Still waiting for Downtown LA's agora

The LA Times' coverage of the recently unveiled preliminary plans for the latest, greatest makeover of the downtown civic center has been disappointingly uncritical--with the partial exception of architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne's piece--while the Daily News has been typically obsessed with the project's potential taxpayer costs. Morris Newman of the online Slatin Report thus provides a welcome view which fairmindedly asks what we, residents and visitors of Southern California alike, are really going to get in terms of usable urban spaces from the new Grand Avenue project being developed for the city and county by the Related Companies. It's far too early to say for sure, but I'm in full agreement with Newman that what's been revealed so far is thoroughly underwhelming, if not particularly unexpected. Too bad, too, because the potential for something truly great is there.

Cars in the land of bikes, bikes in the land of cars

A small but growing minority in Southern California, that fabled land of the automobile, is trying to raise the profile of the humble bicycle this month via BikeSummer 2005. Curiously, as that event kicks off with significant news coverage, another media outlet is presently offering its latest account of the automobile's steady rise in that fabled land of the bicycle, China. As they say, the grass is always greener ... . But just in case you forgot, the very same issue of The Economist that is foretelling the rise of automotive China has another story reminding us why a car-centric society isn't all that it is cracked up to be: it seems the latest figures from the Texas Transportation Institute estimate the annual cost of time and energy lost by Americans while stuck in traffic now amount to more than $60 billion, with (of course) greater Los Angeles being the worst affected. I've long been skeptical of such efforts to quantify the cost of traffic delays, believing they both overestimate the amount of lost worker productivity and underestimate the larger social cost of losing invaluable hours of time with friends and family. Nonetheless, maybe the Chinese could learn a little bit from us before it's too late--and maybe they could teach us something, too. There's got to be a happy middle ground there somewhere.

Walking in OC -- a new photo essay

I have recently added a short photo essay to my college website. The focus of this photo tour is the experience of walking in Orange County. Given my interests, I'll put together a similar presentation in the future regarding cycling in OC, but since my sons are still on training wheels and tricycles, my family and I pursue the OC outdoors (both rural and urban) on foot. I'm not an automobile-hater; I very much love to drive and am a keen fan of many motor sports. Also, I don't want to paint too one-sided of a picture, because if walking in OC was so bad, then we wouldn't keep returning. Nonetheless, for all that is very much worthy of celebrating in Orange County, it's definitely missing something. Spaces and places built for the pedestrian, with all of the energy and creative and enjoyable serendipity that vibrant pedestrianism makes possible, are simply too few and too far between. As long as that remains the case--which seems likely far into the foreseeable future--Orange County will never live up to its potential status as a truly world-class (sub)urban place.

When you get the chance, check it out and tell me what you think. In the meantime, here's just a small taste of what you'll see: