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\u201cThere are three great cities in the United States: there\u2019s Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York \u2014 in that order,\u201d wrote no less an authority on the built environment than BLDGBLOG author Geoff Manaugh in a much-sent-around reflection on the city. \u201cI love Boston; I even love Denver; I like Miami; I think Washington DC is habitable; but Los Angeles is Los Angeles. You can\u2019t compare it to Paris, or to London, or to Rome, or to Shanghai. You can interestingly contrast<\/em> it to those cities, sure, and Los Angeles even comes out lacking; but Los Angeles is still Los Angeles.\u201d<\/p>\n
Manaugh posted that piece in 2007, less than a decade ago but still a time when Los Angeles’ detractors as well as its boosters could argue, in all seriousness, that it may not, strictly speaking, count as a \u201ccity\u201d at all. But what, then, to call it? I’ve heard \u201cconstellation of villages.\u201d I’ve heard \u201cmegaregional core.\u201d I’ve even heard varying numbers \u2014 six, seventeen, 72, 88 \u2014 \u201csuburbs in search of a city.\u201d In Manaugh’s starker view, \u201cL.A. is the apocalypse: it\u2019s you and a bunch of parking lots. No one\u2019s going to save you; no one\u2019s looking out for you. It\u2019s the only city I know where that\u2019s the explicit premise of living there \u2013 that\u2019s the deal you make when you move to L.A. The city, ironically, is emotionally authentic. It says: no one loves you; you\u2019re the least important person in the room; get over it. What matters is what you do there<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n
I once put Los Angeles with the internet and the United States of America in a group of things people hate if they can’t filter. By that I meant that these wide experiential spaces offer no one experience in particular \u2014 or, more accurately, they offer a greater infinity of possible experiences than most spaces, leaving it to you to perceive and navigate your way to a satisfying one. If you go to America or on the internet thinking you’ll find nothing but base, meaningless, brain-deadening expanses, you’ll find nothing but base, meaningless, brain-deadening expanses. If you go into Los Angeles thinking you’ll find nothing but a bunch of parking lots, you’ll find nothing but a bunch of parking lots.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n