Architect Frank Gehry attempts to take both sides in Los Angeles' controversial Playa Vista project, one of the biggest land developments in the city's history.
"For the developers of the project, which would combine offices, apartments, hotel rooms and parkland on one of the largest buildable lots left in the city, Mr. Gehry offered not just the prospect of distinctive buildings, but much-needed marketing sizzle after years of bad publicity.On the other side, the environmentalists who have picketed, chained themselves to bulldozers and filed lawsuits to stop the project hoped they could persuade Mr. Gehry..to help them finally kill it. They want to transform the 1,087-acre waterfront property into wetlands and a public park... Mr. Gehry's clever effort to take both sides mirrors in many respects this city's struggle over how to manage growth and its most nettlesome consequence, sprawl...the development poses a fundamental question: whether the answer to the sprawl slowly choking Los Angeles is to bring more -- though smarter -- growth deep within the city, as city officials and the developers contend, or to put a stop to it once and for all, as the environmentalists demand."
Thanks to Abhijeet Chavan
FULL STORY: Open Battle Over Little Piece of Los Angeles
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