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Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)
71–80 of 188 posts
Re: Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
The density at least means you don't have to really run across town for much and can stay within a certain radius for most all your needs and wants. I mean look at the density of costcos alone. Many other metros might have 1 or 2 for the entire area. Then again a lot of other metros you basically can drive end to end in 25 miles.
I'm confused. LA doesn't strike me as dense. How dense can you get with huge areas of single family homes?
LA is the densest major urban area in the country. The MSA isn't dense cause it includes all of Los Angeles County which is half desert and mountains. But the built up area beats Chicago and New York cause it has consistent, medium suburban density, 7400 people per sq mi. The others have dense city, New York City is 29,000 people per sq mi, but the far suburbs drop off.
Re: Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)
#73I noticed most of the tall buildings are sixties to eighties. Some more info about that here. https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/artbound/a-brief-history-of-l...
Wikipedia has a nice visualization of the history of LA's tallest buildings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_L...
Re: Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
And don’t forget prop 13, there’s negative incentive for property to change hands and develop.
Do you own your home? Here in Ca? You know that property tax is 1.4ish % and goes up by 2% a year, pretty much no matter what? On a 1.5M house, that's starting at 17K a year and each year it goes up 2%, so it compounds. That's 17k a year Just to stay in your own home. People who don't pay property taxes here in ca, act like prop 13 means zero property taxes
While I think the goal of Prop 13 is laudable, a few reforms would cut some of the biggest downsides: it should be be for primary residences, where the named owner is the primary resident.
This would eliminate the tax break for commercial property, prevent it from being abused for second homes, and avoid the property trust shenanigans that have allowed some properties to change hands without a reset in the taxes paid.
Re: Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)
#75It'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.
I have a dumb question. What is the eventual of efficient land use? Say we bulldoze a bunch of single family homes and get 10x as dense. Now we have 10x as many people per square kilometer. Is that an efficient use of land? Will there be someone saying at 10x population density that it's an inefficient use of space? If yes, what would they propose instead?
Re: Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)
#76It'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.
There is also a completely unreasonable shortage of water for a much bigger city.
Re: Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)
#77It'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.
I have a dumb question. What is the eventual of efficient land use? Say we bulldoze a bunch of single family homes and get 10x as dense. Now we have 10x as many people per square kilometer. Is that an efficient use of land? Will there be someone saying at 10x population density that it's an inefficient use of space? If yes, what would they propose instead?
this is the same fallacy of saying there's no point getting a 10x faster server because you'll just have 10x more load and your site will still be slow.
Re: Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)
#78Well done! What an illustration of the amazing spirit of the founders, followed by the glacial movement as we allowed NIMBYs to take control through more and more laws.
Brilliant.
Re: Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm confused. LA doesn't strike me as dense. How dense can you get with huge areas of single family homes?
LA is the densest major urban area in the country. The MSA isn't dense cause it includes all of Los Angeles County which is half desert and mountains. But the built up area beats Chicago and New York cause it has consistent, medium suburban density, 7400 people per sq mi. The others have dense city, New York City is 29,000 people per sq mi, but the far suburbs drop off.
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Re: Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
My mom (who is 97) has a vivid memory of seeing FDR in 1935 -- the whole extended family took the the Red Car from Compton to downtown to see his motorcade. She remembered the electric trams worked really well, especially for folks without much money.
> worked really well, especially for folks without much money That's probably part of the reason they got rid of them. You still see that argument used against transit: "it will bring _____ to our part of town".
The trams went away because of cars and buses, not because of racism.