LA As The Model City
Just something I had been thinking about, from the mind of an Atlantan & in general of the future of a sunbelt city.
We all say we don't want our city to be like LA, just as smaller urban areas under 1 million in population don't want to be like Atlanta. But what is our alternative? Can anyone honestly state that their favored city will not develop like LA?
Before you answer, consider these assumptions - there is already a large percentage of suburban housing, there is also a number of edge cities, or retail centers developing into edge cities, lastly a formidable infrastructure is in place in the suburbs that will guarentee movement for suburbanites. So we all should accept that suburbanism is here & will continue to be here.
Now your arguements about downtown & the urban core, of course they are growing & will continue to grow, densify & provide some resemblance to urbanity. But that doesn't negate the existence of suburban development & doesn't answer what our cities will be in the near to far future.
What I see as the primary development pattern for an urban area are as follows -
1) the classic urban model of the strong CBD & lowering residential densities gravitating outward.
2) the modern multi-nodal urban model of a CBD that shares economic & density strength with a number of edge cities.
No more classic urban cities are developing & will develop. Though most CBD's have additional room to grow & spread out - there is for every city some barrier that will limit the densest business & now population core. Whereas in the past, as the CBD advanced, the neighboring single family neighborhood was torn down. That was a common pattern as recent as 50 years ago, as Atlanta has torn down it's Uptown residential district full of mansions in order for office buildings could advance through the new Midtown. But the reality of today's greater level of democracy that exists in urban areas, is that - the historic single family neighborhoods, built in the Victorian era to even bungalow street-car era, will not be torn down. Due to historic covenants & simply strong NIMBY activism, heavy densification is forced to end at the edge of mostly single family neighborhoods.
What the alternative now is corridor planning, densifying primary corridors rotating outward from the CBD. These corridors though at some point will no longer gravitate towards downtown, but to nearer neighborhood centers or to edge cities. In this case, this merely strengthens the prominance of the edge city. Which will lead to a stronger edge city, which in tandem - will still diminish the economic signficance of the CBD, as well as it's population basis. Already large numbers of edge cities are becoming population centers, which leads directly to the conclusion. With increasing densities & concentrating on developing corridors - we are becoming LA.
With that in mind, should we not reconsider our intolerant attitude about LA & review closer how LA functions? I am not arguing that we should mimic all of LA, but certainly - we can learn a great deal more about our cities than we can by looking to the Northeast & Midwest. Even those cities to a lesser degree should force themselves to identify the great liklihood that the edge city phenomenon is permenant. And rather than plan against edge cities, we should actually plan for them.
We all say we don't want our city to be like LA, just as smaller urban areas under 1 million in population don't want to be like Atlanta. But what is our alternative? Can anyone honestly state that their favored city will not develop like LA?
Before you answer, consider these assumptions - there is already a large percentage of suburban housing, there is also a number of edge cities, or retail centers developing into edge cities, lastly a formidable infrastructure is in place in the suburbs that will guarentee movement for suburbanites. So we all should accept that suburbanism is here & will continue to be here.
Now your arguements about downtown & the urban core, of course they are growing & will continue to grow, densify & provide some resemblance to urbanity. But that doesn't negate the existence of suburban development & doesn't answer what our cities will be in the near to far future.
What I see as the primary development pattern for an urban area are as follows -
1) the classic urban model of the strong CBD & lowering residential densities gravitating outward.
2) the modern multi-nodal urban model of a CBD that shares economic & density strength with a number of edge cities.
No more classic urban cities are developing & will develop. Though most CBD's have additional room to grow & spread out - there is for every city some barrier that will limit the densest business & now population core. Whereas in the past, as the CBD advanced, the neighboring single family neighborhood was torn down. That was a common pattern as recent as 50 years ago, as Atlanta has torn down it's Uptown residential district full of mansions in order for office buildings could advance through the new Midtown. But the reality of today's greater level of democracy that exists in urban areas, is that - the historic single family neighborhoods, built in the Victorian era to even bungalow street-car era, will not be torn down. Due to historic covenants & simply strong NIMBY activism, heavy densification is forced to end at the edge of mostly single family neighborhoods.
What the alternative now is corridor planning, densifying primary corridors rotating outward from the CBD. These corridors though at some point will no longer gravitate towards downtown, but to nearer neighborhood centers or to edge cities. In this case, this merely strengthens the prominance of the edge city. Which will lead to a stronger edge city, which in tandem - will still diminish the economic signficance of the CBD, as well as it's population basis. Already large numbers of edge cities are becoming population centers, which leads directly to the conclusion. With increasing densities & concentrating on developing corridors - we are becoming LA.
With that in mind, should we not reconsider our intolerant attitude about LA & review closer how LA functions? I am not arguing that we should mimic all of LA, but certainly - we can learn a great deal more about our cities than we can by looking to the Northeast & Midwest. Even those cities to a lesser degree should force themselves to identify the great liklihood that the edge city phenomenon is permenant. And rather than plan against edge cities, we should actually plan for them.
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