SoCal Tragedy

The thing you really forget about the deplorable land use and development patterns in southern California (and the Soutwest more generally) until you come back out here is how goddamn nice the weather is, a fact that takes the situation out of the realm of farce and into tragedy. You know what a good place to never walk anywhere would be? Boston or Chicago in the winter. Or maybe DC or New York in the summer. That's some nasty weather to be walking around in.

But LA would be a great place to walk or ride a bike to work all year 'round. But it's our bad weather belt that has the walkable cities, and our sunny and temperate all the time region that barely has sidewalks.

Comments

The California coastal belt, yes. But not anywhere too far inland in the summer (say, San Bernardino or Riverside)--not to mention Phoenix. That marine layer makes all the difference.

Posted by DCA | May 7, 2008 7:08 PM

When my wife lived in Irvine and I would visit her, I always thought the same thing. She lived on the opposite corner from the grocery store and would sometimes drive simply because you took your life in your hands crossing the 5 lines of traffic in each direction.

Look ahead as we pass, try and focus on it
I won't be fooled by a cheap cinematic trick
It must have been just a cardboard cut out of a man
Top-forty cast off from a record stand

Walkin' in L.A.
Walkin' in L.A., nobody walks in L.A.
Walkin' in L.A.
Walkin' in L.A., nobody walks in L.A.

I don't know could've been a lame jogger maybe
Or someone just about to do the freeway strangler baby
Shopping cart pusher or maybe someone groovie
One thing's for sure, he isn't starring in the movies.
'Cause he's walkin' in L.A.
Walkin' in L.A., nobody walks in L.A.
Walkin' in L.A.
Walkin' in L.A., only a nobody walks in L.A.

Walkin' walkin' walkin' walkin' walkin'
Nobody's walkin' walkin' walkin' walkin' walkin'
Nobody's walkin' walkin' walkin' walkin' walkin'
Nobody's walkin' walkin' walkin' walkin' walkin'

You won't see a cop walkin' on the beat
Nobody's walkin' walkin' walkin' walkin' walkin'

You only see 'em drivin' cars out on the street
Nobody's walkin' walkin' walkin' walkin' walkin'

You won't see a kid walkin' home from school
Nobody's walkin' walkin' walkin' walkin' walkin'

Their mothers pick 'em up in a car pool
Nobody's walkin' walkin' walkin' walkin'

Walkin' in L.A.
Walkin' in L.A., nobody walks in L.A.
Walkin' in L.A.
Walkin' in L.A., nobody walks in L.A.

Could it be that the smog's playing tricks on my eyes
or is it a rollerskater in some kind of headphone disguise
Maybe somebody who just ran out of gas,
Making his way back to the pumps the best way he can.

Walkin' in L.A.
Walkin' in L.A., nobody walks in L.A.
Walkin' in L.A.
Walkin' in L.A., nobody walks in L.A.
Walkin' in L.A.
Walkin' in L.A., nobody walks in L.A.
Walkin' in L.A.
Walkin' in L.A., only a nobody walks in L.A.

Nobody's walkin' walkin' walkin' walkin' walkin'
Nobody's walkin' walkin' walkin' walkin' walkin'
Nobody's walkin' walkin' walkin' walkin' walkin'
Nobody's walkin' walkin' walkin' walkin' walkin'
Nobody's walkin' walkin' walkin' walkin' walkin'
Nobody's walkin' walkin' walkin' walkin' walkin'

Nobody walks in L.A

Posted by TheF79 | May 7, 2008 7:08 PM

Trust me, walking around central Phoenix on a day in mid July is usually far nastier than what is experienced in the cities you mention. I've experienced all of it, but until you go to the Valley of the Sun in midsummer, because some genius figured out that's where the cheap hotel rooms were, you have no idea what nasty is. I'd rather go to Minneapolis or Buffalo in January; at least the heat in the hotels doesn't cut out three times a day because the grid is overtaxed.

I also suspect that the nice weather of SoCal increases the demand for low density living; when it's nice out all the time, all the more reason to have a nice, big, yard.

Posted by Will Allen | May 7, 2008 7:11 PM

And I thought by SoCal Tragedy you were talking about the sudden weed drought in the San Diego area.

How many trillion would it cost now to build Subway and Light Rail around Los Angeles?

At least have a Subway that goes from Downtown to Santa Monica or Venice and Subway and Light Rail down Sepulveda from LAX to the Valley?

Otherwise, people are gonna drive. The city of too spread out to change quickly. LA is just too big geographically, and labor is too expensive now.

Posted by The Foulness | May 7, 2008 7:12 PM

I've commuted only by bicycle in the 6 years I've lived in LA. I chose a place to live near my white collar/suit-and-tie jobs. I use a car sometimes, mostly work related, but avoid driving on the weekends.

that said, I'm an outlier. and it is tragic that in a climate like this most of the residents travel mostly by car.

Posted by mencken | May 7, 2008 7:14 PM

And San Francisco wins yet again.

Posted by How Insane Is John McCain? | May 7, 2008 7:16 PM

The problem with the whole "walk/ride a bike everywhere" thing in Los Angeles is that this city wasn't built upwards, it was built outwards. To go visit a friend to watch football on Sundays, I have to hop in my car and travel 35 minutes because that's simply how far away he lives from me. And he's considered to be "living nearby"! I'd have to take 3 different buses to reach him (he's in the Silver Lake hills, I'm across the street from MacArthur Park) and that's a non-starter.

Riding a bike in this city is an invitation to be killed by a car, full-stop.

It's laughable to think that any rail or bus system is ever going to be adequate here. It simply isn't because most people that can afford a car are simply not going to travel 5 miles to a train, then hop on the train, go to work, then reverse the process after an exhausting day of work. It's easier to drive the whole way, even with the gridlock.

Posted by Henry Holland | May 7, 2008 7:18 PM

And San Francisco wins yet again.
Seriously. GPS-equipped buses? Clean, fast trains with bike racks? It's like policy-hippie heaven.

Posted by foolishmortal | May 7, 2008 7:22 PM

To go visit a friend to watch football on Sundays, I have to hop in my car and travel 35 minutes because that's simply how far away he lives from me.

Matthew's point (which he has made extensively in previous posts) is that if a combination of local/state/federal governments undertook programs to

1. encourage denser urban planning
2. create disincentives for driving
3. build infrastructure for public transit/bicycling/segways, etc.

you might have an easier time taking public transit/walking/biking to your friend's house and that this would be a good thing. These are particularly attractive options in areas which have ideal climates for walking, biking or segway riding such as SoCal.

Posted by drjimcooper | May 7, 2008 7:31 PM

One of the things I noticed was how things went downhill the moment "master planned communities" became the development norm. Those things guaranteed that all houses would be here (surrounded by a long flat wall), all churches there (with no sidewalks, God apparently doesn't like sidewalks), all stores somewhere else (surrounded by huge parking lots), and that you'd have to drive from one to the other. But they were "exclusive," and segregated by the cost of the houses in each development (from the low 300's, from the low 500's, from the low 700's) so that you wouldn't have to live next door to someone who earned significantly less than you.

Gag.

Posted by west coast | May 7, 2008 7:33 PM

"Trust me, walking around central Phoenix on a day in mid July is usually far nastier than what is experienced in the cities you mention."

I'll see your Phoenix and raise you Houston in July. It's not (just) the heat, it's the humidity.

Posted by Jose Padilla | May 7, 2008 7:35 PM

You must not live in SF if you're praising the public transportation options or its year-round walkability. Besides the MUNI's incompetence, the wind in the heart of the city makes it incredibly chilly for May. I hear it's nicer out further, in Berkeley, Oakland, etc.

Posted by matt w. | May 7, 2008 7:35 PM

I think there's a slight, but ingrained, fear of living in hi-rise buildings because of the earthquake threat. Downtown LA has seen a lot of hi-rise condos built recently, however, and until the real estate downturn they were selling for some healthy prices.

Posted by Steve V | May 7, 2008 7:39 PM

Matthew's certainly right about the weather. I visited a friend in Fullerton, in northern Orange County, a few years ago in late March, coming from Boston.

I walked around in a daze, stared at palm trees, and generally got a year's worth of sun in about a week.

It was great. And then, you realize, the lack of having to struggle against climate all their lives makes Californians frivolous and weird (as opposed to say, Bostonians, who are angry and wierd).

Posted by Ben Cronin | May 7, 2008 7:41 PM

I agree with foolishmortal - Matt, take a trip to SF for a month or two when the election is over, mkay?

Posted by N M | May 7, 2008 7:41 PM

But it's our bad weather belt that has the walkable cities, and our sunny and temperate all the time region that barely has sidewalks.

Spoken like someone who grew up without a backyard or a pool!

There's a reason LA is so spread out (besides the whole GM-killed-the-streetcars thing, of course).

Posted by Frank | May 7, 2008 7:41 PM

And San Francisco wins yet again.

Yup. I hate to be smug about it, but...ah, who am I kidding? I love to be smug about it.

Posted by Tom Hilton | May 7, 2008 7:43 PM

Yeah, Jose, Houston is pretty bad, but once it gets to about 120 degrees in central Phoenix, any humidity is noticeable, and development has changed the climate of central Phoenix quite a bit. Throw in the dust and other particulates thickening the air, and it is miserable. Last time I was in Houston in late July was pretty bad too, of course.

Posted by Will Allen | May 7, 2008 7:43 PM

Matthew's certainly right about the weather. I visited a friend in Fullerton, in northern Orange County, a few years ago in late March, coming from Boston.

I walked around in a daze, stared at palm trees, and generally got a year's worth of sun in about a week.

It was great. And then, you realize, the lack of having to struggle against climate all their lives makes Californians frivolous and weird (as opposed to say, Bostonians, who are angry and wierd).

Posted by Ben Cronin | May 7, 2008 7:46 PM

I live in Minnesota.

Living in Minnesota during the winter makes you appreciate the summer all the more. As such, there has been a recent move in urban planning to include bike paths, walkways, etc. We have tons of parks and beaches and so on too.

They say it's hard to get people to move to Minnesota, but once here they don't want to leave.

I fear for the Republican Convention. I hope they leave when it's over.

Posted by The Other Steve | May 7, 2008 7:47 PM

Are you up here in LA, Matt? Or out in Yorba Linda?

Here in Pacific Palisades (yes, a small part of LA) we walk all the time. As we did when we lived in Hancock Park (yes, still LA). And Silver Lake. And Los Feliz. Etc.

Just remember -- the OC ain't LA.

Posted by c cobb | May 7, 2008 7:50 PM

San Francisco is a great city, and it's public transportation no doubt trumps LA.

But let's not compare the weather. San Francisco can't hold a candle to Los Angeles.

LA's weather is perfect, 300 days per year.

If you live right on the coast, in Santa Monica or Venice or Malibu. It stays 10 degrees cooler than Hollywood, and 15 degrees cooler than the Valley.

The Valley's weather is nice in the winter, but in the summer, ugh. Air conditioning necessary all the time.

Hollywood's always nice, but sometimes too hot in the deepest summer (and last week).

But it doesn't get the marina layer you get on the coasts, which makes for the most perfect weather in the country.

In Santa Monica, you only need air conditioning 30 times per year max. Same with heat.

If that. It's nice...all the time.

Posted by The Foulness | May 7, 2008 7:54 PM

Clean, fast trains with bike racks

Sadly you must be confusing San Francisco's hapless MUNI with the entirely more civilized and useful light rail system in Portland.

Posted by UN Plaza | May 7, 2008 8:01 PM

...In Santa Monica, you only need air conditioning 30 times per year max. Same with heat

Summer temperatures here in Santa Monica average about 65 to 75 with occasional forays into the mid 80s and maybe 3 or 4 days in the 90s. Winter temperatures average about 60 to 70 with occasional forays into the mid 50s. We don't have air conditioning and don't need it. Once in a while we'll break out the little space heater in winter. It's ridiculous how great the weather is. By the way, I ride my bike or walk everywhere but the grocery store.

Posted by egadfly | May 7, 2008 8:03 PM

You must not live in SF if you're praising the public transportation options or its year-round walkability

You must not have been to Boston, then. Waiting for a bus when its 50 and windy is a pain. Waiting for a bus when its 6 and windy is something else.

Posted by foolishmortal | May 7, 2008 8:04 PM

Not walking in L.A. has a long history. In the 1930s, P.G. Wodehouse was considered close to nuts because he'd walk from his house in Beverly Hills to his office in Hollywood.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | May 7, 2008 8:09 PM

Matthew needs to spend some time in the San Fernando Valley in the summertime. You won't want to walk too many places when it's 108.

Posted by too many steves | May 7, 2008 8:10 PM

LA is building light rail from downtown out to the beach. The first branch is going to go from downtown to Robertson and then the second step will take it to the ocean. I have no idea when that's to be finished. When I lived on the westside five years ago half the idiots in my neighborhood were fighting thee train coming through on an existing below grade rail bed. Idiots with their backyards literally on the 10 Freeway were complaining that the light rail would be too loud.

LA is too spread out for rail as it exists now but as the rail is built and the country lurches toward the end of oil, look for higher density development along rail lines and the abandonment of car based subdivisions in the hinter lands.

Posted by tbone | May 7, 2008 8:12 PM

Santa Monica is indeed perfect--though the local gov't trying to prevent density increases.

I don't have air conditioning or a warm coat.

I own a car, but I average less than 2,500 miles/year on it. Otherwise, I can walk to work, walk to the store, walk to restaurants, walk to the beach, or bike to nearby areas. There's a great farmers' market on Saturday and Wednesday two blocks from my place.

If only there were great Asian food on the westside (and housing prices dropped 50%)...

Posted by Dan | May 7, 2008 8:14 PM

They say it's hard to get people to move to Minnesota, but once here they don't want to leave. I fear for the Republican Convention. I hope they leave when it's over

Hopefully the ones that do will stay in St Paul.

Posted by skybluewater | May 7, 2008 8:18 PM

They say it's hard to get people to move to Minnesota, but once here they don't want to leave. I fear for the Republican Convention. I hope they leave when it's over

Hopefully the ones that do will stay in St Paul.

Posted by skybluewater | May 7, 2008 8:18 PM

They say it's hard to get people to move to Minnesota, but once here they don't want to leave. I fear for the Republican Convention. I hope they leave when it's over

Hopefully the ones that do will stay in St Paul.

Posted by skybluewater | May 7, 2008 8:20 PM

Just to provide Mr. Yglesias with an anecdote because people from the east can't appreciate the temperature gradients one finds in the coastal areas of California (or Oregon or Washington State for that matter).

Many years ago, I believe in the month of March, I was riding a bike along the Pacific Coast Highway between Malibu and Santa Monica. The temperature was foggy and chilly, in the mid 50s. I decided to take Topanga Canyon Road over to the SF Valley. I had gone no more then a couple of hundred yards when I emerged from the fog and the temperature went up 10 degrees. By the time I had pedaled a mile, the temperature had gone up another 10 degrees. At the top of the pass, it had gone up yet another 10 degrees. When I emerged in the Valley on Venture Blvd., the temperature was in the mid 90s. As the crow flies, the distance between Pacific Coast Hwy and Ventura Blvd is 10 miles, thus a 40 degree change in temperature over that distance. One just doesn't see that anywhere in the US outside of the Pacific Coast.

Posted by SLC | May 7, 2008 8:23 PM

Living in San Diego, it is possible to find great neighborhoods that are walking friendly. I live in Ocean Beach, and love being able to walk to restaurants, coffee, the beach, etc. Of course, I choose to live in a much smaller house than if I was out in the suburbs where you have to drive to get anywhere, and there are some hassles we put up with that we wouldn't in a cookie cutter, planned community suburb, but that just gives life more character.

Posted by Sarah | May 7, 2008 8:28 PM

San Francisco is great. Depending on the day, I use the MUNI underground to go out to Inner Sunset - which isn't in the main downtown, but in an outlying area.

While MUNI isn't perfect - it's actually pretty good, at least the areas I take it. People are grousing, if they are "sure" it's lousy.

Not to mention, I often bike in for that extra 20-30 minute exercise (depending on which way I'm going).

As it happens, the muni turnaround time is 25 minutes, so biking is as quick as taking public transportation.

Weather - it's actually surprising just how quickly I adjusted to "sweater" weather. Sure, it's not perfect, like LA - but still, pretty nice.

Now - living AND working in Santa Monica, while walking to work, as egadfly claims?

THAT is heaven - except for the smog (which I think is a hell of a lot better than it was 10 years ago, right?

Posted by JC | May 7, 2008 8:28 PM

I just wanted to second the notion that Santa Monica is almost perfect... Matt come visit sometime we used to have great bookstores until recently and you can walk/bus/bike everywhere.

LA needs to have some version of transit "Villages" linked up with some subway/light rail but right now we can't even turn Pico and Olympic into one way streets without a huge fight.

Once again San Francisco is annoying and smug (although like most LA people I enjoy and appreciate SF, of course they never would dare return the love... oh well)

Posted by Keith Wolf | May 7, 2008 8:29 PM

Santa Monica's weather is perfect? Well, I was here today and let me just report to you the somewhat gray overcast causing the temperature to plunge into the low sixties. Combine that with the light breeze that cuts through you like a knife. I waited all day for the sun to appear so I could go outside, but it refused to show.

During the last three days of hideous cloud cover, I could only dream of sunny and 70 degrees.

Posted by santamonicamr | May 7, 2008 8:30 PM

I suspect folks extolling the virtues of San Francisco's public transportation and bicycle friendliness may actually not be familiar with either. SF's public transportation system is... ok. And SF demands it's bicyclists be pretty hardcore riders for much of the city, and not casual commuters.

There is some interesting news about LA's zoning rules recently, which seem to be anti gentrification in spirit, and stupid in reality.

Posted by shecky | May 7, 2008 8:30 PM

In the 1920s LA had any number of walking-friendly neighborhoods, from MacArthur/Lafayette Park to Larchmont Village to, yes, Hollywood itself.

Walking from Beverly Hills to Hollywood in the 1930s meant walking along long stretches of fields...

Posted by west coast | May 7, 2008 8:30 PM

How about living in an unwalkable, bike unfriendly city with perpetual grey skies and lousy weather? You'll love Pittsburgh -- oh yeah, the pollution is a bonus too!

Posted by Matt | May 7, 2008 8:38 PM

How about living in an unwalkable, bike unfriendly city with perpetual grey skies and lousy weather? You'll love Pittsburgh -- oh yeah, the pollution is a bonus too!

Posted by Matt | May 7, 2008 8:40 PM

Santa Monica would be lovely were it not for Santa Monicans. Pacific Palisades is lovely, Brentwood is lovely, Mar Vista is lovely, Venice is lovely, but Santa Monicans with their private club approach to things that, in the United States of America, are generally considered public space.

Where else in the United States would a city build a park and then tell the people who lived across the street that they couldn't use it because they don't live within the city limits?

Posted by west coast | May 7, 2008 8:47 PM

How about living in an unwalkable, bike unfriendly city with perpetual grey skies and lousy weather? You'll love Pittsburgh -- oh yeah, the pollution is a bonus too!

Matt, clearly, you work for the Pittsburgh outreach program.

It may be time to change the pitch, however.

Posted by JC | May 7, 2008 8:49 PM

As a former New Orleanian I can say with certainty that it is the absolute WORST city to walk around in from late spring to early fall.

In spring time you have gorgeous weather but big, fat, hairy caterpillars that fall from trees on you (and sting) and in the summer it's like walking around a sauna with a swarm of mosquitoes. That's between the massive gulf storms that appear out of nowhere and flood the city every week or so.

I still love the place.

Posted by Gozer | May 7, 2008 8:55 PM

I live in St. Paul, and am not looking forward to the toxic black cloud of evil that will settle over the state when the Republicans come to town. That said, it's a highly walkable city, with lots of good bike paths. I work as a roving computer technician, so I must have a car, but if I worked at the same place every day at my place of employment I could bike to work, about 10 miles away, in 45 minutes on a couple excellent bike trails.

Winter is, of course, a problem. Our neighborhood in St. Paul is quite walkable; within a mile of my house is a liquor store, a grocery store, an ice-cream parlor, an old-school barbershop, two coffee shops, and the neighborhood greasy spoon. Walking in winter isn't so bad if it's above zero F and the wind isn't blowing. (I realize the rest of the country outside the Upper Midwest shudders at me considering zero F "not that cold".)

Posted by Norsecats | May 7, 2008 9:10 PM

"Santa Monica's weather is perfect? Well, I was here today and let me just report to you the somewhat gray overcast causing the temperature to plunge into the low sixties. Combine that with the light breeze that cuts through you like a knife. I waited all day for the sun to appear so I could go outside, but it refused to show."

I hope this is satire, because all it illustrates is that Santa Monica really does have perfect weather. I stop wearing jackets when it hits the upper forties, and I keep my house in the low sixties all winter. The low sixties is an excellent temperature.

Posted by Happyrabo | May 7, 2008 9:16 PM

Steve V --

I had quite a bit of experience with earthquake engineering issues on a condo board on an earthquake fault. Modern high rise buildings are safe -- in fact, I once went through a big earthquake in SF in a 28 story 1925 building anchored on rock and it was easy -- although the guy washing the windows told me he got real shook up. What is not safe are the kind of condos we lived in -- two or three stories with a parking area underneath. And we eventually had to give up finding a financing mechanism to retrofit them.

For what it's worth I took the train to SF and walked to my office downtown every day for eleven years. Only once did the weather make take the bus. And visiting my brother recently in some upscale place above Irvine I did succeed in walking everywhere (exhausted from the hills), but did get stopped once by the police for engaging in a suspicious activity.

Oh, and nothing beats Las Vegas for a place you don't want to walk; even my wife's home town of San Bernardino is easier to walk four or five miles in the summer with its 120 degree air you can slice with a knife. Well, maybe Baker would be worse but there's very little there there except the giant thermometer.

Posted by Gene O'Grady | May 7, 2008 9:18 PM

I've always felt that if the Massachusetts Bay colony had, by some twist of fate, been the San Diego Bay colony, the United States would consist of one vast metroplex with San Diego at it's core and there would be a vast wilderness inhabited by a robust and contented population of native americans from the Mississippi east.

Posted by Andrew | May 7, 2008 9:21 PM

Where else in the United States would a city build a park and then tell the people who lived across the street that they couldn't use it because they don't live within the city limits?

Which park is this?

Posted by egadfly | May 7, 2008 9:27 PM

Hmm, Los Angeles.

A city not only built in an actual desert (and as a result, greedily draining a lot of the Western US's water), but directly on top of the San Andreas Fault, which is, arguably, the most dangerous fault line in the world.

Truly a winning combination!

Posted by Greg | May 7, 2008 9:33 PM

Consider your bullshit premise destroyed

Posted by cahuenga | May 7, 2008 9:45 PM

Two words: Santa Monica

When we lived there, we often walked places. We had five cinemas, four bookstores, and dozens of restaurants and cafes in walking distance.

Driving out to LA was often a pain in the ass, especially during rush hour (which lasted from 4:30 pm to around 7:30 pm). But there were buses that did pretty well - my fiancee was working in Westwood by UCLA, and could walk a block to Wilshire and catch a bus that took her right to work in about 15 minutes, thanks to the rush-hour reserved lanes that allowed buses to scoot by the stop-and-go traffic.

The rest of the LA region, of course, pretty much sucks.

Posted by Jeremy | May 7, 2008 10:11 PM

I live in San Luis Obispo on California's central coast, and it is paradise. Perfect weather always, 15 minute drive/50 bike to the beach, eminently walkable/bikable/busable. 3 hours north of LA, 3.5 hours south of SF. Weekly farmers markets and local grocery stores with the best produce in the country (it's local and organic!) Of course, I'm a college student, and have to give all this up in a month when I grageeate and move to NYC for a job. Because there are none here. (though, matt, you could surely get a job as a professor; if you could handle the massive step down from the ivy league to a cal state)

Posted by becker | May 7, 2008 10:40 PM

And Seattle is the in between. Beautifully green city that has complete overcast gray in the fall and winter, but is an absolute joy in spring and summer. Parts of the place are very walkable, but those sections are disconnected from one another.

Having been there but a short week, I can say that Santa Monica is pretty incredible in February.

Posted by Angry Sam | May 7, 2008 10:58 PM

Phoenix should really have an "all buildings must cast a shadow across the street" rule, it's the only thing that would make walking anywhere in that town reasonable.

Posted by Fred F. | May 7, 2008 11:03 PM

You come to the armpit of SoCal and slam the whole region.

Not that this place needs any tourists, but come down to Del Mar or La Jolla. Plenty of walking here. As someone said about another beautiful but colder place, if there is haven on earth, this is it.

Posted by gregor | May 7, 2008 11:07 PM

egadfly:

Santa Monica Airport Dog Park, opened in April 2007, barred all dogs not registered in Santa Monica. Santa Monica would not at that time register any dog whose owner did not reside in Santa Monica. Those who lived directly across the street, in Mar Vista, could not take their dogs to the park, the closest Santa Monica neighborhood to the park is on the far side of the airport. After protests the policy was modified so that a limited number of people who could prove they live near Santa Monica could apply and pay for a Santa Monica dog license and thus be able to use the park.

Dogs not registered in Santa Monica are still banned from all Santa Monica's dog parks. Notably, the City of Los Angeles has not reciprocated by banning Santa Monica's dogs from City of LA dog parks.

Also, Santa Monica's Skateboard Park was originally for Santa Monica residents only. After protests a fee structure was created so that all users get to pay for access, with Santa Monica residents paying less than non-residents. How...friendly.

It is notable that in Los Angeles those recreational facilities for which fees are charged (everything from golf courses to muscle beach fitness zone) don't charge more if you live in Santa Monica than if you live in LA.

But that's just the way it is with Santa Monicans; what's theirs is theirs and what's yours is theirs.

Posted by west coast | May 7, 2008 11:14 PM

Here in the Vegas valley (as in Las, NV) we see about the same summer temperatures as Phoenix. During the four months of cooler weather a walk across the UNLV campus is a nice break away from the desk. During the summer, you try your best to get into the office A/C by 7:30 because once the sun crests Sunrise Mountain, you're going to sweat.

With gas topping $3.50 and heading for $4.00, more than a few of us have started riding bikes to work. Vegas is NOT a bike-friendly and definitely not a pedestrian friendly town, even the strip has become a "put your head on a swivel" place for walkers.

Perhaps if we can actually see fuel at $6 or $7/gallon we'll see the Vegas blow-it-up-and-rebuild-it-better spirit come to the forefront of urban design. But I'm guessing we'll add more lanes without more exit ramps/lanes, build more six and eight homes per acre developments and slowly watch our nation go mad.

Posted by CybScryb | May 7, 2008 11:35 PM

The problem with the people advocating "build denser", is that it is expensive (used to be very expensive) to build up and earthquake safe. Part of it is also psychological. People don't want to be up high during and earthquake.

Asking why LA is spread out is like asking why there aren't a lot of basements in New Orleans.

Posted by Mo | May 7, 2008 11:36 PM

I don't really want to talk up Oakland because the NY Times is already peddling it to young hipsters, but, our weather here is much better than SF; we have many neighborhoods which are walkable, shoppable on foot, and accessible to good public transit, and our airport has decent service to everywhere. Downside - local schools & government decrepit, inefficient and possibly corrupt; divide between haves & have nots is huge, creating murder hotspots in half the city, and now robberies are spilling over into the "good" part of town. Sort of like Santa Monica if you added some less favored part of L.A. to the equation.

But on the upside, we have the largest stand of urban redwood forest anywhere, and mile after mile of open space in the hills for hiking, horseback riding, picnicking, biking etc. Waterfront, ferry, farmers' markets, urban lake, interesting neighborhoods, good libraries, smart people, ethnic diversity, culture, etc. etc. I survived New York City in the late 70s and early 80s so Oakland seems fine to me.

Now if only our bus system were properly funded. And if only GM, Standard Oil and Firestone hadn't torn up the Key Route system of light rail that served a hundred mile diameter swath of Northern California - back in the 1950s. What those companies did to light rail across America was a crime. They did it to sell cars, and it worked.

Although most Oaklanders with cars take the freeway for even short jaunts, you can indeed walk all over Oakland, and I have. The biking is easier than in SF because we have more flatland.

Posted by Leila Abu-Saba | May 7, 2008 11:45 PM

Wow, what an amazingly informative and entertaining comment thread. I'll sound like an old fogie for saying this, but it kinda reminds me of the glorious pre-Atlantic days.

Posted by fnook | May 7, 2008 11:51 PM

Chicago in the winter isn't too bad. It's the summer that sucks. I grew up in L.A., and have lived in Chicago for about seven years now (Illinois for 10). I'm an avid golfer (single digit),and I'm sick and tired of having summer tee times rained out. It is simply not natural for there to be rain between April 15th and November 1st.

And talk about a bunch of wusses. I remember when I lived in Champaign, we went a few weeks without rain and they were whining about the drought conditions. After a few freaking weeks! We used to go for like a decade without rain in L.A. before people started to say "hey, I wonder if we're in the beginning of a drought stage?"

And don't even get me started on the people who went nuts over a piddly little earthquake with an epicenter 250 miles from the city. Buncha babies.

That said, I love Chicago, mostly because I can walk everywhere (except to play golf on weekends), and take the train to work every day.

Posted by Seitz | May 7, 2008 11:58 PM

Matt,

What you forget is that it is exactly the weather in the South and Southwest which leads to the desire for the backyard and suburban neighborhood. In other words, if you put Chicago suddenly in SoCal, there would be a lot of people trying to get out of their apartment/condos lacking all sort of amenities such as pools, backyards and placed to play.

I think that since 5 - 7 months of the year the weather is somewhat questionable for outdoor activities, we are much more inclined to live in places where we would spend the majority of our time inside. As such, it necessitates the need for places for us to congregate. But when you have 12 months of great weather, suddenly you want a place to enjoy the 12 months of nice weather.

But quite frankly - land use is only desirable in those places which developed before the car was the chief form of transportation. For Matt to look down on those communities without first taking a hard look at the land use in areas which quite frankly, offer more in terms of bio-diversity and carbon reducing vegetation (i.e. - deciduous forests) it odd. Has he been to Tyson’s Corners lately? Or how about Medford, MA? Or what about Long Island?

Plus – Los Angeles is actually starting to in-fill dramatically. It may not be New York or Boston, but I would be interested in seeing the median density for all communities within the LA area versus the DC area. I have a feeling there is more density in LA in general than many “dense, livable” cities. A 9 square mile block within Boston, DC, Philly or Chicago does not make those cities champions of land use.

Posted by Brad | May 8, 2008 12:22 AM

Interesting comments, Brad. I tend to think that DC is a special case, but I think you're exactly right about the increasing density of LA. Strangely enough, sometimes suburban sprawl in the lonesome crowded west creates unique opportunities for cohesive development that aren't even possible in the I-95 corridor.

Posted by fnook | May 8, 2008 1:21 AM

Phew, I thought you were announcing the demise of long-time commenter SoCalJustice.

Posted by JB | May 8, 2008 1:41 AM

You don't understand LA from a day or two here. LA has many walkable neighborhoods and many people who walk in them. Not just Santan Monica - Studio City, Encino, Fairfax, Culver City, Westwood, Hollywood,to list just a few.

I've ridden a bicyle at least 30,000 miles in the 20 years I've lived in LA.LA is a fabulous place to bike. Riding into dowtown is the pits. The W SF Valley where I live is bicycling heaven.

Posted by Sherry | May 8, 2008 1:54 AM

This gives me a chance to float my pet thesis that the West Coast is particularly environmentally conscious because the West Coast environment is particularly pleasant.

Just moved (back) to the Bay Area from the DC area (Springfield, VA for insiders) and I occasionally find time to reflect on the fact that the I'm looking forward to the summer; it'll be fun to be outside and there won't be quite the constant battle against creepy crawlies trying to eat the kids and viney things trying to eat the house.

Nature's a lot more lovable when you're not trying to escape it or kill it.

Posted by BayAreaRapidTransit | May 8, 2008 2:44 AM

It's interesting how Southern California has increasingly dropped out of the national consciousness. That SoCal has really, really nice weather would be the kind of thing that every 26-year-old in America realized in 1965, but now is dropping off the radar as SoCal's problems mount and the appeal of moving there declines.

Posted by Steve Sailer | May 8, 2008 3:44 AM

I hope now that Matt is getting out and seeing things, he's starting to realize that we can't retrofit his beloved Manhattan transportation system on the rest of America. The scale of Southern California is simply so immense that it's always going to be dependent on cars. Whittier is, what, 35 miles from the end of the subway in downtown LA?

Posted by Steve Sailer | May 8, 2008 3:51 AM

Lived in Florida, Hawaii, Spain, and all over California, but this (L.A.) is the best natural tanning salon of 'em all. The public transportation does suck, but there are more fine women of color here than any place in the country. And, one of the big secrets about L.A. is that for some strange reason - a number of the planet's greatest p.i.'s (profound individuals) like it here.

Posted by Trevor | May 8, 2008 4:01 AM

Back in the early '70's, I had a choice between moving to LA or moving to San Francisco.

For years growing up in Connecticut I watched the weather on the morning shows on TV. I notice that Los Angeles was always hot as hell and San Francisco ranged from 50% in the winter to 75% in the summer - day after day after day.

Made the decision easy, since I hate hot weather.

If you like walking around in eighty to one hundred degree weather, don't come to San Francisco. If you like sixty to seventy degree weather day in and day out, San Francisco is heaven.

If you hate to wear a jacket, don't come to San Francisco - in the evenings or where and when it's windy, you'll freeze.

Mark Twain said, "The coldest winter I ever spent was the summer I spent in San Francisco", But he was from St. Louis - and it gets hotter than hell there. In San Francisco, it can get down into the fifties in the evenings even during the summer, and the low forties in the winter. During the day, however, it's likely to be sixties to seventies, with sixties even in winter.

If it gets hot - over eighty degress - for three days in a row, that's it - the fog rolls in, the temperature goes right back down to the seventies. Natural air conditioning - which is why so few older buildings have air conditioning.

It doesn't even rain that much here, although it can get seriously blustery in January and February - but usually only for a few days at a time. The rest of the time it's fine. At most you get a week straight of moderate rain showers - nothing like the Pacific northwest where it drizzles all day every day, or Florida where the storms are torrential downpours.

Transportation is not great in San Francisco, but you don't need much of it - the city is small enough to nearly walk around in a couple of hours. You can certainly walk all the way up Van Ness from Market, around the tourist trap of the Embarcadero, down to the foot of Market, then up Market back to Van Ness in maybe three hours - which encompasses the entire main part of the city sans most of the residential areas.

The buses suck, but buses suck everywhere I've ever been. BART is comfortable and fast (except during rush hour, of course). Muni is adequate (ditto). Parking is ridiculously bad, of course. If you're going to Oakland, Berkeley or South Bay, BART is the way to go, as long as your destination is some reasonable walking or bus distance from a BART station.

I spent a year in Florida back in the early '80's. That was HELL! Ninety eight degrees and ninety eight percent humidity twenty four seven three sixty five. Masses of worms dangling off trees. Bugs the size of Predator drones flying in your face. Torrential rain storms so hard your windshield wipers can't handle it and you have to pull over.

Fuck Florida. The whole state should drop into a sinkhole - which is another big problem they have. I read once fifty feet of two lanes of a four-lane highway just dropped into a hole in Florida. Almost as big a problem as California earthquakes.

I went through the Loma Prieta Earthquake in San Francisco, on October 17, 1989, at 5:04 PM. That wasn't very bad, although the effects did kill 67 people. Wikipedia has an article on it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loma_Prieta_earthquake

It could have been worse. Had the quake lasted another half minute or so, it's likely the Embarcadero Freeway would have collapsed, killing hundreds of people on the road during rush hour. The Freeway had to be shut down for years, and eventually demolished, due to the cracks in the foundations.

Fortunately, the World Series was playing in town, and was just preparing to start game 3, so a lot of people weren't on the road at that exact moment.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 8, 2008 4:20 AM

No, walking around Phoenix on a day in mid-July is not far nastier than walking around Boston or Chicago (or Buffalo or Minneapolis) in January. Quite the opposite, in fact.

I lived my first 20-some years in Cleveland and the last 20-some in the Valley of the Sun, and there is just no comparison with the weather. The Phoenix area is much goddamn nicer much more of the year.

Sure it gets hot here in the summer, real hot, particularly late morning through late afternoon in June, July, and August. But you know what? When the sun goes down (relatively early – no daylight savings time) the air temperature cools off enough that outdoor activities (say, softball or backyard barbecuing or walking the dog) are enjoyed by many. Plus, low humidity! It’s the desert, after all.

When the sun goes down in January in Cleveland (or Boston or Chicago or Buffalo or Minneapolis) it just gets colder and more miserable.

It's no contest: the heat of the summer in Phoenix is a whole lot easier to take than the interminable cold and gray misery of winters “back East” (as just about anywhere in the country besides the Left Coast and the Confederacy is called here). And the rest of the year here normally has the kind of weather that people from these “back East” locales look for on vacation -- mostly blue skies, warm days, and cool nights.

Like the man said, and I concur: much goddamn nicer.

Posted by DFH no.6 | May 8, 2008 6:28 AM

What ruined America environmentally and politically was air conditioning. "Air Conditioning: Our Cross to Bear".

http://www.alternet.org/story/37882/

Los Angeles is a desert hole surrounded by mountains. San Diego though between the sea and the mountains is very livable. The South is hot and humid.

Posted by bernarda | May 8, 2008 7:16 AM

"No, walking around Phoenix on a day in mid-July is not far nastier than walking around Boston or Chicago (or Buffalo or Minneapolis) in January. Quite the opposite, in fact."

I'm sure that the desert is actually very nice to live in, especially when you account for the peak day-time temperatures with proper building techniques (thermal mass wall, solar panels to offset costs of cooling).

That said, Buffalo is really over-rated when it comes to bad weather. Sure, we get a fairly gray winter, but it usually only lasts about 3 months, out of which only 1 1/2 months are actually really cold (below 20). 30-40 is nothing in terms of temperature, and most of the winter is like that. And, you can pass the winter skiing, snowboarding, ice skating, hockey, etc., so it goes by pretty quick.

Plus, the rest of the year is beautiful - Buffalo receives a higher percentage of sunshine, and significantly less rain, throughout the summer months than Washington, D.C., Raleigh and Atlanta.

And, best of all, it's cheap to live here, we have the lowest commute times in the country, lots of water, and plenty of hydro power from Niagara Falls.

http://www.visitbuffaloniagara.com

That said, we'd still like to officially apologize for foisting Tim Russert upon the world.

Posted by OhNoNotAgain | May 8, 2008 7:26 AM

One of the undiscovered jewels of Los Angeles: coastal Long Beach.

Long dismissed as a gritty harbor town, old Long Beach has always been one of the nicest places in Los Angeles. Beautiful neighborhoods of century-old homes, nearly all restored and preserved..not a lot of mansion-ization going on, and you can walk to nearly everything: galleries, restaurants, drug and sundry stores. It's like a small town in the great city, all within 10 blocks of the ocean.

Some parts of Long Beach are downright scary, as is the case with any big city, but the nice parts are VERY nice.

A big earthquake may well annihilate the whole place, but that's true of a lot of LA.

The history of Los Angeles development is so brimming with the most savage corruption, it's a wonder the place isn't even worse than it actually is, if that's possible.

The places that were developed first: Pasadena, Long Beach, Santa Monica, the beach cities, Manhattan, Redondo and Hermosa. Places like this are very livable even now. The places that came later, like the San Fernando valley and further east, are a nightmare. And places like San Bernardino and Riverside and Santa Clarita are almost certain to become ghost towns as energy costs rise out of sight.

Posted by LL | May 8, 2008 10:36 AM

Matthew needs to spend some time in the San Fernando Valley in the summertime. You won't want to walk too many places when it's 108.

When my husband and I got married in July a couple of years ago, we made sure that it was all indoors since we wanted a morning wedding. And yet my aunt still mentioned in her Christmas newsletter that it was 105 the day we got married -- and she lives in Long Beach (CA). Anywhere in the Valley gets unbearably hot in the summer, and very early in the morning, too. It doesn't cool off at night and stays very humid.

I will concur that Mar Vista is about the most perfect place to live ever. Not only is the weather amazing about 350 days out of the year, I was within walking distance of three grocery stores (the Whole Foods was literally across the street), two pharmacies, restaurants, clothing stores, etc etc etc. Plus I was right on the Big Blue Bus line, which I think is the best regional transportation system in Southern California.

And then my husband made me move to the frickin' 100-degree Valley. Feh.

Posted by Mnemosyne | May 8, 2008 10:41 AM

One thing that Matt is forgetting is that the amazing weather is largely responsible for the low density residential settlement. LA is so big because a crapload of people wanted to move there post-1945. Many of the people that wanted to move there from the northeast and midwest were attracted to the nice climate and wanted houses with big yards, pools, etc. If you stacked them together like NE cities, they wouldn't want to live there any more -- might as well go back to Philadelphia or Chicago where housing is cheaper, jobs pay more, and there are a lot more urban things to do.

We moved from Chicago to Denver a year ago, and switched from a tiny footprint Chicago house (typical 25 x 125 lot, where you can touch your neighbors' houses from your window) to a big footprint house (roughly 100 x 100 lot). Why? So we could have a huge backyard where we could enjoy the nice weather 250 days a year.

(And seriously, Denver weather is the best ever. Absolutely glorious -- as in highs in the low 70s, lows in the mid 40s at night, perpetually dry and sunny -- five months out of the year. During the bad months of the summer, it cools down significantly in the evenings so you can enjoy the outdoors. And during the bad months of the winter, the snow storms are usually separated by 2-3 days in the 50s and sometimes 60s. There were probably six weekends this winter where we sat out on the balcony in shorts, drinking beer, and looking at the foot of snow on the ground across the street.)

Posted by Joe | May 8, 2008 11:09 AM

I think it's interesting how many of the people who have posted in this thread have talked about the most expensive places in the country to live. SANTA MONICA IS FUCKING EXPENSIVE. That's why the rest of us don't live there, we visit, eat some ice cream, and go to the beach. What we need are policies that work for the massive number of people living in the suburbs and exurbs. I guarantee you people will be bitching when energy prices force them to abandon that way of life and they come heading for the cities. You think property is expensive now?

And for the record, no one has mentioned the actual nicest place in America, which is Tucson, Arizona. Much lower in altitude than Phoenix, less hot in the summer, very nice in the winter. Basically perfect all year, except for the monsoons. And the monsoon season is short and beautifu.

Posted by Aaron | May 8, 2008 11:22 AM

I visited San Francisco once back in about 2000. The locals were complaining about the heat. I'd just arrived from Milwaukee, and thought the weather fantastic. The muni seemed amazingly great to me. Buses on more-or-less straight routes, so you can go from one end to the other in a reasonable time. Most places I'm used to only have a few bus routes, so they have to zig-zag all over the place, slowly going nowhere. Buses running every ten minutes *at night*! I mean, it would be amazingly great to get a bus every ten minutes at the peak rush-hour times. At night?! Amazing.

Posted by Beige | May 8, 2008 11:36 AM

Honolulu is what a walkable LA would be like

Posted by Andrew | May 8, 2008 11:59 AM

Honolulu is what a walkable LA would be like

Posted by Andrew | May 8, 2008 12:02 PM

Tucson, Arizona. Much lower in altitude than Phoenix, less hot in the summer

You mean higher. Phoenix 1100 feet, Tucson 2600 feet. Why it is cooler. Though not cool.

Posted by roac | May 8, 2008 12:09 PM

"Southern California has increasingly dropped out of the national consciousness"

I think that might be the craziest thing Steve Sailer has ever written.

Posted by too many steves | May 8, 2008 12:40 PM

Tucson weather is quite nice; but it's as unwalkable as anywhere else in the west.

And the real trouble with Phoenix is not the 120s in July, but the 110s in May and October.

Posted by jacobus | May 8, 2008 12:46 PM

The thing about Southern Cal is we have hundreds of microclimates. I live in the Toluca area of the Valley, right next to Burbank. It does get damn hot on summer days (usually August, September and beginning of October is our hot season). But in my area I can count on one hand the number of nights I need to run the AC, it always cools down to a lovely temperature. The fact that we have such great weather also encourages us to use our outdoor spaces as extensions of our living areas. During nice weaterh, I spend probably 80% of my waking time at home in my backyard, it's basically my second living room.

This idea of increasing density to increase walkability is a bit of nonsense. Again, I live in the Valley, smack dab in the middle of the suburban lifestyle. I have within walking distance at least a dozen restaurants (from fast food to moderately pricey), two supermarkets, two neighborhood grocery stores, a Starbucks, several bakeries and at least half a dozen live theatres. And the Red Line subway station. About the only thing we are missing is movie theatres and they just broke ground for a multi-screen complex. The reason people don't walk here has more to do with habit, laziness and stupidity. It just never enters into someone's mind not to get in the car and drive. (And, as was mentioned above, the size and geography of the city has caused everything to expand outward instead of upwards.)

Posted by danno | May 8, 2008 1:20 PM

The great Steven Wright once said,

"Everywhere is within walking distance.... if you have the time"

Posted by Dan | May 8, 2008 1:31 PM

The great Steven Wright once said,

"Everywhere is within walking distance.... if you have the time"

Posted by Dan | May 8, 2008 1:34 PM

Santa Monica is not in Los Angeles. It is a separate city, and a very small one at that. If anyone wants to compare San Francisco to Los Angeles they should really compare the San Francisco Bay Area to greater Los Angeles, not the tiny city of San Francisco to the entire Los Angeles area.

Central Los Angeles has the second largest transit system in the US. 1.5 million people use it a day. There are certain enduring fictions that seem to enthrall people forever. The Los Angeles car culture is one of them. How is it different from any other American city (except Manhattan)? Every metro area in the US is suburban-heavy and car dependent.

You'd be surprised how many people I know in LA without cars. It's not only possible, it's preferable.

Who goes to New York, visits remote Westchester County, and then complains about the lack of transit? That's what this all sounds like.

Posted by Bert Green | May 8, 2008 1:55 PM

I live in central Phoenix, and bike to work, even when it's 115 in the afternoon. (And I'm not a triathlete or anything like that.) The whole valley is criss-crossed by canals, alongside which are bike paths. Frankly, I was very surprised (well, maybe a little surprised) that proximity to the canal wasn't a major selling point of the house I bought 4 years ago.) My employer makes biking easier by giving me a key to the locker room, so I can shower after I get here. On the weekends, I can bike more or less everywhere I need to go. The center of the city isn't bad at all for biking, it's just the far-flung burbs that are horrendous.

Posted by The Sophist | May 8, 2008 2:42 PM

How come people are such wimps about weather? Winter or summer, NYC isn't particularly uncomfortable. You just have to dress appropriately and expect the temperature to be something other than 76 degrees.

Posted by AlanC9 | May 8, 2008 2:51 PM

A number of misconceptions here.

Hmm, Los Angeles.

A city not only built in an actual desert (and as a result, greedily draining a lot of the Western US's water), but directly on top of the San Andreas Fault, which is, arguably, the most dangerous fault line in the world.

You must be thinking of Palmdale. :-)

Los Angeles is NOT built in an "actual desert." The local SoCal desert - the Mojave - lies to the north and east of the coastal ranges; inland, where the marine layer never penetrates, and storms moving in off the ocean are wrung dry by the coastal mountains.

Los Angeles is south of the coastal ranges, where the marine layer moderates the weather and winter storms (usually!) produce some rain.

Los Angeles has a mild Mediterranean climate (Köppen type Csa, for you climatology geeks), almost perfectly suited for human habitation.

It's not a desert. That's a myth. It averages 15 inches of rainfall a year (and sometimes gets 30), and had large areas of swamp and wetland before they were drained in the early 20th century. Swamps aren't common in actual deserts. :-)

It's also not right on top of the San Andreas fault. At its closest approach to the northernmost border of LA, the fault is about 25 miles away. "LA proper", over the hill, is about 35-40 miles away.

(And if you think 35 miles away from a great fault is, in terms of seismic hazard, the same as "right on top of it", you clearly know very little about seismology or earthquakes.)

The fault pretty much defines the southern boundary of the Mojave Desert, and is the reason the coastal mountain ranges exist.

Palmdale sits directly atop the fault there on the southern edge of the Mojave.

But Palmdale is not even remotely "LA." (Though you can get here from there via commuter rail.)

Los Angeles is a desert hole surrounded by mountains. San Diego though between the sea and the mountains is very livable.

LA south of the Santa Monicas (i.e., "LA Proper", excluding the San Fernando Valley), has pretty much the same climate as San Diego - except that LA has a lot more of it, because LA's coastal plain is much wider, and the Catalina Eddy drives the marine layer much further inland.

As for all the comments about how hot the San Fernando Valley is, it all depends on where exactly in the Valley you're talking about.

I live in the Valley, at the base of the Cahuenga Pass, where the marine layer frequently penetrates - it's fun to watch the fog come pouring over the hills and through the pass.

Plus we have lots of trees, so the highest summer temp I've ever seen at my house is 99 degrees, and anything above the low 90s is rare. It almost always cools off to comfortable temps at night (Yay, marine layer!), and because of our trees, we only run our A/C about 30 days a year.

(The northern and western sections of the Valley, OTOH, are pretty much as hot as everyone says.)

Sherry, above, is quite correct - there are many walkable neighborhoods in LA, and getting more so all the time. "Nobody walks in LA" is yet another pop-media myth.

And speaking of pop-media myths, GM didn't kill the streetcars, either.

See historian Martha Bianco's Kennedy, 60 Minutes, and Roger Rabbit: Understanding Conspiracy-Theory Explanations of The Decline of Urban Mass Transit [PDF] for a thorough, well-documented explanation of how that particular myth arose.

Next: while Greater LA is fairly spread out, Whittier is only about 13 miles from the downtown terminus of the Red Line subway at Union Station; not the 35 miles that Steve Sailer claims.

(Though he's correct about retrofitting NYC's transit system to the much vaster expanse of LA.

You could drop the entire New York MTA rail system into the San Fernando Valley and still have room left over for Burbank - while leaving the other half of LA - "LA Proper", over the hill -entirely unserved.

And that's just the ~400 sq. mile City of LA - never mind the ~1200 sq. mile urbanized portion of the "Greater LA area" or the ~2000 sq. mile LA/Orange County/Inland Empire conurbation.)

And, lastly, I confess I'm really curious what route Henry Holland takes that requires 35 minutes to get from MacArthur Park to the hills of Silver Lake - a distance of about 3 1/2 to 4 miles.

I'm not saying it can't be done, mind you - but outside of rush hour it would only take me about 15 minutes - and during rush hour, maybe 20-25 minutes, tops.

The quickest routes from point A to point B in LA are seldom the most obvious. For, um, obvious reasons.

But still, Google Maps' suggested route, a fairly reasonable one, estimates about 11 minutes.

That's probably a bit optimistic, but it shouldn't take anything like 35 minutes.

Posted by LA MapNerd | May 8, 2008 3:04 PM

Wait. Scratch all that. What was I thinking?

LA is a terrible place: A hot, nasty desert, choking on smog that gets worse every year, with 24/7 gridlock, an all-day, all-night rush hour, constant fire-fights on the freeway, gangs everywhere, no transit to speak of, no walkable neighborhoods, and all the people are shallow, plastic airheads.

And It will all probably fall down and kill everyone in the very next earthquake - if it doesn't burn down in a brush-fire storm or get blown away by the frequent tornadoes first.

Everything Mike Davis ever wrote about it is true.

So, please, folks, don't even think of moving here. You'll be much happier in San Diego or San Francisco or Seattle - or even Phoenix.

I hear Austin is very nice, too.

You don't want to live here. It's horrible, and getting worse all the time.

Really. Trust me on this.

Posted by LA MapNerd | May 8, 2008 3:27 PM

yeah. also, no one seemed to bring up the fact that LA is the most densely populated urbanized area in the US. DC, Boston, Chicago, Philly, even NYC, even though they may have dense centers, more than make up for it with their extra-sprawly suburbs. Suburbs out west are waay denser than in the east or south (due to the lack of land caused by national forests, military land, and such), and LA is an outlier among even the West. Greater LA has pretty much hit its natural boundaries (ocean, mountains, desert, and a huge marine base down south). That's why we're seeing so much infill now. Also, LA DOES have an urban core. Central LA had a population density of 13,500 ppl/sq mi. in 2000, which is higher than the city of chicago.

This is from wikipedia:

Los Angeles has a long-standing reputation for sprawl; however, this reputation is undeserved. As of the 2000 Census, The "Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana" Urbanized Area had a population density of 7,068 people per square mile (2,730/km²), covering 1,668 square miles (4,320 km²) of land area, making it the most densely-populated Urbanized Area (as defined by the United States Census Bureau) in the United States.[6] For comparison, the "New York-Newark" Urbanized Area as a whole had a population density of 5,309 people per square mile, covering 3,353 square miles (8,684 km²) of land area.

The popular misconception of Los Angeles as a sprawling city may originate in the region's decentralized structure. Rather than being concentrated in a single downtown area, the region's major cultural, commercial, residential, political, industrial, and institutional resources are dispersed over an intricate, interconnected network. While the overall density of the city (municipality) of Los Angeles is low compared to some other large American cities (less than one-third the density of New York City, for instance),[7] this figure is deceiving in part because the region includes largely uninhabited areas such as parts of the Santa Monica Mountains and because many of the city's suburban satellites have densities among the highest in the nation.[8] The population density of the central area was more than 13,500 per square mile in 2000[2]. Within its urbanized areas, Los Angeles is noted for small lot sizes, low vacancy rates, and general lack of large exurban spreads. In inner areas, its not uncommon for people to share rooms or rent their living room to strangers. However, even in inner areas, buildings tend to be of very low height compared to other extremely large cities in part because of stringent earthquake buildings codes which increase costs and also because of mini-clusters of buildings spread throughout greater LA. Los Angeles became a major city just as the Pacific Electric Railway spread population to smaller cities much as interurbans did in East Coast cities. In the first decades of the twentieth century, the area was marked by a network of fairly dense but separated cities linked by rail. The ascendance of the automobile helped fill in the gaps between these commuter towns with lower-density settlements.

also... http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/05/mass_transit.php

Posted by Dan C. | May 8, 2008 4:26 PM

L.A. is both sprawling and multi-centric. (Multiple centers.) It does have a dense downtown, it's just very small compared to New York, Chicago, Philadelphia or Boston. But then, it also has Beverly Hills, Glendale, Long Beach, Pasadena, Century City, Burbank, Warner Center, Santa Monica, and a few others.

Long Beach, Pasadena, Glendale, Beverly Hills and Century City all have several hundred thousand residents, and 20-30 story buildings. This arrangement is like putting a dozen Dayton, Ohios or Rochester, New Yorks all right next to each other. (Or at least, in a 40 by 40 mile area.)

The Foulness: building a decent mass transit system in L.A.(which we are doing right now, verrrrrry slowwwwwly), wouldn't cost trillions, but it would cost about 50-60 billion. The Purple Line alone (Subway to the Sea) to Santa Monica would run $6.5 billion by itself.

The rumor now is that the LAMTA is putting a referendum on the fall ballot to reinstitute another 1 cent sales tax for future transit projects. Let's hope it passes.

Posted by Scott Mercer | May 8, 2008 5:39 PM

I suspect LA may have the highest density per square foot of floor space of any city in the country.

Posted by Steve Sailer | May 8, 2008 5:44 PM

Ah, the "LA is densest" argument appears again. It's a quirk of data definitions, actually, and much too wonkish for me to get into here. However, I will note that more realistic calculations of density put LA back into its place:
http://austinzoning.typepad.com/austincontrarian/2008/03/weighted-densit.html

That said, as long as you're prepared to drop your preconceived notions and forget about seeing 70% of the city, it's not that unpleasant to at least visit LA and rely on walking, biking, and transit. That relatively high density means that much of the city is within kinda walking distance of mini-mall retail (probably boasting Asian and Latin food to best anything back home), the trains are spotless and fast, buses cover most of the basin, drivers stop for crosswalks, and bicyclists on back street will find surprisingly light traffic. I don't know if I'd live there car-free, but I've spent as long as two weeks there with only sporadic car trips.

Oh, and since I've become a smug Midwesterner, I'd point out (in that passive-aggressive Midwestern way) that given global warming, today's Frost Belt will be tomorrow's Sun Belt - and today's Sun Belt will be tomorrow's Malaria, Hurricanes, and Drought Belt. Have fun, guys!

Posted by Payton | May 8, 2008 5:54 PM

Ah, the "LA is densest" argument appears again. It's a quirk of data definitions, actually, and much too wonkish for me to get into here. However, I will note that more realistic calculations of density put LA back into its place:
http://austinzoning.typepad.com/austincontrarian/2008/03/weighted-densit.html

That said, as long as you're prepared to drop your preconceived notions and forget about seeing 70% of the city, it's not that unpleasant to at least visit LA and rely on walking, biking, and transit. That relatively high density means that much of the city is within kinda walking distance of mini-mall retail (probably boasting Asian and Latin food to best anything back home), the trains are spotless and fast, buses cover most of the basin, drivers stop for crosswalks, and bicyclists on back street will find surprisingly light traffic. I don't know if I'd live there car-free, but I've spent as long as two weeks there with only sporadic car trips.

Oh, and since I've become a smug Midwesterner, I'd point out (in that passive-aggressive Midwestern way) that given global warming, today's Frost Belt will be tomorrow's Sun Belt - and today's Sun Belt will be tomorrow's Malaria, Hurricanes, and Drought Belt. Have fun, guys!

Posted by Payton | May 8, 2008 5:58 PM

Ah, the "LA is densest" argument appears again. It's a quirk of data definitions, actually, and much too wonkish for me to get into here. However, I will note that more realistic calculations of density put LA back into its place:
http://austinzoning.typepad.com/austincontrarian/2008/03/weighted-densit.html

That said, as long as you're prepared to drop your preconceived notions and forget about seeing 70% of the city, it's not that unpleasant to at least visit LA and rely on walking, biking, and transit. That relatively high density means that much of the city is within kinda walking distance of mini-mall retail (probably boasting Asian and Latin food to best anything back home), the trains are spotless and fast, buses cover most of the basin, drivers stop for crosswalks, and bicyclists on side streets will find surprisingly light traffic. I don't know if I'd live there car-free, but I've spent as long as two weeks there with only sporadic car trips.

Oh, and since I've become a smug Midwesterner, I'd point out (in that passive-aggressive Midwestern way) that given global warming, today's Frost Belt will be tomorrow's Sun Belt - and today's Sun Belt will be tomorrow's Malaria, Hurricanes, and Drought Belt. Have fun, guys!

Posted by Payton | May 8, 2008 6:01 PM

Ah, the "LA is densest" argument appears again. It's a quirk of data definitions, actually, and much too wonkish for me to get into here. However, I will note that more realistic calculations of density put LA back into its place:
http://austinzoning.typepad.com/austincontrarian/2008/03/weighted-densit.html

That said, as long as you're prepared to drop your preconceived notions and forget about seeing 70% of the city, it's not that unpleasant to at least visit LA and rely on walking, biking, and transit. That relatively high density means that much of the city is within kinda walking distance of mini-mall retail (probably boasting Asian and Latin food to best anything back home), the trains are spotless and fast, buses cover most of the basin, drivers stop for crosswalks, and bicyclists on side streets will find surprisingly light traffic. I don't know if I'd live there car-free, but I've spent as long as two weeks there with only sporadic car trips.

Oh, and since I've become a smug Midwesterner, I'd point out (in that passive-aggressive Midwestern way) that given global warming, today's Frost Belt will be tomorrow's Sun Belt - and today's Sun Belt will be tomorrow's Malaria, Hurricanes, and Drought Belt. Have fun, guys!

Posted by Payton | May 8, 2008 6:05 PM

Sorry, didn't mean to post thrice -- was getting multiple error messages. Dang software.

Posted by Whoops | May 8, 2008 6:05 PM

Regarding the Roger Rabbit theory of the Mass Transit Nadir: it was not all General Motors' fault (there were other factors at work), but GM, Firestone and Standard Oil WERE partially to blame, and were convicted in federal court of colluding to buy up and dismantle the streetcar systems all across the country.

What were some of the other factors at work? The main problem was that private transit operators (and the majority of streetcar systems were owned by private operators) couldn't make a profit. Because they couldn't make a profit, they couldn't upgrade their 20 or 30 year old streetcars. Because they couldn't upgrade the streetcars, choice transit riders stopped riding them because they were falling apart and old. Many of the systems DID make a profit during World War 2, due to gasoline rationing. Once the war ended, their money losing ways resumed, and most of the companies went under in the 1950's.
Court decisions forced power and light companies (which built many trolley lines in order to have a solid customer for their electric power) to divest themselves of the trolley lines under anti-trust concerns.

These private companies were required to maintain the streets they ran their streetcars on, in exchange for use of the right of way. Repaving streets was too expensive, adding to their financial woes.

The last point I will make is that those cities where the ownership of the streetcar systems was taken over from private companies by governments relatively early, still have streetcar service to this day, and it was never removed. This includes the cities of San Francisco (1912), Pittsburgh (1917), Toronto (1920) and Philadelphia. Removing the profit motive seems to have preserved a valuable public service.

Posted by Scott Mercer | May 8, 2008 6:08 PM

Regarding the Roger Rabbit theory of the Mass Transit Nadir: it was not all General Motors' fault (there were other factors at work), but GM, Firestone and Standard Oil WERE partially to blame, and were convicted in federal court of colluding to buy up and dismantle the streetcar systems all across the country.

What were some of the other factors at work? The main problem was that private transit operators (and the majority of streetcar systems were owned by private operators) couldn't make a profit. Because they couldn't make a profit, they couldn't upgrade their 20 or 30 year old streetcars. Because they couldn't upgrade the streetcars, choice transit riders stopped riding them because they were falling apart and old. Many of the systems DID make a profit during World War 2, due to gasoline rationing. Once the war ended, their money losing ways resumed, and most of the companies went under in the 1950's.
Court decisions forced power and light companies (which built many trolley lines in order to have a solid customer for their electric power) to divest themselves of the trolley lines under anti-trust concerns.

These private companies were required to maintain the streets they ran their streetcars on, in exchange for use of the right of way. Repaving streets was too expensive, adding to their financial woes.

The last point I will make is that those cities where the ownership of the streetcar systems was taken over from private companies by governments relatively early, still have streetcar service to this day, and it was never removed. This includes the cities of San Francisco (1912), Pittsburgh (1917), Toronto (1920) and Philadelphia. Removing the profit motive seems to have preserved a valuable public service.

Posted by Scott Mercer | May 8, 2008 6:12 PM

May I just say - this has been one kick-@ss thread. Lots and lots of very useful information. I always love these geographical threads!

I used to live in "the valley" from 1987-1989 - and I've gotta say, it sucked bigtime.

But, again - location location location. People here have mentioned Santa Monica - LOVED that area, although at the time, was much more "hippie funky" than it now is.

I stayed away from LA, for, serious, 15 years - from 1990 through 2005.

As a visitor, back in 1995 - LA seemed to have gotten a LOT better. The touristy areas - such as Hollywood - were not complete crack infested dives anymore, but serviceable tourist spots. Santa Monica, had completed it's transformation from old hippie standout, to neuveau riche tourist spot and upper scale condos.

And Ventura Blvd, has completed it's tranformation, into one endlessly regenerating strip of decent-cool stores and restaurants. (Seriously - has anyone ever noticed, that EVERY SINGLE STORE on Ventura, seems to repeated, every few miles, from Laurel Canyon to White Oak? It's like a Twilight Zone trip.)

Now, as a visitor, I'm sure the "bad" areas of LA have probably gotten worse - but there is no doubt that the "good" areas of LA, have gotten a lot better than 15 years ago.

A shout-out to decent urban planning (not great, in LA's case, but at least decent).

Posted by JC | May 8, 2008 6:43 PM

GM, Firestone and Standard Oil [...] were convicted in federal court of colluding to buy up and dismantle the streetcar systems all across the country.

No, they weren't. That's a myth.

They were convicted of using business practices forbidden by antitrust law to secure exclusive-supplier requirements contracts.

Specifically, they offered below-market-rate loans to National City Lines (a holding company they set up) to encourage NCL to sign agreements to use GM et al. as their exclusive suppliers of buses, tires, etc.

Such contracts are a routine business practice. Suppliers often offer various incentives - lower prices, preferred delivery dates, volume guarantees, etc. - to get purchasers to sign exclusive-supplier requirements contracts.

Such contracts are generally legal, but the antitrust laws forbade the use of below-market-rate loans as incentives for such contracts.

That (and ONLY that) is what GM et al. were convicted of.

(They were also charged with "attempting to monopolize ground transportation" in the US; but they were acquitted on those charges.)

And neither of those charges have anything to do with "colluding to buy up and dismantle the streetcar systems all across the country."

It's absolutely true that GM et al. *did* set up National City Lines (and some other companies as well, though NCL was the major play) as a holding company designed to make money from the ongoing trend of financially-failing privately-run streetcar lines being bought up and converted to new-tech (at the time) diesel motor buses.

But that trend occurred all across the country, even in places where NCL and its siblings were never involved.

(And in LA specifically, NCL acquired only the Los Angeles Railway "Yellow Car" streetcars; they had nothing to do with "Big Red Cars" of the Pacific Electric interurban lines)

NCL was just a way for GM et al. to make money from a fundamental shift in transportation modalities that resulted from market forces and social and technological changes; not some sinister corporate conspiracy.

And that shift would have happened with or without them.

The Bianco article linked above provides a detailed examination of the origins of the "GM conspiracy" story; Scott L. Bottles' Los Angeles and the Automobile: the Making of the Modern City (University of California Press, 1987) is a thorough and well-documented account of the history of transportation in LA; and Robert M. Fogelson's The Fragmented Metropolis: Los Angeles, 1850-1930 (University of California Press, 1967) provides a good overview of the evolution of LA's urban form, with a whole chapter, "The Failure of the Electric Railways", devoted to the demise of rail transit in LA.

Transportation planning in LA is a major challenge, but to plan effectively for the future, we need to understand how we got to where we are today.

The constant repetition of feel-good anti-corporate mythology does a serious disservice to those efforts, and impedes public understanding of our history and our future.

Posted by LA MapNerd | May 8, 2008 8:33 PM

And by the way, the idea that the citizens of LA loved and adored their quaint old streetcars, and were deeply saddened by having them heinously stolen away by greedy corporate conspirators is yet another myth.

Transit riders back in the day hated the "traction trusts" with the sort of passion that today is reserved for corporate miscreants like Microsoft - they were viewed as incompetent and untrustworthy suppliers of badly-needed public resources.

Most transit riders were greatly enthused about the new-tech rubber-tired buses with cushy upholstered seats that stopped curbside to pick up passengers, allowed new transit lines to be created and old lines to be re-routed to meet demand in just days or weeks rather than years.

They despised the old, broken-down rattle-trap trolleys with uncomfortable wooden-slat seats, that forced them to wait in the middle of the street in narrow "safety zones" while multiple lanes of auto and truck traffic whizzed past them on either side; that only served the distant developments of the real-estate speculators who built them in the first place; that mostly only went from central downtown hubs to those distant developments, requiring lengthy trips downtown and back to get from one suburb to another; and which couldn't be quickly or easily re-routed to serve changing demand patterns.

Customer demand was one of the biggest drivers of the trolley-to-bus transition.

To get some idea of how it felt to transit riders back then, take a look at these historic photos from 1950: The last old-fashioned wooden-bodied trolley on the Venice Short Line, and the sleek, modern, aerodynamic aluminum-bodied bus that replaced it.

Modern audiences, seeing those pictures through the haze of the faux-nostalgia that surrounds the quaint, vanished trolley cars, may prefer the trolley to the bus - but the vast majority of the citizens of 1950 who actually rode both of those vehicles most assuredly did not.

Posted by LA MapNerd | May 8, 2008 9:07 PM

Payton,

Thanks so much for the link. I'd always figured there was a way to figure out the density that the average resident of an area lives in, but knew you'd need census tract info and a whole hell of a lot of time.

Even with that new calculation, weighting areas for their population, LA comes up as number 3 in the US, behind NY and SF. That makes sense, actually.

The other statistic that I referred to does make sense, though, when talking about sprawl. It is completely true that the LA urbanized area takes up the smallest footprint of any US urbanized area.

I always say to fellow Angelenos, "if you can't walk drunk at 2AM to get incredible tacos, move."

Posted by Dan C. | May 9, 2008 3:30 AM

um.. I meant to write smallest footprint per capita

Posted by Dan C. | May 9, 2008 3:33 AM

Lots of urban Southern California is walkable. In LA, you have Santa Monica/Venice and many ethnic neighborhoods.

Here in San Diego, you have our very nice downtown area, Hillcrest, North Park, South Park, Mission Hills, Ocean Beach, and Mission Beach.

The difference I think is in the Northeast you can live without a car. Here middle class people in walkable neighborhoods may walk/bike/bus to work, but keep a car anyway for longer trips.

I walk to the grocery, to work, the the park, to the beach, to the bar, etc. But I still have a car which I drive so little I have not filled up in more than 2 months.

Posted by Amber | May 9, 2008 1:30 PM