Density Isn't New For Los Angeles

"There has been much hand-wringing and some angst of late over the upsurge of big residential projects downtown and in other parts of Los Angeles. The new apartment and condo towers, as well as mixed-use projects, are anxiously portrayed as the "first sprouts of a vertical cityscape" or a "testing ground for a vision of a dense, taller L.A," according to stories in The Times. Some even decry "the Manhattanization of Los Angeles," which, they say, would threaten the city's suburban, single-dwelling character.

All this fretting misses an important historical fact: L.A. has been an urban place with plenty of multifamily housing for a century now. Yet this image runs contrary to all we think we know about our hometown in the early 1900s. What about all those Craftsman bungalows and stucco cottages on private lots? we ask.

True, Los Angeles did have many single-family dwellings. But that's only half the story. In 1924, the Eberle Economics consulting firm calculated that 167,000, or just over half, of the city's 328,000 housing units were detached homes. The remaining units were in duplexes, four-flats, bungalow courts and apartment houses of every description.

This ordinary part of the urban landscape did not fit the powerful Arcadian myth crafted by local boosters, however. These growth-driven business leaders and real estate speculators tirelessly promoted Los Angeles as a "city of homes" -- a suburban paradise for homeowners of all classes -- to distinguish it from other cities competing for new residents. In fact, as of 1930, the proportion of single-family dwellings in L.A. was lower than that in San Diego, Miami and Denver."