L.A.'s Complicated Dance Between TOD and Displacement

Judging from elections in November and March, L.A. residents seem generally in favor of transit and development. Nate Berg writes about how the city's rail-building spree, while beneficial in many ways, also exacts a social cost.

Pulling from UCLA research, Berg discusses the complexities of displacement, which some development boosters have a tendency to gloss over. "Much of this displacement is happening in neighborhoods surrounding the transit stations in L.A.'s growing public transportation network. Where transit grows, development and displacement seem to follow."

"'I think that we now know there is a dark side of TOD,' says [UCLA planning professor Anastasia] Loukaitou-Sideris. 'That does not mean we should abandon designing TODs, but it definitely means that we really need to safeguard some of these communities.'"

In some places, neighborhoods have effectively organized to limit the scale of development around rail lines, another sensitive point after the city's vitriol-laden fight over the defeated anti-development Measure S. 

Berg points to another recent ballot item that may help. "Proposition JJJ, approved by Los Angeles voters in November 2016, requires that new development projects set aside a certain number of affordable housing units and incentivizes the creation of affordable units near transit stations and corridors."