Preserving Los Angeles as the Creative Capital of the World

Preserving Los Angeles as the Creative Capital of the World

Steven, there is quite a bit of hyperbole floating through-out your article.  In fact, I'm amazed that I even bother to read the LA Weekly anymore.  It has become so out of touch and comically old-fashioned!  It's definitely not progressive and it's definitely not helping advance a vision for a more positive and delightful Los Angeles.  Instead, the LA Weekly has become nothing more than an inflammatory rag - misguided, grumpy, regressive and rather glum, kinda like Elmer Fudd but without the cool hat and the charming slur.

The current happenings at City Hall thanks to leaders like Michael LoGrande and Councilmember Reyes are actually quite positive.  Priorities are being realigned and greater efficiencies are being introduced, which inevitably will promote a more economically and environmentally sustainable Los Angeles.  Now is the time to help institutionalize some of these positive re-alignments and rally towards a framework that will ensure the health, livability and economic competitiveness of Los Angeles for generations to come.  For an example of what I'm referring to read this article about Charles Landry's placemaking initiatives:  http://www.strategy-business.com/article/10306?gko=232cd

First of all, we can all agree - the number one priority is to preserve the delightful characteristics of Los Angeles' single-family residential districts.  Let me repeat that:  the number one priority for all of these emerging planning tools is to preserve the delightful characteristics of Los Angeles' single-family residential districts.

How are these new planning tools going to do that, you might ask?

Primarily by enabling greater efficiencies, which will afford planners more time to P-L-A-N, by enabling greater efficiencies in the bureaucracy that in turn save the City (and the tax payer!) money.  

We all agree that we only want to see development occur only in very select areas.  Perhaps these areas can be further defined by the community with greater certainty.  Perhaps we can even re-evaluate what is meant by a Transit Oriented District - and perhaps we can even establish a new framework or metric for how a TOD shall perform so that it achieves the societal goals we all value.

Secondarily, by emphasizing the need to push The City of Los Angeles to become a healthier, more livable and more economically competitive place we are helping advance an agenda that will help ensure that in twenty, thirty, forty years Los Angeles doesn't become a third-rate City, especially when you compare it to the verdant emergence of hundreds of other world-class cities.

In short:  where do you want your grandchildren to live?  In the wreck that is becoming a barnacalized Los Angeles, or a Los Angeles that has preserved its identity as the creative capital of the world.

We all have choices.  That is clear.

-Will Wright