Dear Bay Area: It’s Time to Listen to LA & Stop Fighting Change

Denser apartment complexes and ground-floor retail are replacing parking lots, strip malls and suburban sprawl. Residents and visitors alike are recognizing the power of pedestrianism. The populace remains extraordinarily diverse, and the downtown population has more than doubled in less than a decade. Meanwhile, light rail to the beach and job centers is so popular that the transit agency is rushing to build more trains. Believe it or not, I’m talking about LA. That LA. The one that we Bay Area people love to hate (and, by the way, LA just doesn’t care).

Yes, LA is still plagued with apocalyptic traffic, many parts are racially segregated, and housing is still more expensive than most of the country. And, yes, as an LA-native, I can personally attest that the city’s robust entertainment industry has left it with more “plastic” people per capita than anywhere else in the world.

But about 15 years ago, LA started addressing its problems. Civic leaders began promoting walkable neighborhoods and expanding transit portfolios. LA is home to a whole slew of environmental and economic justice organizations that have played an enormous role in forcing the city to come to terms with air quality and climate change.

You see, LA wants to be an economically and environmentally sustainable place to live, and to do that it has to build up and get (at least some) people out of their cars. Not only did the city look around the world for solutions, it looked in its own backyard at places like Santa Monica and West Hollywood, both smaller, independent cities surrounded by LA that became the crown jewels of urban living in Southern California.

Like Silicon Valley and the Peninsula, LA is indeed covered with strip malls and has lots of space to build, but LA is actually building — and changing. Change is the story of the city, and even in today’s current housing climate, the narrative of change even resonates in San Francisco.

Just look at Downtown LA: in 2000, the area was home to only 27,900 people. In 2007, the year I left LA, the population was just under 33,000. Today, over 58,700 call “DTLA” home — and just think about how many more will live there once the 10,000 housing units under construction come online! In an era when LGBT nightlife faces an uncertain future, multiple gay bars have opened in DTLA. The same conundrum faces Jewish delicatessens, but even downtown has the new Wexler’s Deli and a substantial Jewish residential population to fuel nearby Langer’s. The renaissance inspired by the infusion of people has been dramatic, turning an area largely spurned by well-off Westside and San Fernando Valley residents into a wealthy residential center in its own right.

And that ghastly, mostly-cement ditch that cuts through the city? Well, there are plans to restore the actual LA River — and create beautiful 11-mile ribbon of greenery to cut through the city while increasing fresh water retention to survive the California drought along the way. It reminds me of the foresight San Francisco had when it finally removed the collapsed Embarcadero Freeway and the 101 extension, creating a stunning waterfront and an entirely revitalized Hayes Valley.

This change didn’t happen in a vacuum. It happened because voters demanded it and were willing to pay for it — and the politicians listened.

But Southern California isn’t immune to its own NIMBYism. In the name of so-called neighborhood integrity (which is ultimately no different than the racially-charged phrase of “neighborhood character” that we hear in San Francisco) and environmentalism, 50 celebrities placed an ultimatum on Mayor Eric Garcetti to dramatically shift LA’s planning policies away from smart growth. Never mind that these celebrities can afford to live in gilded bungalows far from transit and that smart growth has long-term positive impacts on climate change by keeping people out of cars.

Fortunately, LA has a long way to go before this NIMBYism attempt undoes over a decade of momentum towards real and lasting development in its housing and transit politics. In 2007, NIMBYism suffered a near-fatal blow when Congress finally overturned a law that prohibited federal dollars from funding subways in central LA. Courts continue to smack down NIMBY attempts by Beverly Hills (which is its own city) to prevent the proposed Purple Line subway from expanding underneath its famed high school as it heads toward LA’s Century City and Westwood.

Having run out of virgin land to build long ago, LA continues to reinvent itself to be more livable for its residents. Its citizens and leaders realize that the region cannot continue to sustain and create wealth without remaining accessible to its workforce. Change is inevitable and denser infill development is the only possibility. There’s nowhere left to sprawl. Much of the density isn’t in the form of Manhattan-style high rises, but rather in the form of mid-size, six- to ten-story structures a la DC, Paris, and London, and most are centered near current or future transit corridors and commercial centers.

I want my contemporaries who are Bay Area natives to have the privilege that I do, which is to know that there are achievable, if even affordable, housing options in or near the communities where they grew up. LA offers this chance, but too many Bay Area cities, especially San Francisco and Palo Alto, do not.

Perhaps San Francisco can take a few cues from LA and start building up — in the right places. After all, change is very much in our DNA. Our city and the wider Bay Area are at the forefront of both technological and social change. How much longer can we sustain this irony of not doing our part to change our physical landscape in ways that have lasting social and environmental benefits?

I know that my radical ask for Bay Area residents to think kindly towards LA is an enormous request that requires many here to swallow their pride, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Like LA, the Bay Area won’t suddenly stop creating jobs. We in the Bay Area have a choice to make: Do we let the status quo undermine the vibrant economy and culture we cherish, or do we find the political will to build?

Update: The day after I published this piece on August 25, the Bay Area Council announced a City Trip to Los Angeles for September 19–21 to learn from LA.