Twenty years ago, Los Angeles voters chose Tom Bradley's "world city" vision over a slow-growth councilman's carping about overdevelopment. Voters may face the same choice - and one of the same candidates - in 2009.
"Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and L.A. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky have been sniping at each other over the densification of L.A. for weeks now. It began when Yaroslavsky got exercised about how Villaraigosa's planning department was increasing densities all over town – often in clever, technical end-runs around Zev's Prop. U, the 1986 initiative that cut densities in half on most commercial strips."
Several snarky articles in local newspapers have bolstered Yaroslavsky's complaints. But Villaraigosa fired back while addressing a recent regional transit summit. He said the anti-development crowd can't oppose every development in the city, and claimed that when his constituents complain about gridlock, he challenges them to get out of their cars and take the bus or the train.
