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Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)

lax-skyline.parcelscope.net

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Re: Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)

#21

Post by slg »

suncemoje wrote: post #15
enjoyyourlife wrote: post #3

Nice! Would be better if it shows the difference between the ocean and other land

Agree, I personally also think dark mode never goes well with a map-based app...

Especially with this sort of map regarding this specific city. For example, Beverly Hills is a separate municipality contained entirely within the borders of Los Angeles. It appears here like an empty black space no different from the ocean, lakes, mountains, and parks also scattered around the city. The styling of this map makes it impossible to tell if an area is truly undeveloped and if so, why. Throw in the way there appears to be arbitrary selection criteria for some buildings outside city limits that make them appear as lone buildings in undeveloped space, and I think it adds up to potentially give people a wrong picture of the area.

Re: Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)

#22

Post by rustywasm »

losteric wrote: post #5

[flagged]

This started as a data puzzle. There is a lot of public data but it's hosted by for-profit companies and the data models don't seem to be coherent (probably lots of good reasons for the data models being the way they are, so no criticism, and it's wonderful they are public.)

So for LA City, they use Socrata (owned by Tyler Technologies -- NYSE: TYL) to host and publish open data. LA City also uses Esri's ArcGIS for geo-based data.

So behind the scenes there is my code that builds a parquet database of * MyLA311 service requests * Permits * Construction Enforcement * Crime * Parcels Id with Polygons * Lidar

So that part was a typical data-munging exercise, and it was fun & interesting to me to learn how public entities try and deal with IT budget cuts and service the community, etc. (For example, 311 requests for homeless issues are transferred to another department, so they all look they are closed immediately, but I never could find the agency data that ultimately resolved that type of request.)

So I have a pile of data that is organized in a way that makes sense to me, but I could not build an interface that I liked.

So I asked Claude to create a fly-over visualization to see what it could do with this data, and it blew my mind.

I'm a life-long coder and I'm old, so it's an interesting experience to see how good these models and coding harnesses are, and how quickly they are improving.

As to what makes this HN worthy? I enjoyed playing with the interface, and there might be more people than just me who love LA (warts and all) and its history and architecture. So it's interesting and I'm not asking for anything in return, so for me that satisfies the "HN Show" criteria.

The deeper question for me right now is what does hacking mean when the coding is done by these systems? It's a different kind of hacking, and its makes things possible that impossible before, but it's a million miles away from 6502 assembly.

Re: Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)

#23

Post by fortran77 »

rustywasm wrote: post #22
losteric wrote: post #5

[flagged]

This started as a data puzzle. There is a lot of public data but it's hosted by for-profit companies and the data models don't seem to be coherent (probably lots of good reasons for the data models being the way they are, so no criticism, and it's wonderful they are public.) So for LA City, they use Socrata (owned by Tyler Technologies -- NYSE: TYL) to host and publish open data. LA City also uses Esri's ArcGIS for g…

No need to justify yourself to some bitter, petty, sad troll. Let the upvotes and discussion speak for itself. I love seeing other people's vibe-coded projects come to life. I've re-started a bunch of stalled hobby projects thanks to AI.

Re: Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)

#24

Post by rustywasm »

ericzawo wrote: post #12

Having moved to LA this february, the sprawl is really something I had no true appreciation for until I moved here for real, and tried to run errands across town. It's a gigantic, beautiful, complicated place.

One the experiences for me that never gets old is coming in to LAX (flight path East to West) and the sprawl just goes on forever. The other crazy thing that 60% of the population speak a language other than English at home. So I think it has one of the best options for cuisine in the world, because it's all there (somewhere!)

Re: Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)

#26

Post by rustywasm »

slg wrote: post #21
suncemoje wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree, I personally also think dark mode never goes well with a map-based app...

Especially with this sort of map regarding this specific city. For example, Beverly Hills is a separate municipality contained entirely within the borders of Los Angeles. It appears here like an empty black space no different from the ocean, lakes, mountains, and parks also scattered around the city. The styling of this map makes it impossible to tell if an area is truly undeveloped and if so, why. Throw in the way t…

Yes, good point. The LA City data was rich, but the other communities have data in other places. I will see what I can do.

Re: Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)

#27

Post by mag7269 »

toyg wrote: post #19

They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot.

Paradise? LA was a big giant horrible underdeveloped wasteland in Spanish/Mexican times which, at the time in 1849, had 1,600 residents. Most of them had a largely pastoral life and life was brutal there.

LA under US rule is the prime example of what industrialized people can do to a place that lacked nearly everything of what it is at this moment: a world-class city.

Objectively, if it had stayed under Mexican rule, it’d resemble Yuma at best or Tecate at worst. I should know, my family lineage goes back to that era to both sides of the border.

Re: Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)

#28

Post by epistasis »

It's amazing how little has changed in recent years in LA. The massive downzoning of the 1980s had its effect: prevent efficient land use, and channel money into the hands of landlords and homeowners from all newcomers.

LA is a ridiculously unaffordable place to live, not because it's nice, but because of an artificial shortage of built space, due to a monopoly on the permission to build.

Re: Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)

#29

Post by sgt »

ZeWaka wrote: post #7

Bit misleading since it only shows properties still standing, seemingly. So the older periods look extremely empty.

This is one of those 'hey, I can vibe code this in a weekend' projects. Just look at how the AI decided to the entire map in dark mode, making it nearly impossible to tell the ocean and the land apart.

Re: Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)

#30

Post by neilv »

A complementary view of one point in time is the LA Noire video game's attempt to recreate a (condensed and simplified) 1940s LA environment, with 3D architecture, cars, and ongoing expansion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGPh2AcmG2A

The storytelling atmosphere is somber film-noire-ish, but there's simultaneously a feeling of national prosperity and potential for many (with notable unjust exceptions), like I think fewer people feel in more recent decades.

Would also be interesting to try to convey that kind of change over time, in an immersive way.

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