Visual Pollution

Hollywood, CA

Criss crossing the country, its easy to get depressed by what you see outside the car window.  Its pretty much the same thing everywhere you go.  Fast food restaurants, giant parking lots.  Oversized signs.  

I often find myself thinking of ways to improve urban blight to make it more human friendly.  I love urban planning.  

Sometimes, I go so far as to sketch out a fantasy map of a neighborhood in a way that I think would work better.  Its weird, I know.  But I get really excited about it.  Like when Santa Monica started putting little traffic circles all over the neighborhood to slow down traffic, I started imagining where tram lines could go and which street could be closed to cars all together.  

And, working on Hollywood Blvd, Ive been really compulsive about keeping up with the revitalization efforts.  In some ways, these efforts depress me, because even though Hollywood used to be nothing more than a symbol of American glamour that managed to delivered little more than  Lebanese owned Tshirt shops and strung out hustlers, it was exciting in a sort of sad way.  

But overall the revitalization is a good thing.  There are fewer blocks composed of nothing but a parking lot, and more mixed use buildings going up.  They are trying to create these "live work" spaces around the subway stops, like normal cities have.  I hope it works.  But usually, in LA, I am disappointed.  These kinds of efforts take twice as long as in other cities.  People are opposed to public transportation, and not interested in community issues.  Its a very individual kind of town.  It will probably be another 10 years before the next subway line is completed.  I know east west lines have been blocked by the city of beverly hills to keep "unwanted elements" out of the city.  That line is now planned to go through south LA along exposition.

All this makes me sad.  And also makes me feel disconnected from where I live.  

Then, recently,  I read this article in the Times which, while being a little pretentious, kind of sums up how I feel about living here.  

I still dream about a different kind of city, but the older I get, the more I am able to appreciate it for what it is, instead of what it will never be.  Though, one day, I just might move to Vancouver, which, in terms of urban planning, seems to be just about perfect....

Anyway, this photo is taken from the roof of the World of Wonder building, looking west towards the Chinese Theatre.