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PLANNING WATCH - Given LA’s shabby appearance, how could the city possibly host the 2028 Olympics? For the city’s boosters, with one foot in the past and the other foot at City Hall, the answer is obviously YES.
But if there were an Olympic medal for urban decay in a city burdened by nearly insurmountable problems, Los Angeles would be a definite contender. While the following list is not complete, it is daunting enough for the NOlympics group to use it for additional talking points.
Out-of-date General Plan elements. The convention among city planners is that local plans should be updated every five years, and citywide plans on a 10 year cycle. Unfortunately, nearly all of LA’s General Plan elements are out-of-date. For example, the General Plan Framework was adopted in 1995, and no update is scheduled. The Safety Element is 41 years old, and the Conservation Element is 24 years old. Air Quality was adopted in 2003, 22 years ago. The Noise Element dates to 1999; Infrastructure to 1972; Public Facilities to 1969; and Open Space to 1973. LA’s 35 Community Plans are also old. 14 are slowly being updated, and most other Community Plan updates do not even have a start date. For example, the Wilshire Community Plan was last updated 24 years ago, and no update is scheduled.
Damage from the January 2025 wildfires remains, and only a few parcels out of the 11,000 destroyed have been remediated enough to rebuild. Redfin estimates the total damage to residential properties in LA at $51.7 billion, and this figure excludes commercial properties and public infrastructure.
Overcrowding and homelessness are still rising in Los Angeles. As I have written previously, the causes are not a mystery. The price of homes has sextupled and apartment rents have tripled, when controlling for inflation and 50 years of stagnant wages. In addition, HUD public housing programs ended, beginning with the Nixon Administration in 1973.
Beat-up sidewalks and streets: When visitors arrive in Los Angeles for the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Olympics, they will experience decrepit sidewalks and streets. If they wonder why, they will discover that Los Angeles settled a 2016 lawsuit by committing to spend $1.37 billion over a 30 year period on sidewalk repair. So far City Hall has spent $226 million, with little to show for it. 3000 projects remain, with no scheduled start dates.
Los Angeles has this country’s largest street system, and LA is the only major US city without a capital infrastructure plan. Mayor Karen Bass hoped to remedy this with Executive Directive #9: Streamlining Capital Project Delivery and Equitably Investing in the Public Right-of-Way.
Will Executive Directive #9 make a difference? Facing a billion dollar deficit and City Hall layoffs, the answer is not likely.
Treeless streets in Los Angeles. Los Angeles provides guides to Angelinos on what and how to plant boulevard trees. Despite this, Los Angeles remains the only SoCal city without systematic tree planting on its parkways and boulevards. It is not because of LA’s climate, with no rain from April through October. Other nearby cities, like Culver City and Santa Monica, have managed to plan appropriate boulevard trees. The barrier faced by LA is proper funding for tree planting. Until this is corrected, Angelinos and visitors will encounter many treeless streets.
Look, ma. No trees.
This list is hardly definitive since visitors can watch former City officials serve time in prison because of corruption, while City Hall simultaneously lays off hundreds of employees due to a massive budget deficit. Furthermore, deporting undocumented workers and imposing taxes (i.e. tariffs) on imported goods, will increase prices so much that a predicted recession could become a depression.
It won’t be pretty, but it is avoidable.
(Dick Platkin ([email protected]) is a retired LA city planner, who reports on local planning issues. He is a board member of United Neighborhoods for Los Angeles (UN4LA). Previous columns are available at the CityWatchLA archives.)
