The Paragon Of Sprawl Tries Its Hand At Urban Design

"For the first time in a long time, there are a number of people within the city family who feel that our streets can be great, our neighborhoods can be so much better, our corridors can be beautiful, and that focusing our development around transit is a reality-but all done in a way that takes care of our public realm, from your home's door to the office door."

"We have not, in many, many years, worked on our public realm. We've had a one-dimensional approach to our streets. In fact, for all of L.A.'s 6,500 miles of streets, the city has only about nine basic cross-sections for how a street should work. And none of those cross-sections considers the human dimension of that street. So the first area of urban design deals with humanizing the public realm, and we can't take a one-dimensional approach; it really has to be comprehensive."

"We are looking at the mix of land uses, and we are looking at the relationship of the land uses to transportation. But we are not honing in on issues like affordable housing. We also think that any standards, guidelines, or principles that we are developing should apply across the board to all neighborhoods, whether they are in Boyle Heights or Brentwood-that each one of those neighborhoods deserves the same quality of treatment. Finally, visitors to our city should experience a memorable, walkable, easy-to-move-around-in city."