A street in Sun Valley, where flooding once occurred, and polluted rain water carried toxic waste, garbage and chemicals down to the Ocean, has been rebuilt to incorporate green landscaping, flood control, and solar power lighting. Courtesy of Tree People, the Metropolitan Water District and the LA County Department of Public Works.
Tag: green
Architects in Mexico Design Homes that Help Women and Families.
While America enters what seems like a permanent decline, Mexico, long poor and often derided, is moving ahead with progressive architecture and social innovations.
Adobe for Women is constructing twenty sustainable houses in San Juan Mixtepec, in the south Mexican state of Oaxaca.
Read more about the project here.
“Walkville” Opens in North Hollywood
One of the most exciting developments in San Fernando Valley urban planning is nearing completion in North Hollywood near the Red Line Terminus. Walkville is a 5,000 unit housing development which is entirely green. Landscaped bike and walking trails wend their way alongside apartment buildings where children, seniors and families live. The goal is to encourage walking, which explains the wonderful name: evocative of health, fresh air and friendliness.
Locally-produced and sustainable materials, from Burbank, Sylmar and Pasadena were given priority during sustainable housing construction; roofs are commonly equipped with solar and photovoltaic panels, and make Walkville one of the largest home solar energy districts in Southern California. To encourage carbon reduction, a program supports tree conversation and planting. As far as water is concerned, a system for rainwater infiltration into the ground covers 80% of the residential area. A new ecological sewage system has been invented too, that reuses organic household waste and generates energy. The LADWP offers Walkville residents a 35% discount on their water and electric rates.
Councilman Tony Cardenas, builder Eli Broad, architect Frank Gehry as well as architecture supporters Brad Pitt, Robert Redford (who grew up in Van Nuys and feels a strong connection to the town), Nancy Reagan, Michael Eisner, Barbra Streisand, Jennifer Anniston (who grew up in Sherman Oaks), Comedian Jay Leno (“If it’s made in Burbank I’m for it!”) and Maria Shriver all contributed both financial and public support to the $250 million dollar undertaking.
A five-acre orange grove, the first such agricultural planting in the San Fernando Valley since 1939, will produce over 500,000 oranges a year. Herbs, walnuts, organic milk and free-range chickens may be introduced to produce locally grown foods for consumption and sale. 1300 Valley Oak trees, native to Southern California, will shade the development. Small stores, selling everything from coffee to groceries to housewares, are planned on the Vineland Avenue side. The best news is that 70% of the people who have moved to Walkville have given up their cars. They will ride the Red Line train to Hollywood, downtown LA and Pasadena and take the Orange Line bus to Woodland Hills.
The article you have just read is a satire. None of it is true, at least for the City of Angels.
Minus the celebrities, it actually and accurately describes a real town, called Vauban, in Southern Germany.
Here is the way things really are in LA, a city where the NIMBY needs of Brentwood and Beverly Hills outweigh the greater good for all.
Car dealer expanding in Van Nuys
Car dealer expanding in Van Nuys.
Looks like the won’t be growing fruits and vegetables here after all.
A Park Atop the Hollywood Freeway.
In a sign that Los Angeles is becoming a more environmentally sensitive city, a new 44-acre park, to be built atop the Hollywood Freeway, may be started in 2012. The project, assuming funds are available, may cost $1 billion dollars and bring recreational space to a densely populated and park sparse region of the city.
The LA Times has an article explaining the details. What follows are my opinions:
The building of the Hollywood Freeway in the early 1950’s, sliced right through the residential and commercial heart of the district. It cut off the Franklin Avenue area from the business district along Hollywood Boulevard. It brought noise, pollution, traffic and congestion to one of the most formerly lovely sections of the city. It hastened the decline of Hollywood, by making the automobile the prime focus of city planning and ignoring pedestrians, public transportation and the pulmonary health of our citizens.
By bringing the freeway underground, Los Angeles will follow the example of other American cities like Boston, whose Big Dig is an attempt to connect the North End back to the rest of Boston and improve the traffic patterns of not only cars, but people on foot.
The Hollywood Freeway should never have been built so ruthlessly. A concrete knife plunged into the heart of a great city will now have some remedial arterial surgery to repair the damage.
Here in Van Nuys 
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