops from the afternoon sun. A vast contrast to the sun baked stupidity of most LA boulevards. The street is narrow, which helps cool it. A bakery advertises “Baguetes” and its glass display case is open and visible to the passerby.
3) A retail street with a mosaic paving: It is specifically for pedestrians, like the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica. Except that in Portugal, there are apartments above the street, keeping the neighborhood vibrant 24/7. It is not just a theater for retail, but a design for an entire city of living. The continuity of the “street wall” provides an architectural unity. There are no “mini malls” and cars pulling out of garages to run over pedestrians.
4) Another image shows a bright yellow streetcar and an older woman ascending the hill alongside. Cobblestoned streets, laundry hanging from the balcony…..not exactly an inducement to pull people out of their homes in Calabasas. But the streetcar going up hill would be perfect for such neighborhoods as Echo Park, Highland Park and Eagle Rock.
So much of what was done in LA 50 years ago was wrong. We should have kept the narrower streets instead of widening them. We should have built low and dense. We could have expanded, not destroyed our Red Cars and streetcars.
We are learning that everything we know about the “city of the future” was written 1,000 years ago.
Here in Van Nuys 
I’ve seen Los Angeles’ high density referred to as “problematic.” Once one gets more than five miles from 1st and Main, it’s pretty pretty much a uniform sweep from Calabasas to Redlands punctuated by occasional pockets of lower density, rather than being a smooth gradient like Chicago or concentrated along well-defined corridors (usually transit lines) like in New York. The only real exception is the Wilshire Boulevard corridor, and even that drops radically in density in the “Park Mile” area. In most American cities, the swath of post-WWII suburbia has a lower density than the 1920s bungalow belt just inside it, which in turn is lower-density than the pre-WWI streetcar suburbs just inside those, but this doesn’t prevail in Los Angeles. I suppose that geography and the cost of water have a lot to do with this, since maintaining a big lawn is a whole lot more expensive here than in the Midwest, Northeast, or South.
Generally, “density” has been badly misunderstood by the New Urbanists and their sympathizers. You would think that they would have paid closer attention to that chapter of Death and Life where Jacobs takes pains to point out that what really matters is dwelling units per acre, not raw population density. Santa Ana is quite densely populated but averages at most ten DUs/acre–the population density comes from the fact that an awful lot of those little 1950s tract houses have ten or more people living in them.
Robert, I apologize for the smear-y parts of my earlier posts. In any case, you’re right about the 710, but the hysteric preservationists have pretty much won that battle.
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Jason;
2000, the Los Angeles urbanized area was the most dense urbanized area in the United States, at 7,068 persons per square mile. San Francisco at 6,127 and New York at 5,309.
“Wad”, good to hear from you. I’d only add that the 710 through Pasadena is a completion not an expansion.
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Yes, Robert, it’s me. We meet again. I never knew we’d ever meet, so to speak, after Usenet all but disappeared (at least on AOL).
The opposition to progress goes beyond just the 710 project. Are you talking about the extension overall or the tunnel under South Pasadena, by the way? It’s not being able to build anything because someone is going to feel sad.
It is unfortunate for California that a small homeowner’s association can stop not only highway expansion, but even modest improvements.
We then get the result of projects getting dumped on the areas that did not mount a strong enough resistance, and everyone ends up poorly served.
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Robert,
LA is NOT that dense, period.
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“Wad” (is that you Chris?) makes a keen observation. The biggest example of opposition to progress being the obstinate objection by old time lovers of pollution and the status quo holding up an environmental improvement project for decades to protect an area of lead contaminated old LA. I refer of course to the completion of the 710 freeway that would save 7 tons of pollutants per day and all it would take is the removal of several dozen dilapidated houses that have been owned by Caltrans for generations.
As long as we don’t understand the problem none of the solutions will do more than slow the decay. LA is not overroaded nor is it undertransited, just overpeopled.
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I think a better reason we are not seeing either freeways or dense developments along public transit is for the keen ability of Angelenos to stare progress in the face and win over it.
If I had to choose between adding lanes to a freeway or doing nothing, I’d take the freeway lanes for their good and bad.
But it won’t happen. One of the consequences of L.A. development has been the development of a petulant homeowner class. The smallest homeowners association can stop the mightiest project.
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With a bullet means it stands out from every other urban place surpassing even the Ny-NJ Urban Area that includes NYC. I am not playing with words. That accusation is nothing more than the usual attack the messenger tactics my opponents are reduced to in light of the facts.
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The density of LA is the best argument to add transportation appropriate to a dense region. Jamming more freeways into LA, such as a route that tears through Laurel Canyon or another through Topanga (as were proposed in the 1960s) or that demolishes the historic homes of South Pasadena is not the answer.
Cynically, I believe that LA will develop more along the lines of public transportation and walkable housing. Why? Because there is money to be made by this. Maximizing land use to sell more housing units is logical. The Busway, for example, has many possible areas along its route for multi-story, multi-family buildings.
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“LA is the densest urban conurbation in the US with a bullet.”
Which is to admit L.A. is NOT the densest urban area in the US, right? Don’t play with the words to fool people; L.A. is NOT a dense development after all!
For those who are still confused:
What is the point of arguing L.A. is denser than the urban conurbation from outside of New York City boundary to the fringe of Philly? You are still comparing a suburb to a suburb!
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Robert-
I always prefer, like you, to argue on the merits of the issue. Anyway, there is room for diversity of opinions, and everyone should be able to say what they want about a particular subject without others attacking them personally.
THanks, Andrew
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Kewl. Here I thought there was a respite from vicious personal attacks but the rules have been changed once again by the knee-jerk prourbanists.
I have self aspiring enemies like this because I support my assertions and cannot be marginalized. I’ll just add one more notch to my walking stick.
2 Notes to the blog:
My last post inreply to Andrew did not show up.
Are you sure “half-witted,” “trolling,” and such are where you want this discussion to go?
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Andrew;
LA has had and does have more transportation alternatives than most places in the US. It even uses them more than most. What LA does not have is enough roads, particularly freeways where our centerline miles per capita are worst in the nation. It isn’t too many autos causing problems it is political will to even pretend to partially accomodate our normal fraction of cars that makes mobility such a challenge. Even if you wish to expand transit, remember 85% here is rubber wheels on roads. You’ll need more roads to expand transit as well.
Now, the natural and correct rejoiner is: “But Robert, where would you put these more roads?” You are right. You see it isn’t actually about the numerator (miles of road) but the denominator (per person). We’ve got too many people in too small a space. LA is the densest urban conurbation in the US with a bullet. BTW, the rejioner to where would we build more? applies to transit as well. Every transit suggestion I’ve seen has always been at the expense of POV capacity alternatives.
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Also, I love how libertarians insist that fixed-guideway transit was “obsolete 40 years ago” and always talk about it as a “19th-century technology,” even though the cable car and electric streetcar preceded the automobile by only 25 years.
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Wendell Cox mocks inner-city Lisbon for having lost population over the past 50 years because it failed to expand its boundaries, but the fact is that 50 years ago a considerable portion of its population was living in slum conditions–as was the case in most European cities. Suburbanization was inevitable and quite probably welcome. The difference between European/Asian and American suburbia, though, is that European suburbia is not as completely denigratory of the pedestrian as American suburbia. The auto-oriented suburban office center Cox hails as a sign of progress is probably far more pedestrian-friendly than the typical American “edge city,” more Century City than South Coast Metro.
Cox’s whole “tours by rental car” concept is idiotic and impoverished. Cox is allergic to walking, and hates any city that does not have massive roadways that serve to inform him that he, the driver, is king and his automobile is his chariot. He genuinely thinks that walking is something that only poor people should do, and that prosperous societies demolish all of their center cities’ historic districts in order to build 6-lane arterials and 10-lane intraurban freeways.
Just another example of Coté’s grand tradition of half-witted contrarian-libertarian trolling on L.A.-area planning and development blogs. He no doubt aspires to be Peter Gordon, but Prof. Gordon at least backs up his academic papers (but not his grunt-and-link blog) with serious academic rigor.
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I don’t understand your point. The problem in Los Angeles is that too many people are using single occupancy vehicles to transport themselves. If we could reduce (not elminate) the need for the use of the car in every situation from shopping to eating to going to school, then we would have a much nicer city.
The transport mode that was “obsolete” 40 years ago is the car. It has contributed to the destruction of our cities, to global warming, to sprawl and traffic. I agree that the car is not going away, but offering alternatives to the car is the way of the future not the past.
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Andrew:
The point of the Wendell Cox rental car tours of world cities is precisely to answer your question. A vacation day at Disneyland doesn’t mean you could live there. Likewise a view of the fixed transit bound confines of pre-automotive cities doesn’t tell you what it is really like to live and work there.
Fixed transit does not scale well in the modern city because the built environment is set before its’ introduction. Where fixed transit is concurent with development there is some possibilty but retrofitting a transport mode that was obsoleted 40 years ago is about as likely and attactive as fitting into your high school swim team racing suit. (At least for me, you get the idea.)
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Robert:
And you can rent a car to tour Lisbon. What does that mean as far as taking some of the non-car ideas from Lisbon and adopting them to LA?
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The fourth picture is most likely a funicular. Note the terraced windows and center track for the cable.
L.A. has one, Angels Flight, presently mothballed after a deadly accident a few years ago.
There are several more in western Pennsylvania, where they are called inclined planes.
You’re right, Andrew. There are areas in northeast L.A. and the Silver Lake/Echo Park that could use these funiculars, and would be quirky tourist attractions.
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Turns out there are a few “differences” that make Lisbon an unlikely role model for LA:
http://www.rentalcartours.net/rac-lisboa.pdf
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