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/SnifflesDota 1d ago

This is a thing that surprised me after visiting LA (I'm from EU), you have such an amazing weather for outdoors year around and there is no cycle lanes, no pedestrian friendly walking routes it is all just grid and cars, very odd.

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u/DarthSamwiseAtreides 1d ago

We're improving. We got kind of screwed by laws back in the 60s. Those are finally getting overturned. Single home zoning isn't prioritized any more so desnser housing and transit are starting to happen. Going to take a while though.

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u/Beatbox_bandit89 1d ago

I will second this - LA is really improving. The expo line, the Westwood extension, airport line etc. It doesn’t sound like much to non-Americans, but there aren’t that many US cities that are adding new subway lines.

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u/See5harp 1d ago

Bingo. People talk shit about LA but there are constant super projects getting built there. Barcelona is impressive city tho.

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u/stellabril 1d ago

I'm just going to say, it's great that things are starting to improve but you still have old guard neighbors who do not want a transit line next to them treating it like it's still small town LA.

Plus, though people say the weather is okay just ask the Valley. Anything before the mountains in LA or by the coast is perfect weather. But nothing else beyond that.

Final thing is, while it's a suburban sprawl, the geography with the valleys and mountains just does not permit it. I think it's understandable that the suburban sprawl tries to have its own little cities in them and that's where you will need transit.

But just now developing it is too late. I'm sad by the fact but maybe after this generation, it will indeed get better. Maybe 30 years from now.

You still have sprawls that have massive parking lots yet in places like Studio City or KTown, everything is no parking. Then you wonder about the transit system. LA is trying to be small town when it wants to be a city.

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u/saracen0 1d ago

The geography comment is spot on. It’s also very expensive to build in LA because of designing for earthquakes. Not unique to LA but definitely makes a more expensive city to build in even pricier.

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u/cookiedougz 1d ago

Expensive to build because of regulations

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u/Grablicht 1d ago

Why Barcelona???

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u/See5harp 1d ago edited 1d ago

Cause Barcelona was mentioned in the OP as a attack on Los Angeles and I have been. Very nice subway, walkable but also 24/7 party city. Very unique it’s like a combo of crazy urbanism but also crazy history and architecture and art and food. Also cocaine. It’s like if Greece had a working economy and allowed the British to use their city like Tijuana. I think this year there was actually a lot of protests because of the price of housing is now too expensive for locals to survive in the city. It's essentially a short flight for British so the young people def fly there or Ibiza and short term rentals and air bnb is messing things up. It's honestly been this way since the barcelona olympics. Imagine if a city like NYC was 2 hours flight from a richer country but also they hosted like a large outdoor festival every weekend of every summer. But it still is NYC and there are tons of cruise ships docking there and tourist all over the city all the time. That's what Barca is like.

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u/Grablicht 1d ago

I lived the last 3 years in London and have visited Barcelona before that. I have no idea what you are talking about. I'll never visit Barcelona again.

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u/See5harp 1d ago edited 1d ago

You don’t go to Barcelona for the huge Music fests in and around the port ? You don’t go to Ibiza? Most of the people who party there are Englishmen. Oh you actually mean why is Barcelona an impressive city? I dunno to most Americans that scale of city and public transit with things to do is going to be impressive. Even nyc is not that connected to some areas and nyc does not host festivals of that scale ever really.

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u/Will_Come_For_Food 1d ago

OP is talking about how it currently exists though it’s currently a wasteland and it’s going to take an enormous amount of work to turn LA into the kind of architectural. Wonder that Barcelona is if you research how Barcelona became a city it’s incredible how quickly the city was built. LA is going too slow. We could make a decision tomorrow to invest and start building in a dense urban wonder

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u/See5harp 1d ago

Honestly the bones of the city have been there for long time but turning the port into tourism party central that really was pushed when the Olympics were hosted. I’m not sure how you go backwards as far as home prices or rent tho. It don’t really matter how much you build at if people can’t afford. The way that some Americans are they still believe in buying houses and making insane drives. I don’t think other countries have this issue. I’ve stayed in tiny little apartments in Barcelona way outside the city center that took 40 min subway. It still prob was not even as far as Long Beach to Los Angeles. People here commute from IE.