It's already Mexico City!
Posted on 08/24/2007 8:48:58 PM PDT by Lorianne
There seems to be little public debate about the dramatic remaking of Los Angeles into a left-coast New York ___ Last week, the City Council voted 12 to 0 to approve a sweeping set of zoning changes that will encourage larger and more dense development downtown.
The new rules are only the latest move toward the Manhattanization of Los Angeles. There's also the renewed interest in extending the Red Line subway to the ocean. And there's billionaire Phil Anschutz's plan to create a Times Square for Los Angeles near Staples Center, as well as billionaire Eli Broad's aim to duplicate New York's 5th Avenue along Grand Avenue. There's even talk, in planning circles, of building mini-condos and apartments at -- what else? -- Manhhattanite sizes of 250 to 350 square feet.
Los Angeles, the first great modern metropolis with multiple urban cores, seems determined to remake its urban DNA -- and fashion itself, to one degree or another, in the image of New York City. Bruce B. Brugmann, the populist publisher of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, coined the term "Manhattanization" in the 1970s to describe just what we're seeing. Broadly speaking, it refers to a vertical urbanism in which the entire city serves as a bedroom for a dominant urban core that is chock-full of cultural attractions. Density is a premium value in a successfully Manhattanized city, producing economies of scale, extraordinary concentrations of skills and an entertaining street scene. Human activities are more important than sunlight, nature or individual privacy.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
LOL! I can only handle one Manhattan, thank you. :)
Try as they may, downtown L.A. will never be the center of action in that city.
Soujnds jusk like something the enviros would come up with. Smog forever.
Each city has to think of what they would like, and its different depending on the culture.
I think a great city should generally have a great core of super density. Very, very tall buildings, clustered together. With great infrastructure like trains, water, electricity efficiently coming into the center.
I think all the cities including New York should work on making things like recreational centers, perhaps high up in a building or even underground, like an underground shopping mall.. So families with kids can take their kids or the kids can go themselves.
Commuting for 1.5 hours each way, to the big corporate and government jobs seems a waste to me. Also if a city has the balls to approve many many massive buildings, I believe the price of real estate can fall way down. As the actual land cost becomes less of a factor.
I think Los Angeles should have 48 subway lines and over 1,200 Starbucks stores. It should be massive.
I would like to see eventually 85,000,000 people living in Los Angeles.
Only one problem with that idea in Los Angeles - I believe the phenomenon is known as an “earthquake.”
I think every liberal city should be surrounded by ten million illegals, waiting to move in.
I lived in LA in the 70’s and 80’s and they were trying to make downtown LA happening then. It didn’t work. The center of LA is West.
“Blade Runner”, here we come ! ;-D
You are 180 degrees off. This is the new era of decentralized living. The economies of scale that prompted the growth of the older cities has been overtaken by the increases of efficiency of distributed services and the costs of maintaining an urban core. There is nothing efficient about crowding 20,000,000 people into a small, difficult-to-maintain space.
Downtown was still happening in the 1950’s, when on an occasional Saturday, our family would dress up—suits, ties, etc.—then pile into our 1954 Ford and head for the May Company department store on Hill Street to spend a full day shopping. We would eat lunch at the cafeteria inside the store, and if we stayed long enough, have dinner at the Italian Kitchen across the street, or maybe Clifton’s Cafeteria.
The May Company closed around 1967, although I believe the building that housed it still exists. I last ate at the Italian Kitchen in the 1970’s, but it was gone by the early ‘90’s. Clifton’s Cafeteria, from what I understand, still exists.
LA, there is no there there.
WOW! That would be fantastic. Just think, all those skyscrapers falling over and smashing into each other when the "Big One" hits LA. It will be more exciting than any Hollywood movie.
That’s what I was thinking. I’d buy a ticket.
It's already Mexico City!
They are trying this in all the urban areas in the West. It is much more of an insidious problem than Manhattanizing L.A. The politicians, rich leftists, bureaucrats and their useful idiots are trying to implement this;http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/documents/agenda21/english/agenda21toc.htm
NYC has character and a history that could never be matched by LA. LA is shopping malls, Holywood, and nastiness, and will never be in the same league as NYC.
People with money will always prefer the west side. Besides it is much closer to the airport and the wealthy usually have lots of vacationing or other homes to get to.
Why spend sun prices and shut yourself out of it? This is why Manhattan is Manhattan and LA is LA. The sun and ocean is what it is all about. If you ain't got those you might as well move somewhere less expensive. Despite the highly ranked colleges/university there is not a lot of brainy stuff around here anyway and if there is there are not a whole lot of brainiacs to enjoy them with. Except of course the conservatives I know :-).
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