Leigh Christy & Ben Feldmann: 8 Questions on LA Urbanism
1. Given the current climate of economic crisis, governmental turmoil, and a general sense of stasis in the community, how can the city of eternal optimism take advantage of such a historic moment?
The current economic down turn presents a valuable moment of pause for Los Angeles to reflect on how to best serve our citizens, redirect the economy, and repair our environment. It is imperative to embrace this opportunity to holistically plan for the future. Rethinking development patterns and government priorities with respect to critical urban resources such as water, open space, and wildlife habitat should be a priority.
The region must work together to reassess investment in industrial lands and neighborhoods such as those adjacent to the Los Angeles River. Fulfilling the goals of river-centric plans including the Clean-Tech Corridor and the River Improvement Overlay will provide the framework for industry to work symbiotically with thriving ecology. Decentralizing the infrastructure associated with water and energy (e.g. implementing green streets instead of relying on central water treatment plants) will help shift development toward educational environments that prompt community involvement and stewardship. Executing a multifaceted vehicle for change such as the Piggyback Yard vision would then revitalize not only the River, but also the public’s confidence in change and civic engagement.
2. As large-scale interventions in the city decline and as urban issues are solved more and more at the micro level, how can we begin to look at the city as a whole again? And as the last, largest single-owner parcel of land in such close proximity to Downtown Los Angeles, what are the opportunities the Piggyback Yards provide?
Building upon the exploration of Los Angeles’s own Charles and Ray Eames and inspired by their movie, The Powers of Ten, improvements to the smallest of situations foster the potential to conquer the largest of systematic problems. The city can be as flexible and interconnected through its urban systems as any living organism. Using the example of stormwater, the combined efforts of Angelinos can begin greening the city through the insertion of gardens into the urban fabric. Conversion of paved areas to permeable surfaces alone can significantly impact the health of our environment and the security of our water resources.
Catalyst projects, like the Piggyback Yard, open people’s eyes to the possibilities of using space in a multitude of ways. In anticipation of the new high speed rail station, the Piggyback Yard and its surrounds are positioned to serve as the front door to the city while the river features as the heart of the Los Angeles region. A significant potential “container” for storm water, the site has the ability to be a crucial flood control device while simultaneously fulfilling the community’s needs: providing open space, jobs, housing, educational and cultural facilities. Systematically mapping such needs and probable impacts not only creates a narrative for the greater city, but also exemplifies the benefits of multifaceted programming.
3. As a city constantly defined and redefined negatively by its infrastructure, how does reconnecting the city to the Los Angeles River change the identity of Los Angeles?
The potential connections between the River and the city present an opportunity to redefine Los Angeles as a place that acknowledges the importance of nature in urban space – a civic honor bestowed upon a forgotten place. Reinterpreting predominant infrastructure such as rails and roads as community connectors rather than neighborhood dividers brings them back to their original function as facilitators of communication and commerce. With increased public access, the River becomes a visceral presence in our lives. It becomes a means to restore and celebrate the understanding that we are dependent upon fresh, clean water even within the most urbanized places.
4. With 365 days of sunshine and a diverse landscape of terrain, Southern California and Los Angeles have a variety of landscapes and ecological environments, why do you feel that the city lacks diverse public space? And why is public space such an important part of the contemporary city?
Southern California plays host to a diverse range of plant species. Los Angeles, however, is endemically a desert that is dependent upon the massive importation of water from sources beyond its immediate reach. A historical lack of comprehensive public planning then resulted in larger regional parks in lieu of a system of neighborhood parks. These regional parks comprise much of the area’s overall open space, but are out of reach from the densely populated communities who would benefit most. There is a clear need for the appropriation of open space that can be easily accessed and provide the program necessary to support local community needs.
Landscaped park spaces are merely one form of public space. Constructed spaces such as hardscaped urban plazas and community halls also satisfy the human need to form collective ethos as well as individual identities. However, nature-based park spaces are vital to the contemporary city as a means to promote health, culture, equality, and ecology. Such public spaces significantly impact both humanistic and environmental systems when they are contextual, multivalent and well-situated.
5. The Piggyback Yards/Mission Yard area is just one of the zones of investigation in the city which is rich in geography, community, and political economy. With projects and development on hold, how can the laboratory of Los Angeles find momentum?
Both private and public figures will need to come together and step up as leaders. Proactive designers and citizens do not have the hindrance of defined roles and loyalties. Now is an opportune time to draw out “hidden” connections and engage stakeholders, residents, and community members in a dialogue about the possibility for change – including the trade-offs and benefits of effective land use for the shared good of the region.
In order to push dialogue into action, the inclusion of research and proposals not only for planning but also for funding create an undeniably strong argument for policymakers to accept. Decision makers are created out of proactive leaders. There may be no better time for Los Angeles to rally as a singular group to define a framework for the future, starting with the Piggyback Yard’s creation of a new infrastructure benefiting the river, ecology, community, and economy.
6. As Los Angeles continues to evolve, issues of housing, density, and community surface as populations begin to form relationships in new and unplanned ways. Emerging interaction can also result in friction and unforeseen conflict. With such a diverse population, what kind of community must Los Angeles anticipate?
Los Angeles is a regional community composed of layers of diverse communities spread over the canvas of the Los Angeles Basin with instances of intermingling at their fringes. As Los Angeles grows in population, balance of development density and diversity will become intensely important.
There must continue to be places with which people can identify and feel included both as individuals and as Angelinos. These inclusive shared public spaces foster responsibility and stewardship. Increasing access to such meaningful open space as an outlet for cultural expression can ease the tension found in isolated communities and allow for a more regionally compassionate, civic community. These public spaces can deter the rise of small fiefdoms and the disintegration of familiarity in dense, potentially tense, regions – belying the distance and unfamiliarity that breed otherness and conflict.
7. Grand urban issues can seem insurmountable when viewed by the everyday person. What can you and I do to change the city in a positive way?
The first step is recognizing the problem; the second is allowing others to acknowledge it. Indeed, the small steps and actions of individuals can aggregate to provide the means of achieving significant impacts to the grand “insurmountable” urban issues found within the city.
Small steps such as becoming stewards of public space (pack in / pack out, keep eyes on the street, get to know your neighbors) and becoming stewards of leftover space (clean an empty lot, rejuvenate an alleyway, turn your front yard into a pocket-park) are simple examples of individual-scale positive change. Given the pressing regional issues of energy and water supply, sustainability and some degree of self-sufficiency can also result in responsible community gestures. In this scenario, the low-impact action of planting a shade tree minimizes individual air conditioning use which then decreases regional energy demand; replacing a lawn with low-water plants minimizes residential irrigation requirements which then decreases regional water demand.
Of course, participation in political and public processes cannot be understated, whether involvement is written, seen or heard. If we have do not use our voice, we may as well have no voice at all.
8. Right here and now, for you personally what characterizes the city of Los Angeles today?
The City of Los Angeles continues to represent a fabled place of endless possibility and an accumulation of individual hope. The process of discovery pervades everyday life, as the region’s density and diversity combine to provide bountiful hidden gems (new and old) to suit any taste. Its subtle seasons, with time passing both quickly and not at all, bestow surprises on Angelinos going about even the most mundane of routines – crashing waves in the River channel, wild parrots in Pasadena trees, grey skies during June gloom, or clear vistas of downtown across a rail yard.
The relative youth of the city and, ironically, its disorganization enable passionate individuals and ad hoc groups to make significant impacts. Los Angeles continues to reinvent itself as do its inhabitants, making the greatest challenge finding a collective voice that enables the city to speak as one while maintaining the integrity of what makes it rich. The question for the future becomes how to continue the narrative of discovery. A memory of time and place must be integrated into the city fabric rather than erasing the past altogether –leaving traces in the landscape via reinvention for discovery by future generations.
Tags: Ben Feldmann, city, LA, Leigh Christy, Perkins+Will, urbanism
