Adaptive Reuse Ordinance

Vintage multi-story brick apartment building and modern concrete and glass apartment building separated by a steep public stairway in Los Angeles, California.

Good As New: The Vital Role of Preservation in Solving the Housing Crisis

Preserving historic buildings and existing affordable housing stock has the potential to ease America’s dire affordable housing crisis and promote equity, inclusion, and justice.

August 11, 2024 - Bonnie McDonald

Downtown Los Angeles Punching Above its Weight in Residential Development

Shane Phillips shares the results of his own analysis about how completely Downtown Los Angeles has dominated the supply of new housing units in the city since 1999.

September 10, 2014 - Better Institutions

L.A.'s Reuse Ordinance: A Victim of its Own Success

Los Angeles's landmark adaptive reuse ordinance has been credited with helping to spur downtown's dramatic growth over the past decade. However, developers now find it cheaper to build new than reuse the area's historic structures.

January 31, 2013 - Los Angeles Downtown News

An Idea to Help Spur L.A.’s Cleantech Revolution

City officials and leaders are considering an adaptive reuse ordinance for industrial buildings, modeled on the one that helped spark downtown L.A.’s residential boom, to help push forward the sputtering vision of a "CleanTech Corridor."

October 19, 2012 - Los Angeles Downtown News

The Ordinance Behind the Rebirth of Downtown LA

For the latest in a series on the laws that shaped Los Angeles, KCET's Jeremy Rosenberg examines 1999's Adaptive Reuse Ordinance, which made possible downtown's wave of condo conversion projects.

April 4, 2012 - KCET Departures

FREE Course: Walkable City 1: Why Walkability?

After describing his path towards focusing on walkability as the essence of good planning, Jeff Speck marches through his five principal reasons for making more walkable places.

Reinventing Malls: Planning Alchemy—Turning Gray Fields Into Gold

The course focuses on the opportunities and imperatives that shape reinvention of mall sites.

Top Books

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Top Schools

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100 Most Influential Urbanists

The who's who of urbanism, according to Planetizen readers.

Urban Planning Creators You Should Know

A short list of voices on social, video, and podcasting platforms.