Two Words Explain LA’s Woes “Beyond Build-out!”

This density has two types: (1) offices and stores, e.g. downtowns, and (2) residences, e.g. mixed-use projects and high-rise apartments. 

Los Angeles has a history of exceeding Build-out. It first occurred in the early 1900s when downtown LA became a congested nightmare, which ended up killing the old DTLA. In response, the City’s civil engineers produced the 1915 landmark study on city planning showing the mathematical relationships between various types of density, transportation, finance and quality of life. The key to LA’s future success was decentralization without densification. 

A basic principle was not to allow wealthy landowners to concentrate businesses such as offices and stores in a few areas.  By concentrating offices downtown or along certain main streets in the Basin, transportation would become a nightmare of congestion. The few landowners who were able to have extreme density on their small plots of land would be the beneficiaries of excessive density. Of course, corrupt politicians who approved such an assault on Angelenos’ quality of life would be handsomely rewarded. Today, Mayor Garcetti has his own nice charity (“charity begins at home,” don’t ya know?) where Samuel Leung can “donate” $60K and Rick Caruso can “donate” $125K and be assured of unanimous city council approval of their projects, no matter how far Beyond Build-out the area may be. 

Build-out Is Based on Facts; Garcetti Uses Myths 

As our non-politicalized civil engineers showed in 1915, Build-out is based on math and topography as well as finance. Just because a gaggle of greedy landowners, the LA Times, and avaricious politicos issue a community plan that calls for an insane degree of construction does not change reality. The 1988 Hollywood Community Plan permitted construction far exceeding Build-out. There is a mathematical relationship between office space density, where homes are placed, and the costs of transportation. 

When Bunker Hill or Hollywood & Vine have an excessive amount of office space and the bedrooms of the workers are placed in the Valleys, it is mathematically impossible to get all those workers into that small space without horrible traffic congestion. Judge Chalfant rejected the Millennium Earthquake Towers because they would attract so many cars that they would make the Hollywood Freeway non-functional. Same is true for Century City, DTLA proper, and West LA. The same rule applies when too many residences are crowded together in mixed-use projects. 

Subways and Fixed Rail Make Traffic Congestion Worse 

As the civil engineers proved in 1915, it is mathematically impossible for a fixed-rail system of subways, light rail, and trolleys, to provide access to DTLA and other dense cores like Century City.  In 1915 and in 2015, people will walk a maximum of ½ mile to reach a fixed-rail station. When the city expands beyond five miles from its core, it cannot serve its residents. It does not matter if every subway line ends in DTLA. What counts is whether people living in the Valleys can get to a fixed-rail station. It is mathematically impossible to construct a fixed rail system serving a 5,000 square mile urban area. We cannot limit analysis to just the city proper as if Beverly Hills, Inglewood, Glendale, Pasadena, Lynwood, Alhambra, etc. did not exist. People should stop with the hyper-emotional memes about walkability, Bike Lanes, and the joys of mass transit. Instead each person can figure out why a circular 5,000 square mile area cannot rely on fixed-rail. HINT: rail lines diverge in a circular landscape. 

The Vicious Fraud Cycle 

The time is overdue for the public to recognize the More Density and More Mass Transit Fraud.  

1) The city exceeds Build-out which creates congestion. 

2) The city claims a subway or trolley will solve the traffic congestion. 

3) The subway or trolley costs so much to construct and operate that the city claims that it must build more density along the rail route in order to have enough paying customers. 

4) The increased construction brings more people who bring their cars and the traffic becomes much worse.  

5) The developers demand city subsidies since not enough people will move into their high rises to make them financially viable, but enough people do move in them to make traffic much worse. 

6) Density leads to calls for mass transit which financially requires more density which requires more mass transit which requires more density. It is mathematically and financially impossible to construct a functional mass transit system other than buses and they need lower density. Mass transit serves about 4.1% of commuters.  In LA the percentage is declining. The claim that fixed rail transit improves traffic is a fraud. 

Decentralize and De-densify 

Because mathematics has not changed over the last century, the solution today is the same as it was in 1915 -- LA needs to decentralize and de-densify. A city is its people and LA is a dying city. People do not stay where the quality of life is deteriorating, and the cost of living is escalating. Hollywood foreshadows the destruction that Garcetti’s Manhattanization is bringing to all of Los Angeles. It takes time for people to perceive the Beyond Build-out problem and then they escape. The Family Millennials have already voted with their feet and others are following them. 

Hollywood Is the Dead Canary 

The Infill construction in Hollywood is vastly Beyond Build-out which is why most of the day Hollywood traffic congestion is unbearable. When people realize that an area is tipping, they flee.  Real estate values north of Franklin Avenue are softening. The fraudsters are still busily spreading their myths, claiming that homes prices will only increase due to the huge number of people clamoring to live in Los Angeles. As Dick Platkin showed in a prior CityWatch article, the claim is blatantly false. People are not coming here; they are fleeing. 

A city that is Beyond Build-out is a financial disaster in the offing.

(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney and a CityWatch contributor. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Abrams’ views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.