The city that never evolves

“Welcome to Los Angeles International Airport. Temperature is seventy-one degrees Fahrenheit with a few clouds. Visibility is hindered by a thick layer of smog, as is typical of L.A. Your time now is 3:28pm Los Angeles time. Please keep your seat belts fastened as we taxi to the gate. As your captain, I would like to thank you for choosing to fly with us. We look forward to serving you again in the near future.” *Ding!*

As I arrived off the plane, fresh with east-west jet lag and a bitter longing for Manhattan, my emotions plunged into familiar feelings of resentment—resentment toward L.A. Feelings that I usually keep at bay by cruising West Hollywood or taking the Red Line downtown. So deep was my resentment this time that not even the subsequent Grey’s Anatomy celebrity sighting could uplift me.

4pm: I dragged my suitcase to the FlyAway bus stop, coughing on car exhaust and persistent smog as I waited... and waited... and waited for a bus that was to pick me up from LAX and take me to the Valley, all in rush hour traffic. For what seemed like an eternity of waiting, I had nothing to do but dwell—dwell on all the ways that New York is better than L.A. Before this turns into a L.A-bashing article, I will point out that in L.A. the streets and sidewalks are a lot cleaner. But aside from aesthetics, New York is fundamentally different from L.A. As I waited still for the FlyAway bus in front of the United Airlines terminal, I decided to list all the ways that New York is better than L.A. I had gone a considerable way into my list when I realized, is it fair to compare apples to oranges? New York and L.A. are both cities, qualified as such by characteristics as being large and overpopulated. But does L.A. even qualify as a real city?

So instead of listing the ways in which New York is better than L.A., it seems that L.A.’s inadequacies may be explained by the premise that L.A. is not even a “real city.”

So set in my thesis, I listed the top 3 reasons why L.A. is not a real city, which I will present now:

1. No public transportation (the bus doesn’t count)— In all of the major cities I’ve been fortunate enough to travel to, they all have been able to boast one common thing: an intricate public railway system, supplemented, of course, by an equally intricate bus system. London, Paris, New York, even Prague all have an extensive rail system, in addition to buses. And they haven’t stopped expanding them. L.A. has some rail—a mere 73 miles of track for a city stretching 500 square miles. It is not nearly adequate or interconnected enough to serve the whole city. You can’t even get to LAX via rail. And don’t even think about going by bus, unless you’re in the immediate vicinity of the airport.

Bus travel in L.A is inherently complex, and not in a good way. While bus service is available all over the city, it is riddled with transfers and traffic inefficiencies that it makes the entire system an option of ultimate last resort. No automobile-owning citizen of L.A. would willingly take the bus, understandably so. A bus system as complex as Paris’ rail system does little to benefit a city defined by traffic.

2. No pedestrians— Unless you’re on Hollywood Boulevard on a Saturday night, you’d be hard pressed to find a pedestrian in L.A. who isn’t waiting for the bus, walking to a bus stop, or walking to their car. In New York, I was suspicious of an empty sidewalk. It seemed foreboding, almost like a ghost town had suddenly sprung up. But it was rare to find an empty sidewalk.

Pedestrians bring life to a city. They give it a sense of community and intimacy. Without them a city seems sterile and vacant, and even lonely. L.A. has a lot of empty sidewalks.

3. No public space— In New York, there’s a park on every corner; and people utilize them. Rome has public squares where people can, and do, eat, socialize, and collect a few euros by posing as human statues. Sure L.A. has parks, but how many people actually go? Most childless Angelenos go to the mall more often than they go to a park.

For a city with 8,000 people per square mile it is remarkable that the most interaction we have with complete strangers occurs on the freeway in our cars or at the check out line in whatever stores we frequent.

While L.A. has much to boast, like aesthetic cleanliness and fair weather, I fear this city, which has been my home since birth, has become complacent, relying on its reputation of glitz, glamour, and good weather to keep its appeal. But with the economy going the direction it is, L.A.'s leaders and planners need to step up and start giving Angelenos the services and spaces they deserve.