PLANNING WATCH / PLAN-IT LOS ANGELES

The revenue rationale offered by LA's elected official for allowing commercial advertising on public spaces, especially sidewalks, as well as commercial advertising, such as billboards, and electronic signs which intrude on public spaces is extremely unconvincing. The several millions per year which the city earns from billboards and kiosks bolted to sidewalks, plastered on bus benches and bus shelters, pasted on newspaper vending machines, and now electronic billboards, could be easily offset by two simple steps: First, stop giving large developers and projects, such as LA Live, hundreds of millions in tax and fee breaks. These are the true budget breakers. Second, collect the various fees owed the cities on everything from bootleg construction to burglar alarms. Shame on those elected officials who justify dreadful visual pollution for phony revenue reasons. In fact, if they took these two small steps, they could also revoke the various regressive taxes they are foisting on...

Those who have toiled at City Hall or had extensive dealings with it, should realize the following: First, the ideology guiding the governance of the City of Los Angeles is neo-liberalism, not New Deal liberalism, as some people imagine because most City officials are Democrats. This is exactly same neo-liberal approach which now prevails at the Federal and State levels. It also is shared by this country's two ruling political parties. As far as I can tell, everyone who holds office in Los Angeles or has even an outside chance of getting elected, holds the same outlook. (To the extent that liberalism ever existed at the local level, it was in the 1930s when the City of LA built public housing.) Neo-liberalism means, in theory and practice, tilting government to promote the private sector. This translates to increased use of regressive taxes (user fees, sales taxes, property taxes) to redistribute wealth and income upwards. It also means reduced regulation of goods and servic...

It is amazing how little the large developers have to pay to City of Los Angeles elected officials in order get enormous tax breaks and benefits. You would think they could at least model themselves after U.S. friendly third world dictators, like Indonesia's Sukarno, and ask for the standard kick back rate of 10 percent. According to the Los Angeles Times, Anschutz Entertainment kicked in $19,000 to the Mayor's election campaign for a second term after they received $270,000,000 is tax breaks for the LA Live entertainment complex. Not too away, at the north end of the downtown, a $10,000 contribution to the Mayor from the Related Companies was not a bad investment for a $120,000,000 City subsidy to Eli Broad's pet Grand Avenue project. There is a unstated moral to this story, however. The next time someone complains that Los Angeles is in financial straights because of employee salaries, you might call their attention to the details below. These subsidies, by the way, f...

This extraordinary story in the LA Weekly demonstrates the poor state of urban infrastructure and services in Los Angeles. Not only does the city only devote four percent of it surface area to parks, but most of this parkland is undeveloped: Griffith Park. Furthermore, most existing parks are in affluent neighborhoods in which residents have access to private park and recreation facitilies. After all, they have back yards and some also have access to private clubs. Los Angeles Weekly, Wed., July 16, 2008 Parks and Wreck: L.A. 's Fight for Public Green Space In search of the Emerald City There’s a foul smell in Pershing Square . Well, several foul smells, really. Most prominently, there’s the smell of urine. It wafts in all directions, emanating from a dozen dark, hidden recesses spread throughout the square. There’s the smell of the fountain, a giant purple modernist abomination that every so often belches a tiny stream of liquid into a stagnant brown pool below. There...