Turning Sprawl Into Urban Villages

Less than two years ago Los Angeles became a national leader in the slow-growth movement when the city’s voters overwhelmingly approved the Proposition U ballot initiative that cut in half the maximum permissible density on most of the city’s commercial and industrial land.

Now the slow-growth movement is spreading throughout the metropolitan area. In June, Orange County residents will vote on an initiative that would prevent the construction of any major project in unincorporated areas if it is expected to generate traffic congestion exceeding pre-set limits. In November, Riverside County voters will have the opportunity to go even further: They will vote on an initiative to prevent the conversion of agricultural land to other uses, limit the annual growth rate of housing construction in the unincorporated areas and mandate a reduction in the number of new houses that can be built if traffic congestion exceeds certain levels.

Both ballot measures are expected to pass. And that would be a tragedy, because nothing could be more detrimental for the Los Angeles metropolitan area--not only for its future economic growth but also its long-term livability.

It is no wonder that Southern California residents are looking for a solution to their commuting woes and that many feel that their suburban dream has become a nightmare. Nor is it surprising that they erroneously believe that slow-growth controls are their salvation.

But slow-growth measures will only freeze the Greater Los Angeles area’s development at the worst possible point in its transition into a collection of “urban villages.” These are cores or centers of concentrated areas of office and industrial buildings, stores, condos, apartments and entertainment outlets surrounded by bedroom communities. Examples include Universal City/Burbank and Pasadena. Both experienced building booms after they assumed new economic roles: Pasadena as a center for the insurance and banking services industry and Universal City/Burbank as a focus area for the entertainment industry.

The major advantage of the urban village phenomenon is that it allows jobs and housing to be in closer proximity. The Los Angeles metropolitan area must be allowed to mature and move into a more fully evolved urban village pattern in order to reduce the commute length. That in turn reduces traffic congestion and has the added benefit of reducing air pollution.

By voting for slow-growth measures, most citizens believe that they have made a worthwhile trade-off: less development and economic growth in return for less traffic congestion, noise and pollution. Nothing could be further from the truth--at least in today’s heavily urbanized Southern California.

Growth is not the real villain; growth is merely exaggerating the effects of an ongoing--and often awkward--transformation of Greater Los Angeles’ physical form.

In the course of this transformation, jobs are locating at the emerging urban village cores, such as Ontario and Warner Center, in order to be closer to the work force, which has already moved to the metropolitan area’s outskirts. But the jobs are not moving outward quickly enough. As a result, workers still face long and frustrating commutes into the more centrally located urban village cores, such as the Westside and Newport Beach/Costa Mesa.

If slow-growth controls are a mistake, how can Greater Los Angeles make this transition more bearable? First, government, developers, and business must formulate a more satisfying vision of what the newly created as well as the existing urban village cores should be. Who can blame residents for fighting nearby commercial construction when they correctly realize that many urban village cores are little more than could-be-anywhere malls and office buildings surrounded by vast surface parking lots?

Wouldn’t nearby residents feel different about these cores if they offered the neighborhood cultural benefits or a genuine pedestrian-oriented center, much like traditional downtowns or small town Main Streets?

Pasadena represents a step in the right direction toward the ideal urban village core. It has one of the metropolitan area’s major concentrations of office space, a revitalized retail area that includes the thriving Old Pasadena pedestrian district, significant cultural institutions and high-density, market-rate housing that allows many people to leave their cars home and walk to work, shops and entertainment.

In planning urban village cores, government and developers must also consider the housing needs of the metropolitan area’s moderate-income workers. Most of Greater Los Angeles’ urban village cores are emerging in largely white upper-middle-class areas. Although this arrangement is time- and energy-efficient for executives and business owners who live nearby, it creates undue hardships for the clerical, light assembly and service employees who face long car or bus commutes from the neighborhoods where they can afford housing.

This frustrating intermediate developmental phase has caused many citizens to fall into the slow-growth trap. To grow out of it requires a crucial second step: Government must create practical metropolitan-wide land-use strategies to promote Greater Los Angeles’ continued growth into a collection of urban villages. Employment must be encouraged in housing-rich areas such as Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties.

Although many citizens and developers would greet any such area-wide land-use strategies with howls of outrage, they would be attacking their own self-interest. Citizens would benefit from better air, shorter commutes and less traffic. And developers would avoid the all but certain greater controls of the ever-strengthening slow-growth movement.

If too many slow-growth measures are enacted in an anguished response to today’s evolving--but awkward--development trends, Greater Los Angeles could lose much of its future economic growth to other less restrictive regions and states. Worse still, the metropolitan area would continue to be mired in traffic congestion and pollution that it never had the chance to outgrow.