7. Los Angeles

Los Angeles, ‘City of Angels’, is a sprawling city from downtown Bunker Hill, an area extending from the foothills to the coast, with new Century City and older Pasadena, modern Hollywood and Culver City, from Santa Monica to Santa Ana, LAX and Long Beach, with numerous other locations having their own distinctive characteristics.

It was Reyner Banham* that described Los Angeles under ‘The Architecture of Four Ecologies’: ‘Surfurbia’ (the beaches), the ‘Foothills’ (valleys and canyons), the ‘Plains’ (flatlands and ranchos), and ‘Autopia’ (freeways, ramps & parking lots).

In each area are found different communities, inhabited at times and places by well-off heterogeneous communities, at others by distinctively separated racial communities in run down lots, divided by intersecting highways or tracks.

Mike Davis** described Los Angeles as a ‘City of Quartz’, addressing ‘the contradictory impact of economic globalization upon different segments of LA society’.

With its various challenges from the Watts Riots in ’65, the gangland territories of ’72, the Northridge Earthquake in ’94 to the recent Palisades Fires in 2025, the city has suffered from many social, racial, geo-physical and economic challenges.

In such a vibrant region, Kevin Starr***, the narrator of ‘California’ and the ‘Coast of Dreams’, has highlighted the contemporary evolution of the State of California through its inherent agricultural and oil resources, economic strength yet water scarcity, and despite its intermittent physical catastrophes.

In Southern California the pivotal role was played by the ‘City of our Lady Queen of the Angels’ through its local economy and media industry through the generally hedonistic pleasure-seeking inhabitants and visitors in this auto-dependent region.

Now both Los Angeles County and neighbouring Orange County with their size and scale contain ‘poly-nodal centres’ of settlement and extending ‘edge-cities’ that are being inter-linked by criss-crossing freeways, between coast and canyons, ‘suburbs in search of a city’.

With the 2028 Summer Olympiad XXXIV to come (LA28), new facilities are being designed around Long Beach, under a spirit of ‘car-free games’. Despite increasing numbers of electric and autonomous vehicles and gradual extension of the LA Metro system, is this likely to become a new reality in Greater Los Angeles.

Will it lead to stalling the ever-increasing rate of car ownership and parking provision in the County? Will congestion charging be introduced? Will we see a return of the original Streetcar network? Will pedestrian and cycleways be really effective? Will the new Metro lines be ready? Are air-taxis going to be used? Or are the organisers really living in ‘La La Land’?

There are just 3 years left for the Organizing Committee to demonstrate their plan. Or will it be just a 17-day fix?

*Reyner Banham – The Architecture of Four Ecologies – Pelican, 1973.

**Mike Davis – City of Quartz - Verso, 1990.

***Kevin Starr – California – Penguin Random House, 2005 and Coast of Dreams – Allen Lane, 2005.

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6. Chicago