Placemaking LA
Mayor Garcetti’s recently announced Great Streets Initiative got me thinking about how Los Angeles uses its streets compared to other urban cities. While the region has some long, important thoroughfares (Wilshire, Sunset, Figueroa, and PCH immediately come to mind), few would argue that they are on the same level of the Champs Elysees or the Mall in Washington DC. LA’s major boulevards often have great settings and go through interesting neighborhoods, but an important ingredient that makes streets great is missing - place . Like pretty much any public problem, both the public and the private sectors are to blame. Let’s look at where they’ve fallen short and what they can do to improve our streets: More of this. The Public Sector - Lack of public space . Look at Wilshire, Sunset, Figueroa, and Pacific Coast Highway on google maps and you’ll see that these 4 major thoroughfares combined have only 2 major parks along their entire stretch - MacArthur Park on Wilshire and Exposi...