.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

Agoura CA, originally uploaded by photosfromto.

B&W Photo of Agoura, CA 1967: UCLA

A new blog about Agoura has just begun and the blogger, like me, is concerned about sprawl, lack of pedestrian amenities, super-sized McMansions, destruction of nature and the general indifference to the public sphere that characterizes fine living in Southern California.

Here are some of his quotes:

“For years Agoura Hills has been building right up against the mountains, one of the country’s few great urban sanctuaries, with little or no protest from city residents. I wonder where Ms. Mary Altmann of picturesque Malibou Lake was when the city allowed construction of the vast office complexes along swaths of Agoura South?”

“Thousand Oaks is a perfect example of the poor job modern American cities do in providing for their citizens. If you look at the well-kept, attractive areas of Thousand Oaks, they are almost exclusively well-kept as a result of private money.”

“Until the 1950’s, Agoura Hills was a small town, a waystop along El Camino Real, and it’s main street (an amenity every American city had until mid-century) could be found along what is now called Agoura Rd. Today, however, this strip is lackluster and divided from most of the city by the 101 freeway, a hodge podge mix of homes, a school, a small theater, a restaurant, and offices. The zone is rarely if ever used or visited by Agoura residents, especially since Agoura Rd. was widened to acommodate high-speed cars and thus make pedestrian traffic along the road risky. Today, in place of what was once our town’s quaint, pedestrian core, most Agoura Hills residents instead spend their time shopping in the run-down commercial centers sprawling out from the intersection of Kanan Rd. and Thousand Oaks Blvd, what I will call the City Center.”