‘Affordable’ Housing in Los Angeles

The imminent destruction of Chase Knolls, a clean, decent, affordable community of garden apartments in Sherman Oaks, raises the question of when Los Angeles is going to recognize that there is a housing emergency in this city (“Decision on Chase Knolls Up to Council,” June 22).

While The Times carries generous amounts of advertising for homes costing millions of dollars, many middle-class families are forced into the desert or out to the smoggiest reaches of San Bernardino just to find economical homes. These commuters then end up clogging the freeways, sitting in traffic for hours, in cars that belch more pollutants into the air.

There is a wonderful solution to this madness. Construct large, family-sized retail and apartment buildings on the commercial stretches of east / west boulevards in the San Fernando Valley. These boulevards are ghost towns after dark, with many vacant commercial buildings that are only one story tall. Why not populate these barren streets with thriving residential and urban life? Look to the other great cities of the Western world like Paris, Rome, London; they all build residential buildings with retail shops on the ground floor. The Europeans do not build cities 200 miles out with single-family homes and asphalt-covered shopping malls.

Los Angeles: Build a city for walking and living--not a high-priced speedway for the rich and the alienated!

ANDREW B. HURVITZ

Studio City

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There is no affordable housing because there is no more land to put it on. L.A. is used up.

JODY KAY

Sylmar