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The Hollywood sign debuted 100 years ago

latimes.com

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Re: The Hollywood sign debuted 100 years ago

#91

Post by rtpg »

twblalock wrote: post #47
rtpg wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that loads of people are fine with apartments because of the price/convenience/location. If you ask a young couple "would you rather pay $1500/month to be in an apartment or $3000/month to be in a SFH", you think everyone is choosing the latter?

Once they have kids, almost everyone who can afford it chooses a home in the quietest and safest neighborhood they can get into. Apartments are fun when you are young and want to live downtown and enjoy the restaurants and the night life. When you get older and want your home to be a refuge and raise a family, apartments really suck.

I understand that, but it turns out you still need a place to live in beforehand, even in that narrative.

and of course it is possible to have a refuge while being in shared housing. Like big apartments do get built! Not for everyone and like you said people want a nice refuge. But it’s possible to build large apartments with good insulation where people have their privacy, while simultaneously offering (for example) huge shared parks and close access to commerce or schools. every shared housing thing doesn’t turn into Manhattan.

Re: The Hollywood sign debuted 100 years ago

#92

Post by rtpg »

DocTomoe wrote: post #69
rtpg wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a false choice presented here, about choosing to live in high rise/high density. Even NYC basically peters out to low rises just out of brooklyn! The overall problem, though, is that these density restrictions cause a nasty spiral. People looking for work are asked to move to one of these cities where their bosses own these wonderful homes. They mostly have to rent. Rent is high. Supply is low, so it's hard t…

> There are ~no good rural jobs. This depends on your definition of a 'good job'. If this is about pay, yes, wages in the countryside are lower - but so are living costs. If I average over my contacts, people working rurally seem to be generally happier with their occupation, though. > and other whining from people who would rather have their yard than replace that with a larger public park... If I have the choice be…

Many places have decent sized parks that are maintained and safe, and offer bbq pits or the like.

Perhaps not the US or many parts of the world. But like… I dunno, I was in Brisbane the other day and they had huge places with more amenities my back yard will ever have. It’s not the same as the best yard, but it’s better than most peoples yards.

Re: The Hollywood sign debuted 100 years ago

#93

Post by treeman79 »

sircastor wrote: post #24
cocacola1 wrote: post #15

I'm glad they dropped the "land" part. "Hollywoodland" doesn't have the same ring that Hollywood has.

Always makes me think of “The Rocketeer”. That probably pins me to a particular generation.

Wanted to show that to my family. Put on rocket man by mistake. Was extremely confused for several minutes.

Re: The Hollywood sign debuted 100 years ago

#95

Post by aa-jv »

scoofy wrote: post #13

People need to remember the Hollywood sign was for a housing development at the edge of town in Los Angeles. That's how long it's been, and we've added almost no density, and eternal sprawl.

I lived in one of those hanging apartments depicted in the postcards, up there in Beachwood Canyon, for a period during the 80's and early 90's .. in my particular place, it was old and decrepit and run down, but the 'developer' had sauced up one of the upper levels sufficient to a working kids needs .. I will always remember the peril I felt, looking up at the slowly reclining detaining wall, earthquake memories borne in its cracks, and wondering why the heck someone would do this.

The answer is in the dreams that everyone had, in that house, over the decades. Those hills are a pretty haunted lot. Something about the tension of the Earth, in my opinion, that can be felt if you listen long enough ..

Re: The Hollywood sign debuted 100 years ago

#96

Post by sokoloff »

frosted-flakes wrote: post #35
twblalock wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s because people want to live in low rise buildings. The average person in California (and in the rest of the country) desires to live in a detached home that they own. It is not wrong to want that. However, it is definitely wrong to assume that high-rise apartments are “proper” density and that LA is doing it wrong. LA is the way the people live there want it to be. If you want high density and high-rise living…

The average person has no choice but to live in single-family homes. That doesn't mean they want that. Your solution of 'move somewhere else' is completely tone-deaf. Furthermore, you completely ignored mid-rise housing, and the fact that it can be seamlessly mixed in with SFH without significantly changing the feel or character of the neighbourhood. Oh The Urbanity made a great YouTube video about this recently wher…

If those mid-rise buildings have their own parking and residents there are not able to get resident street parking permits, I’d be quite prone to support it.

If the first of those is falsified, the mid-rise has a negative effect on the nearby properties. If the second is falsified, that negative effect is significantly amplified. Our part of the city of Cambridge has slightly less street sparking space than cars for the houses here. That’s made up for by about 2/3 of the houses having private driveways (which take one street spot for the curb cut, but often add 2-4 parking spots). Place even a 6-story mid-rise with no parking and 40 cars for its 8 cars worth of frontage and it creates chaos in a way that a triplex or SFR doesn’t.

Re: The Hollywood sign debuted 100 years ago

#97

Post by kuschku »

twblalock wrote: post #53
nocsi wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rest of this century is dedicated to undoing the zoning practices of a certain generation.

Millennials are entering the home buying market in large numbers now, and it turns out they want detached single family homes in quiet suburban neighborhoods, just like everyone else . It is important to be very clear about this because the HN crowd seems to have a massive over-representation of people who like dense living arrangements: the vast majority of Americans want to live in a detached home that they own, an…

Right now, many adults in LA have to share a single family home with several other adults, living like college roommates, because otherwise they can’t afford rent.

Even just the european solution of mixing rowhouses and 3-5 story apartment buildings would fix that. In fact, it would significantly increase density and reduce cost, in turn reducing commute times for many people.

Even an apartment can be built well enough that you don't have to worry about sharing walls with neighbors. My neighbor is regularly watching movies at THX reference volume, and so am I, and neither of us can hear each others' audio.

With land value as high as it is in LA, it's worth spending money on improving the quality of construction, so people can share walls with their neighbors without any of the negatives usually associated with it.

Re: The Hollywood sign debuted 100 years ago

#98

Post by sokoloff »

brenns10 wrote: post #87
twblalock wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Millennials are entering the home buying market in large numbers now, and it turns out they want detached single family homes in quiet suburban neighborhoods, just like everyone else . It is important to be very clear about this because the HN crowd seems to have a massive over-representation of people who like dense living arrangements: the vast majority of Americans want to live in a detached home that they own, an…

It's important to be very clear: you're misrepresenting the options! It's not a choice between suburbia and Manhattan. It's a choice between exclusionary, backwards suburban zoning (which is subsidized by denser development due to the increased cost of utilities for sprawling development), and literally any more sane option. Let people build duplexes, corner stores, local markets, and get rid of the cul de sacs. That…

You seem to be arguing that people who want to buy (or at least live in) housing of type X should not have their ability to do entirely blocked by land use laws that make them illegal.

That makes logical sense yet in the same post you propose to “get rid of the cul-de-sacs” which is a type of land use that many people genuinely prefer, even if you don’t.

Re: The Hollywood sign debuted 100 years ago

#99

Post by scns »

It was in a bad shape when Hugh Heffner moved to LA, he started a campaign to get it restored IIRC. He did a lot civil rights and ending segregation too. The southern TV stations objected to him showing black entertainers and talking to them in his TV show, he stood by his values. And he gave a voice to Martin Luther King and Malcolm X in Playboy. Source: the documentary about him on Amazon Prime, highly recommended.

Re: The Hollywood sign debuted 100 years ago

#100

Post by smcl »

sologoub wrote: post #38
eganist wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your own reference seems to confirm OP's point that sprawl, not density, is what increased. Relatively few places in the greater LA area have properly dense housing projects, and you just have to look across LA from vantage points along either Mulholland drive or Rancho Palos Verdes to see for yourself. Plenty of opportunity for high-rise and even more mid-rise projects, but nearly everything is low-rise. Thankfully…

NYC density: 26,403 people per square mile (source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_New_York_Cit... ) Hollywood density: 22,193 people per square mile Koreatown density: 42,611 people per square mile Source: https://maps.latimes.com/neighborhoods/population/density/ne... Yes, greater LA area also has a lot of what people like to call “sprawl”, but it’s a big place and has many different neighborhoods.…

They're not saying "LA sucks" they're just saying that LA as a whole is low-density. Koreatown has ~130k inhabitants, Hollywood has less than 100k - these are two, small but relatively-dense areas in a city with a population in the millions, whose density works out at ~8.5k/sq mile.
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