WorldChanging: Can Los Angeles Become the US' First Regional City?

Can Los Angeles Become the US’ First Regional City?

Among many in the planning and design professions, there is a morbid fascination with Los Angeles. It sometimes seems like good news from Los Angeles is better for its improbability. Some of this is fair, since from an urban design perspective, Los Angeles didn’t get much right. It is, in Mike Davis’ words, a place where “Monolithic public works have been substituted for regional planning and a responsible land ethic.” In fact, LA’s problems are so large, and in some ways, so iconic (immigration, ‘natural’ disasters, traffic, sprawl), that sustainability still seems a distant dream. But Los Angeles has an asset that doesn’t yet know it’s an asset: its decentralized urban form.