Problem with LA is that we build horizontally and not vertically. We keep adding more homes in suburbs and not building up in the cities that have the jobs. There's a big anti growth movement preventing high density housing. They have been successful in preventing high density projects like the Bergamot transit village(on a rail line too). Today we're voting on initiative that prevents large scale developments. If it passes, housing will get more expensive and traffic will get worse.
To fix the problem, we just need more affordable housing where the jobs are located and that means building upwards.
But why is this the case? Largely because land use (powerful local zoning + low holding costs for land) incentivizes sprawl over infill.
Consider cities that do better for transit by building upward. This is usually a case of a more sane zoning system, like in Tokyo[0], or ownership residing in the municipality, like Hong Kong.[1]
Fun fact: most zones in LA County require developers to build parking on a per-bedroom basis, so they tend to build ~2.5 stalls per unit, and most of the time that ends up being subterranean. That'll add ~$100k in development costs per unit right off the bat. They can sell the stalls individually (I believe) but because of the economics of the market it just doesn't make sense to build anything but luxury. That one rule is a significant cause of both sprawl and car addiction here, as well as more negative trends in housing availability.
Edit: If people are interested, here's the list of zoning requirements for Residential Zones in Los Angeles County.
Residential (and commercial) parking minimums need to be abolished. Set parking maximums if you must impose some rules, and then allow the market to settle on appropriate amount of parking for a new development.
I'm sure there's some research on this somewhere, but parking minimums have got to be one of the most distortive policies to ever emerge in urban planning.
Contributing factor: American cities are young enough they haven't had to pay for infrastructure replacement without bail-outs in the form of income from new construction that hasn't faced a replacement cycle yet, or the federal government.
To 'fix' the problem, the problem shouldn't be created in the first place. Require less cars and make people not need to go places all the time for a daily routine.
Adding stuff isn't a scalable solution. After you hit building height economics limits, you'll still have to fan out, and at the same time, having more people stuffed together in a smaller area makes for more people-problems, like foot traffic, air, water, sewage, trash, power, networking. At the same time you'll have more people needing things to do, like entertainment and work, which they will then all need to do around the same place, making everything worse.
Universal mass transit, and multiple smaller clusters instead of mega cities is scalable. But that's not what people seem to want, and thus problems get created and here we are.
Mass transit is much cheaper to build and maintain as density increases. Assume every building has 4 vs. 40 stories, now consider how many homes / jobs / shops are within 0.2 miles of a subway stop. Further, how many subway stops you need to pass on the average trip. That's the real benefit to building up, walking simply becomes more effective.
I live walking distance from a metro station that recently was added in West LA, and it's been interesting to watch properties nearby being bought, improved, and turned over. Value around the station is being stimulated by the presence of the station itself. Increased density is going to follow it, not lead it.
I think this makes a lot of sense. If you start building your transport lines connected to areas that are already high vitality/value, then what you've effectively done is reduce the "distance" between every stop along the line and those key areas.
Let's not add commercial value, this is about solving real problems, not making money. The constant mixing of those two is what creates problems in the first place. There is no problem in having a an economical positive impact with a solution, but not solving a problem purely because it would "only" solve problems for many people instead of also making a ton of money is a bad way to live (at least, that's what it looks like).
You seem to have misunderstood my point. As density increases it is easier to build subway stations because the value measured in terms of money or units of abstract social benefit goes up proportionally to density.
That does not imply subway stations should not be built in low density areas, it is just an observation that as density increases subway stations are easier to build.
Your completely right. If housing was much cheaper, everyone would be able to move closer to their jobs and traffic would decrease significantly. Compare 5 mile commute vs 50 mile commute -> almost 10 times less aggregate traffic.
Significantly improved housing situation => Less Traffic
Many people are not comfortable with the social environment of large >20-unit housing developments. The thing is, it's relatively easy to take full advantage of a 55-foot zoning ceiling (higher than nearly all of LA and most of SF as well) with buildings that have five or fewer units and entrances on the outside (possibly from a balcony). The reason large projects account for such a large proportion of units in development has a lot to do with the regulatory environment and high fixed costs of putting up a building (especially fees) which create barriers that can only be overcome by the kinds of large projects that most people don't like.
Parking requirements don't help, although I suspect that housing without parking tends to be a temporary residence; once the occupant can afford a car, they start trying to move. Building housing without parking is better if people can still own cars in spillover parking, but actually building spillover parking runs into the NIMBY problem where nobody wants to live near it. As a result the market for standalone parking spaces is extremely constrained and that's unlikely to change.
It's true that some people are just anti-growth but there are legitimate concerns being aired about the way that development seems to be going. Since the housing market is emphatically not free it's easy to see how the normal tendency of the market to give people what they want could be stymied and result in discontent. I started to think this way when, after about two years of pro-housing activism in San Francisco, I realized that:
- a lot of housing projects are opposed by the very sort of people they're supposed to be helping
- a lot of those people seem to be unhappy about the lifestyle the project offers them, or they find it unacceptable ("no pets, no smoking") and conclude they're being "pushed out" as "undesirables".
I can't deny that those are legitimate concerns. After all, I like pets and smoking. I also drive a car. How can I possibly ignore people who are mad that they're not allowed to have pets or smoke and it's becoming very hard to own a car? And this is why I say "people are not comfortable with the social environment". There are other concerns: noise, and low-noise requirements. Some people hate noise. Other people love to make noise. Should we plan for them to be separated by four inches of drywall? Is that even planning? Furthermore, poor people might benefit from collectivism, but they still like individualism. It's not surprising, considering our cultural history and capitalist economy, and the tendency of primates to imitate the behavior of high-status primates, that people like to "own" things and distinguish themselves and are turned off by the rhetoric of "community" (the trendy euphemism for "apartment building") and public spaces, especially when it comes time for them to find somewhere to live. It's easier to be an existentialist in an attic than an apartment. And it's these concerns that have made renting bearable in the first place: a lot of tenant's rights law has ultimately been justified by the American ideal that a person should be secure in their dwelling. That's not something I'd like to see go away.
The truth is, the majority of anti-housing advocates are not very good at economics and they don't really understand why the current policies are failing them. You can't figure out how to help people without figuring out how to help whiny, selfish, stupid people, because that's literally all of people. If the pro-growth side of the table continues to expect lifestyle to just happen while all the regulations focus on the numbers game, it's not going to happen, and people are still going to be mad at us. They have a good reason to be mad. They just don't know what to do about it.
> Problem with LA is that we build horizontally and not vertically.
This is an often repeated statement that is a myth. Los Angeles is the densest urban area in the US.
> There's a big anti growth movement preventing high density housing. They have been successful in preventing high density projects like the Bergamot transit village(on a rail line too).
IMO, this is the root of the problem. Areas like Koreatown and Hollywood are against adding more density despite it being the area that naturally should be the most dense. It has a variety of mass transit options, is in a central location served by multiple freeways, and is where many people work.
> Today we're voting on initiative that prevents large scale developments. If it passes, housing will get more expensive and traffic will get worse.
To fix the problem, we just need more affordable housing where the jobs are located and that means building upwards.
If that measure passes, it'll prevent the development of housing for the homeless and waste the $1 billion we voted to allot for that proposal. The proposal was brought forward by the head of the AIds Healthcare Foundation who has a history of sponsoring ballot proposals more for publicity than anything else.
> This is an often repeated statement that is a myth. Los Angeles is the densest urban area in the US.
Source? I would think both NYC and SF would be dramatically denser. A quick google supports this assumption. LA is ~5000 people / mile^2 and NYC is ~27,000 people per mile^2.
To fix the problem, we just need more affordable housing where the jobs are located and that means building upwards.