r/geography • u/villehhulkkonen • 1d ago

La is a wasted opportunity Discussion

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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/OcotilloWells 1d ago

My impression is the beach towns are slowly becoming nothing but short term rentals, as those people die off. That's from my observation of Newport Beach, which admittedly is not LA.

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u/bagelman5000 1d ago

Manhattan Beach, Redondo, Hermosa, etc are very different from Newport Beach. People actually live there and have an entirely different existence than most of LA where they walk and bike everywhere instead of drive. It kind of awesome other than the fact that you can't buy a house for anything less than $3 million.

I couldn't believe how much Newport had changed last time I visited. It really did feel like a seasonal town that nobody actually lived in.

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u/OcotilloWells 1d ago

I used to know someone who lived there, real close to the beach. Like three blocks inland from the infamous house Dennis Rodman used to own, if you know where that was. Over about 6-7 years we would walk to the beach from her house. At first there were a lot of houses that clearly hadn't had a major renovation in 50 years, though they weren't run down, and gave the impression that the owners had lived there at least that long. But each time we went one or two of them were being totally gutted and remodeled, and in some cases bulldozed, and two story houses built in their place. It was kind of sad, as it was obvious the new/remodeled houses were all clearly being used for short term rentals. I don't blame the renters, but I got the impression a lot of them were owned by people (corporations?) who owned a lot of them, it wasn't like it was just the original owner's kids with the one house.

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u/carnutes787 1d ago

yeah by the time my folks sold their home (carlsbad area), the neighborhood was 50% air bnb or investment vehicles. no kids anywhere, no family, no community, really sad to see that.

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u/Stiv_b 1d ago

To be fair, Newport Beach, especially the peninsula, has had a lot of short term rentals for the 55 years I’ve been around.

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u/MysteriousHeart3268 1d ago

Carpinteria is a cute little beach town that is hilariously unaffordable. 

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u/5_star_spicy 1d ago

It is unaffordable but it also isn't being taken over by short term rentals. Those have always existed close to the beach, but most of the homes in Carp were built in the 70s and still occupied by owners or long term renters. The problem is there's been almost no new housing built in the last 30 years so the supply is non existent.

But housing aside it is the perfect small CA beach town.