“There are three great cities in the United States: there’s Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York — in that order,” wrote no less an authority on the built environment than BLDGBLOG author Geoff Manaugh in a much-sent-around reflection on the city. “I love Boston; I even love Denver; I like Miami; I think Washington DC is habitable; but Los Angeles is Los Angeles. You can’t compare it to Paris, or to London, or to Rome, or to Shanghai. You can interestingly contrast it to those cities, sure, and Los Angeles even comes out lacking; but Los Angeles is still Los Angeles.”
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 “city” at all. But what, then, to call it? I’ve heard “constellation of villages.” I’ve heard “megaregional core.” I’ve even heard varying numbers — six, seventeen, 72, 88 — “suburbs in search of a city.” In Manaugh’s starker view, “L.A. is the apocalypse: it’s you and a bunch of parking lots. No one’s going to save you; no one’s looking out for you. It’s the only city I know where that’s the explicit premise of living there – that’s the deal you make when you move to L.A. The city, ironically, is emotionally authentic. It says: no one loves you; you’re the least important person in the room; get over it. What matters is what you do there.”
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 — 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.
Read the whole thing at Byline.