UNDERSTANDING THE RIOTS PART 5 : THE PATH TO RECOVERY : THE FUTURE CITY : Building an Ethnically Diverse ‘Shining City on the Hill’

This is the moment in the life of our city when we must transcend the limits of accepted planning and prove that what makes a city unique lies beyond efficient management, economic engineering and rapid transportation. The “mosaic city” was proposed as a powerful metaphor for a metropolis that had, at the time, only a fraction of the ethnic diversity found in Los Angeles today. Business and residential zones were systematically segregated according to strategies based on suburban ideals--and accelerated by white flight from the urban core. Topography, freeways and lifestyle have now created a collection of urban “islands,” which continue to maintain their individuality.

Not surprisingly, this has netted a bonanza for small businesses. The franchise was virtually born in Los Angeles--everything from banks to burger stands has been decentralized. Yet few cultural institutions or civic organizations have established the satellite presences that could bring them close to a majority of the public. In many places, even the most modest community entertainment and sports facilities have closed--with no plans to return. Among the problematic results of this strategy was the decision to reinvest in the Los Angeles Public Library’s Central Branch instead of upgrading its network of community facilities.

Some seeds of the recent rage and destruction were planted in the 1950s, when Los Angeles “cleaned up” its streets, eliminating the outdoor vendors, cafes, and pushcarts that provide cultural diversity. Although malls offered some alternative for the upwardly mobile, street-oriented businesses were severely marginalized. With these sanitized public spaces, maintained through planning and zealous enforcement of trivial civil laws, is it any wonder that kids turned to their cars for a social experience?

We have created another city, one constantly on the move and grounded nowhere. Its citizens live scattered across a huge area. Most don’t have the means to acquire the symbols for belonging to the “haves” of Los Angeles. They are largely African-American, Latino and Asian, but also white and poor. They are disenfranchised and disintegrated. The infrastructure of the city doesn’t work for them: Buses are slow, services are few, blocks are long, hot and dangerous.

A good city plan not only allocates basic services but also encompasses the character and values of the individual community. Each community cultivates a sense of its connection to its neighbors through a hierarchy of symbols, places and names. Rebuilding Los Angeles is more than replacing the tangled metal and melted plastic. We must try to redistribute the keys to identity.

This identity is more than signs. It flows out of preschools and storefronts, front yards and swap meets. It is inextricably woven from the occasions of life. It can’t be synthesized on a planner’s table.

Today we have the tools to sustain a dialogue between the people and the planners. The facts and images to inform urban decisions and test planning ideas are literally at our fingertips--with computers. Neighborhood design workshops have shown how successful a dynamic interaction between professionals and the community they serve can be.

Hard choices need to be made. We have to decide what must be done first and what must be deferred--community by community. Decisions about everything, from human well-being to restoring the built and natural environment, must be made on a case-by-case basis.

From institutional structures to shopping malls to neighborhood shops, almost no part of Central Los Angeles went untouched by fire and looting. Unless we do something, the burned-out shops will be bulldozed and then gradually become vacant, garbage-strewn lots, cordoned off by chain link. We can’t allow this to happen. Constant visual reminders of the conflagration make bad neighbors and dim prospects for the future.

Most of the devastation struck continuous shop fronts of a type no longer permitted in Los Angeles. Yet these are the very buildings that provided a base for significant retail expansion on Melrose Avenue, La Brea and Third Street--especially in the last decade. Masonry construction, the absence of setbacks and individual character are hallmarks of this classic urban type that has a remarkable ability to adapt to changing fashions.

But in South Los Angeles, where the building type is the same, the result is far from this ideal. There, businesses are often just barely surviving. Saving those blocks, and building on the character of the neighborhood in the process, calls for thoughtful re-examination and modification of building and zoning codes. In a market glutted with retail space, it will require stalwart tenants--old and new--and even changes of use, including decentralization of public services.

Where too little remains of the existing structures, higher density housing might be encouraged, with viable local shops, community markets and day-care centers at the street level. This mix of social and commercial purpose--providing “eyes on the street,” access to essential goods and services and community interaction--has been notably successful in many cities surrounding Los Angeles.

In these special places, storefront telecommuting centers adjacent to day care would allow parents the luxury of “one stop” as they walk to work. In addition, decentralization by major employers--the government, insurers and banks--could reduce air pollution aggravated by mass commuting and workers could gain free hours to devote to other pursuits.

Our reaction to the losses suffered by Los Angeles could have far-reaching social, economic and political implications, particularly if we seize this opportunity to explore models for the future. We can no longer afford to hark back to Eurocentric city planning, with its legacy of smokestack industries and a monolithic culture, An ethnically diverse population on the brink of the next century cries out for something else, something we haven’t yet seen. Roles and relationships are changing and, with them, our ideas about the nature of cities and their architecture.

Let us forge a process of rebuilding Los Angeles, one that draws on a clear perception of human need and desire in all their dimensions, rather than withdrawing behind a facade that blinds us to one another. Our efforts to fill the gaps, bridge the voids and restore order to our cityscape must bring color back to a place long devoid of it. We must transform burnt-out structures into the receptacles of our future.