r/geography • u/villehhulkkonen • 1d ago

La is a wasted opportunity Discussion

Imagine if Los Angeles was built like Barcelona. Dense 15 million people metropolis with great public transportation and walkability.

They wasted this perfect climate and perfect place for city by building a endless suburban sprawl.

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u/contextual_somebody 1d ago

Greater Los Angeles has the second highest population density of all US metros. This isn’t surprising to people who have actually lived there. It’s walkable. There’s a subway. Etc

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u/vivekadithya12 1d ago

That's a ranking of metropolitan areas, not the cities themselves.

Most metropolitan areas mentioned on that list have dense urban cores (downtowns), suburbs, satellite cities that stretch over a very very big area.

Los Angeles is a very very very populous city that's distributed much more evenly across the entire metro region compared to the other cities. It's much more like a 1000 little towns collectively identifying as LA. So on the whole, it does feel a lot less dense except for a few pockets like Downtown, Hollywood, Culver City, Santa Monica etc.

Secondly, the subway barely covers a decent chunk. Walkability isn't just "the ability to walk around" - it's more about getting to everywhere, do everything by foot and public transport. You may walk to your local groceries and handful nearby places but you can't make it to the other end of the city or the airport without a car.

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u/Vin4251 1d ago edited 1d ago

(Not directed at you specifically, but at a common sentiment I see from east coast suburbanites): I really never understood and will never understand how people from say, the Philly suburbs or DC suburbs think that their metro areas "feel a lot more dense" than LA's just because they have a tiny city proper that's denser than DTLA. Those metro areas are basically like 95% of the USA: no sidewalks outside of the city proper, every road is either a cul de sac or a high speed arterial, and amenities are not just far from home but far away from each other and from workplaces. That makes them overall worse for car dependency, because they might have commuter rail, but on average 75% of vehicle miles traveled in the US are for non-commuting errands, and suburban areas of east coast cities tend to be way worse for those than LA's suburbs.

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u/PolarBearJ123 1d ago

Exactly this

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u/Yotsubato 1d ago

the airport

I mean they’re working on that one.

Sucks that they couldn’t shell out for a direct single metro train ride from LAX to downtown though. And instead opted for people mover bullshit

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u/poilk91 1d ago

no its not, its horrible for walking no one who lives in LA would tell you otherwise and the subway coverage is an absolute joke. And I say this as someone who grew up there and made a point to live on the redline after highschool so I wouldn't have to drive as much. As far as density goes its low-medium density really consistently and packed fairly tightly over a huge area that makes the overall area dense, but it has very very little of the urban density you see in east coast cities

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u/AllAboutGameDay 1d ago

I lived in DTLA for years. I walked and biked to work, the grocery store, the movie theater, and to bars, restaurants, distilleries, museums, parks and more. I used the metro to get outside of DTLA often. About the only time I'd need to drive was to get to the mountains to hike.

Same thing when I lived in Ktown. Heck, I was even able to take the Metrolink to work in DTLA when I lived in Fullerton.

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u/poilk91 1d ago

there are some pockets of LA where you can get away with it but its a big sprawling place and the vast majority of its residents aren't in downtown. Fullerton is OC not LA and I really like it, but you would have to be really disingenuous to call it walkable there are a couple blocks near the train you could argue it but again thats a few hundred units an a tiny part of the population/area. In OC the experience of walking to any grocery store at minimum includes hiking across a football field sized parking lot with 0 shade, I mean its physically possible to walk places but thats not really what we mean when discussing walkability

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u/AllAboutGameDay 1d ago

No disrespect, but if you think walking across a parking lot alone makes something not walkable then we are just have very different definitions of the word. I've also lived in Lake Forest and Huntington Beach - in both I was able to walk to a grocery store in under 10 minutes without crossing a major intersection. That is walkable to me.

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u/poilk91 1d ago

If you dont ignore 90% of what I'm saying I think it will make a lot more sense to you

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u/AllAboutGameDay 1d ago

Or maybe you just consider relatively short distances unwalkable? No, that can't be it - only your perspective has value.

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u/poilk91 1d ago

Yeah except that was literally the best case scenario which 99% of people don't have but yeah if you only considered able bodied people ages 18-55 it's fine except for summer.

As of this moment I am driving past a highschool with no sidewalks and the only way to the neighborhood across the street has 4 lanes of 50mph traffic and there are overpasses across the highway with barely 2 foot wide side walks with no protection from the 50mph traffic and are currently obstructed by cars park on them. So yeah it's not just that you have to walk short distances actually

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u/AllAboutGameDay 1d ago

In Lake Forest I could walk to multiple Highschools within 20 minutes, plus a grocery store, my doctor, and my dentist.

Clutch your pearls harder I guess. Have a good one.

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u/poilk91 1d ago

Okay great no one said there weren't some places you can walk. I'm not clutching pearls this is the basics of urban design walking on the side of the road because there aren't side walks is in no way walkable

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u/contextual_somebody 1d ago

Lived there for years. You need a car to get from Santa Monica to Fairfax, but Santa Monica and Fairfax are both very walkable. Try living in Kansas City, or Jacksonville.

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u/deathbyvote 1d ago

Depends on where on Fairfax but a train can take you to Santa Monica but you might need to transfer via bus

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u/poilk91 1d ago

I just dont think you know what walkable means. I'm in a relatively quiet part of LA right now visting family. The closest grocery store is 1.5 miles away across 2 6 lane intersections one of which is a feeder into the 91 and I would have to walk all the way around a shopping center or cut across several parking lots to get there. It's not the least walkable place in the country obviously no one is trying to say that but the reason everyone drives is because walking anywhere for your necessities is dangerous unpleasant and unrealistic unlike actually walkable places where you dont have to risk your life multiple times sprinting across a suburban freeway just to get a gallon of milk

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u/contextual_somebody 1d ago

I have lived in LA, NY, and Britain also cities in middle America. When I lived in LA, I lived in the Fairfax District, Hancock Park, and West Hollywood. When I wasn’t working, I seldom drove unless I was visiting someone on the West side or Pasadena. I have lived in cities where you literally couldn’t do anything without driving.

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u/DecisionDelicious170 1d ago

Nobody is saying it’s as bad as somewhere like OKC.

We’re saying for it’s supposed density and population it’s atrocious compared to European or New England cities.

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u/poilk91 1d ago

Well good for you theres certainly walkable parts of LA I dont think anyone would argue that, but its just not within reach of most of its residents. Its certainly more walkable than rural Iowa but when looking at other similar sized cities around the world almost all American cities are very very poor in terms of walkability and LA is just bad when compared to other American cities like NY DC Boston Chicago and even other west coast cities like SF Portalnd Seatle etc etc. So I just have no idea what kind of curve we would have to be grading LA on to say its not unwalkable

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u/contextual_somebody 1d ago

Here you go, bub.

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u/poilk91 1d ago

Here you go honey bun

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u/contextual_somebody 1d ago

LOL. Did you read it? Los Angeles is 12th out of 141 cities. ROFL

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u/poilk91 1d ago

lol did you? Just behind every single contemporary city in the US and Canda and worse than all its neighbors in southern California. But hey its better than Mobile Alabama so we call it a win?

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u/Educational-Rice4058 1d ago

its only walkable if your standard is cities in the us. Otherwise it's dogshit lol. That's so funny, la has a higher rate of violence towards cyclists and pedestrians than other cities, and the fucking sidewalks are garbage with cars going by you 50 miles an hour in major streets like sunset. Even koreatown, the best part is still like this btw. Absolute Dogshit, but decent by American standards I guess.

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u/TrynnaFindaBalance 1d ago

Aren't they also massively expanding the metro in advance of the 2028 Olympics?

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u/contextual_somebody 1d ago edited 1d ago

They are. When I first lived there, there was no subway or light rail. It’s amazing how much they’ve built since they first committed to it.

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u/beastwork 1d ago

Yes it is a highly populated city. Certain parts are walkable, but the public transpo and bike options are poor. Without that piece of the puzzle you simply end up DRIVING and not walking very much.

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u/Low-Tree3145 1d ago

Unfortunately, LA's population density is so evenly spread out that it doesn't lend itself to being served by a transit system. NY's density is structured around the subway system.

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u/DecisionDelicious170 1d ago

Yea.

Bologna.

Trying to get across to different towns that aren’t technically LA city?

Way faster to just ride a bike.

Anyone who says LA has decent public transport has never been to Frankfurt, Paris, Berlin, etc etc.

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u/contextual_somebody 1d ago

Who TF is talking about Europe?

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u/thrutheseventh 1d ago

Go visit any european country please. Or japan

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u/contextual_somebody 1d ago edited 1d ago

I’ve lived in Europe and NYC. We’re talking about America.