Los Angeles

Transcript

LOS ANGELES Focussing on the evolution of the city and the maintenance of a planned development in a large area El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de la Porciuncula PRESENTED BY:AMISHA BAJPAI The city of los angeles Introduction • Los Angeles City (“the City”) is located along the southern coast of the State of California, United States (U.S.). • Land area:470 square miles (1,213.8 km2) • Population: 4,045,873 persons • Founded in 1781 • The second largest city in the united states after new york. • The Los Angeles River, which is largely seasonal, is the primary drainage channel. It was straightened and lined in 51 miles of concrete by the Army Corps of Engineers to act as a flood control channel. • The eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountains stretches from Downtown to the Pacific Ocean and separates the Los Angeles Basin from the San Fernando Valley. • Generally, the city is divided into the following areas: Downtown Los Angeles, East Los Angeles and Northeast Los Angeles, South Los Angeles, the Harbor Area, Greater Hollywood, Wilshire, the Westside, and the San Fernando and Crescenta Valleys. Planning before planners • The city is so old that its planning process could not have followed a single concept it has a basic grid plan further details of the planning have been worked on periodically as and when necessary. • But many nationally known notables have done work there, including Olmsted, Jr., Bartholomew, Charles Mulford Robinson, Clarence Stein, Kevin Lynch, Lawrence Halprin, Andres Duany, and Peter Calthorpe. Historical affiliations Spanish Empire 1781–1821 First Mexican Empire 1821–1823 United Mexican States 1823–1848 California Republic 1846 United States of America 1848– present • • The Los Angeles coastal area was first settled by the Tongva (or Gabrieleños) and Chumash Native American tribes thousands of years ago. Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, a Portuguese-born explorer, claimed the area of southern California for the Spanish Empire in 1542. Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí, reached the present site of Los Angeles on August 2, 1769. By 1821 Los Angeles had grown into a selfsustaining farming community, the largest in Southern California. Its development conformed strictly to the Law of the Indies and the Reglamento of Governor Neve. The pueblo itself included a square of 10,000 varas, five and a quarter miles on each side. The central Plaza was in the middle, On the west side of the Plaza facing east, space was reserved for a church and municipal buildings. •Each settler also received four rectangles of land, suertes, for farming, two irrigated plots and two dry ones. Some plots of land, propios, were set aside for the pueblo's general use and revenue. Other plots of land, realengas, were set aside for future settlers. •The first settlers built a water system consisting of ditches (zanjas) leading from the river through the middle of town and into the farmlands. Indians were employed to haul fresh drinking water from a special pool farther upstream. The city was first known as a producer of fine wine grapes. The raising of cattle and the commerce in tallow and hides would come later.[ • The settlement remained a small ranch town for decades, but by 1820 the population had increased to about 650 residents • Mexican rule ended during the Mexican–American War: Americans took control from the Californios after a series of battles, culminating with the signing of the Treaty of Cahuenga on January 13, 1847 • According to historian Mary P. Ryan, "The U.S. army swept into California with the surveyor as well as the sword and quickly translated Spanish and Mexican practices into cartographic representations." • In 1849, Lieutenant Edward Ord surveyed Los Angeles to confirm and extend the streets of the city. His survey put the city into the realestate business, creating its first real-estate boom and filling its treasury. Street names were changed from Spanish to English. Further surveys and street plans replaced the original plan for the pueblo with a new civic center south of the Plaza and a new use of space. • The most striking feature of these surveys was their orientation of new property lines to the compass points, contrasting sharply with the diagonal orientation of original pueblo patterns — a contrast still evident in certain locations. • In 1910, not only had the city of Los Angeles annexed Hollywood, but there were already at least 10 movie companies operating in the city. By 1921, more than 80 percent of the world's film industry was concentrated in L.A. • As the city continued to expand in the late 19th and early 20th century, a range of urban actors performed a variety of tasks we now call "planning." Elected officials (the LA city council and Board of County Supervisors) made the final decisions in this nascent proto-planning arrangement. • Two major public works projects, accomplished by Angeleno proto-planners in the early 1900s, fundamentally transformed the region's future development. The hugely ambitious Los Angeles Aqueduct cost about $24 million (in 1907 dollars) and extensive work at the Harbor and Port of Los Angeles quickly put the growing metropolis at a crucial nexus where continental railroad lines met international shipping lanes. • • • City beautiful plans became the hallmark of progressive urban design at this time, Renowned civic designer Charles Mumford Robinson, produced a plan in 1909. His recommendations were typical of the time, and included a new civic center, train station, grand boulevard, and public gardens on a vast scale. He wanted to make los angeles “the paris of america” In 1920s Allied Architects devised an ambitious city beautiful plan for a huge civic center downtown, to contain city, county, state, and federal administrative facilities amid expansive open spaces. Neither of these formal urban designs for Los Angeles was implemented. • But Burnham protégé Edward Bennett had more success in nearby Pasadena, where his 1923 Beaux Arts plan for that upper middleclass enclave was built, and still guides development. • The booming City of Angels needed more than stately public buildings and attractive parks, however. Advocates called for nothing less than comprehensive planning. In 1910, a quasi-public (but powerless) city planning committee was appointed; in 1915, a private city planning association was formed to lobby the city council for an official commission. • Between 1924 and 1928, more than 72,000 new lots came onto the market in Los Angeles County, prompting planners to embrace sociologist Clarence Perry's recently published neighborhood unit concept. His template carefully assigned residential, commercial, and institutional land uses to foster community and insulate new neighborhoods from worsening automobile traffic, becoming instantly popular among practitioners nationwide who were struggling with rapid growth. • he plan approved in 1958 called for "ultra-modern office buildings … apartments and hotels … parking structures, landscaped plazas … and other modern features," Downtown los angeles • Downtown Los Angeles marks the geographic, governmental, and historic center of Los Angeles. Although it is the smallest region of Los Angeles by area, it includes a great variety of diverse neighborhoods, ranging from several modern skyscrapers of the Financial District to the historic structures of the Historic Core to the ethnic enclaves of Chinatown and Little Tokyo. It also contains many cultural attractions and entertainment venues. Downtown is also a center for local and regional transportation, with several freeways passing through and Union Station connecting regional trains to local buses and the Metro Line. • Downtown Los Angeles consists of two primary centers - Bunker Hill and the older “Historic” downtown. • Area: 5.305 sq mi (8.538 km2) • Population: 45,518 • Bound by santa ann fwy and harbor fwy. The historical plan layout • Turns out Downtown is set at a 36 degree angle in an attempt to follow the sixteenth century Laws of the Indies, "royal ordinances [that] required that the streets and house lots in the cities of New Spain have a 45-degree disorientation from true north and south to provide, it was said, equal light to every side of a small house throughout the day.“ • Because, as Rojas explains, the Laws of the Indies dictated that Spanish New World cities be constructed twenty miles from the sea ("to avoid any attacks from pirates," Rojas says), near a freshwater source ("the L.A. River") and close to a native tribe ("for labor"). Key characteristics of downtown LA • Central area is not metropolitan but downtown more manufacture based and commercial. • The grid pattern in itself is an undifferentiated matrix. • Central activities are spatially extended and shifting • Frequent rebuilding has not allowed for the development of a speciific image • L shaped centre : bunker hill to pershing square • Important landmarks: city hall – Public library – Baltimore hotel – Bunker hill A view of the old plaza An old map of downtown los angeles Today’s scenario • Initial zoning law enacted. 1917 • General plan • Zoning: The typical zoning ordinance regulates land uses by dividing the community into districts or zones. • Specific plan: A specific plan is an important tool for systematically implementing the general plan within all or a portion of the planning area. Urban planning management system • This urban planning management system has been playing an important role in charting the City’s development course and shaping its future growth. • Planning Management Institutional Subsystem: planning departments, city governments, which carry out urban planning duties and provide institutional protection; • Planning Management Legal Subsystem: planning laws, regulations, and ordinances, which provide legal support to urban planning process; • Planning Management Operational Subsystem: urban planning process itself, which is the core of the entire urban planning management system; – Plan Compilation – Implementation of General Plan – Public Interaction with the Planning Process • Planning Management Technical Subsystem: planning outcome, including plans, zoning ordinances, and subdivision maps, which provide technical support to future plan preparation and amendment. • Os- open space • Ra suburban • Re residential • Cr -commercial limited • Cm -commercial manufacturing • Pf- public facilities • P parking buffer Lessons Learnt Thank you