Every time I'm on the west side of LA I think about how we could have built a gorgeous, walkable city like you see all over the Mediterranean, but instead we got LA.
Of course there's a little glimpse of it in that part of LA, but you still just can't easily live in LA without a car.
Los Angeles grew up as an automobile city with boulevards and freeways, and looks it.
LA is the way it is due to the history of how it was developed. It's a desert city and they had to develop large tracts at one time to finance the water infrastructure to bring water in from elsewhere.
LA was spread out like it is before it became the poster child for the cult of the car. It was like that when it was served by trolleys and foot traffic.
I don't know what the solution is going forward, but planning around cars is not how that got started in the case of LA.
LA is pretty walkable, thats part of the reason its not very drivable. Limited road capacity. It actually wasn't even designed originally for the car, it had an extensive electric rail system.
LA was built before the cult of the car. It sprawled when trolleys were the norm there. The reason: It's a desert. It made no economic sense to develop it in little bits. They had to develop large tracts at a time to defray infrastructure costs related to importing water.
I actually live in LA, without a car. It’s perfectly feasible, and actually pretty convenient (and a lot of the times, yes, even faster than dealing with car traffic!), if you live in an area walking distance to a frequent transit stop (admittedly not everywhere, but definitely okay coverage, and it’s only expanding).
LA being antithetical to transit is... really a stereotype. The entire city (and even much of the county) is built along the old streetcar lines and the red car network (the largest streetcar system in the world back in the 30s!), which existed until the 60s. It’s a city built for transit and a city where transit is being heavily invested in again — because only relying upon cars turned out to be a failed experiment.
As a fun tidbit of things to come:
By the 2028 Olympics, LA is hoping to have completed a metro line connecting the Valley to the Westside via the Sepulveda Pass within 12 minutes — a journey which takes the average driver during rush-hour 55-65 minutes to complete on an ever-expanding Highway. Once it’s finished, it’s projected to be the busiest single rail line in the US, surpassing any in New York City even.
I don’t know why you’d want to live in the LA area and not own a car. One of the things that is actually nice about southern california is the ease with which you can go to the beaches, the mountains and other beautiful places and realistically you need a car to do these things. You don’t have to drive at rush hour.
I lived in LA for quite some time, and had a car for only about 20% of that time .. I walked everywhere, otherwise. And despite the myth, its quite possible to live and work in LA without a car .. you just have to realize that LA is a big city-of-cities, and recognize the paths connecting those cities. Of course, things got a lot easier when the LA rail lines were built (alas, not to their original design) .. this certainly made it possible to commute to downtown easily enough, from any one of a number of desirable living neighborhoods.. and for everything else, the bus lines were perfectly usable. You just have to disregard the cultural programming that only 'poor people and other lower classes' use public transportation.
Lived in LA for 15 years, Los Feliz area. For most of that time I didn't have a car - I just walked. The weather was always great, Ralphs close enough, Trader Joes, and so on. When they opened the subway, it was almost perfect - would've been better if it actually made it all the way out to the beaches from down-town.
LA truly is a beautiful city if you take the time to check out the non-tourist areas. I'll always remember the delightful, warm purple afternoons in Silverlake and I'll always have a bit of LA with me wherever I go.
I moved to the bay from LA when I was 17, having lived in both relatively sense Beverly Hills and a relatively sparse part of the Valley. I instantly couldn't believe how much better quality of life could be when you're not surrounded by a fetish for car travel, no matter the cost. The creepiest part is the Stockholm's Syndrome exhibited by all my friends who couldn't make it out of LA[1]. The logical contortions they had to go through to convince themselves that the downsides of a car-centric city don't exist were laughable (while everyone I know who lived elsewhere would happily admit that upsides to a car-centric city exist, but argue that they weren't worth the tradeoff).
(I should note that this comparison is no longer as dramatic, since LA has started making at least certain areas denser and more accessible)
[1] I graduated college during a time when the LA economy was sputtering, while SF, NY, London, Seattle, etc were booming, so the only people who stayed in LA were the ones who didn't have much going on.
LA gets vilified for being sprawling and car-centric, as if its love of cars is why it sprawls. This is not true. It sprawled from the beginning before cars were the norm. It is rooted in the high cost of building infrastructure in a desert and how that necessitates building large tracts in one fell swoop to make the financing make sense.
Los Angeles sprawled before it became the center of gravity for the cult of the car. It was like that when people were getting around via street cars and on foot.
Its sprawl is rooted in the logistics of desert development. You had to develop large tracts to cover the costs of the water infrastructure. Without water infrastructure, you weren't going to develop anything.
There are myriad forces that shape given cities. I'm disinclined to accept the notion that our current car cult mentality is inevitable, irreversible, etc. and we can't do anything good anymore "like they used to do."
For sure, each suburb has it's own sort of "downtown" area in LA. But just because you can sort of walk around some parts of LA doesn't make it a place where spontaneity can thrive. As soon as you throw necessitating a car into the mix you lose that.
If you are from Europe and you have never visited California, then you have a lot to learn about our crazy transportation. Most of California, and especially Southern California, is car-centric. Los Angeles was the first large city that was built up after the invention of the automobile, and it really shows. Living in LA without a car is a pretty atypical behavior.
I have lived in West LA for a couple of years, but spent most of my time in Australian 'cities' like Canberra and Darwin, but am also familiar with Sydney and Melbourne.
Large suburban cities without freeways suck (poor/incomplete public transport is assumed). Look at a map of Sydney or Melbourne and LA at the same scale. Compare the density of freeways. I really value the convenience that LA's grid of freeways provide. To have a car based suburban city without freeways seems the worst of all choices.
Ironically, the suburb/city of LA my parents live in (Glendale) felt extremely walkable and not suffocating.
My parents live in a residential area that looks like your average American suburb - no stores, just houses and cars. But if you walk west of their house for 10 mins, you go to a large boulevard full of restaurants, shops, and people hanging out. It felt like a nice balance, but I doubt there are many jobs in there for the residents, so most do make the highway trip to LA proper.
Not just because of the time. But because there is hardly anywhere to live that isn't filled with cars AND walkable.
It's nice that the city has become a lot more walkable - but it's not that enjoyable walking alongside what is basically a highway - I.E. Hollywood, Sunset, and Santa Monica Blvd.
It's such a shame that the city with some of the best weather in the country, and that would otherwise be great for biking, is the city with one of the strongest car cultures in the world.
Of course there's a little glimpse of it in that part of LA, but you still just can't easily live in LA without a car.
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