A less benign view of the ‘casbah’

You guys have outdone yourselves with the article “Mr. Quiet’s Casbah” [Feb. 21]. To give a decorator full run to her (clearly fertile) imagination and to allow a single lawyer to live in it, four units were combined into one. But it’s OK by your lights because it was a “dreary” fourplex.

Based on a conservative estimate of three people per unit, this (large) structure formerly could have housed 12 people. But, hey, for cool Moorish design replacing 12 people with one is just dandy.

The California section can run other articles about Los Angeles’ never-ending affordable housing crisis and the families who become part of the gray underhoused masses. For shame.

Nathan Landau

Berkeley