Like most American cities, Los Angeles has too much parking. Way too much parking.
In a recent online essay titled No Parking Here, designer and illustrator Josh Vredevoogd takes a researched look into the failed urban planning ethos that underpins Los Angeles County's massive sea of parking stalls.
According to Vredevoogd's research, Los Angeles County is currently home to 18.6 million parking spaces, a number that eclipses the county's population (10.2 million residents). If collected into a single parcel, the gargantuan parking lot would span 110,000 acres of asphalt, or, an area roughly 7.5 times the size of Manhattan. If populated at Manhattan's density, Vredevoogd agrues, that sizable lot could host a population of 12 million residents.
The illustrative example highlights a central issue for Los Angeles's urbanism: the area's parking minimums fuel many of the region's deeply entrenched social problems, including the housing affordability crisis, the homelessness crisis, and the region's notorious and toxic pollution troubles.
Furthermore, Vredevoogd writes, "Los Angeles has the space to build all the housing it needs without displacing a single home." How? By replacing parking stalls with housing, of course.
According to Vredevoogd's research, if only 70-percent of Los Angeles County's parking stalls were converted to housing, for example, the county would create enough housing to meet California's entire housing deficit.
2 Comments
it would be interesting to see a graphic like this comparing areas of roadways, parking, and buildings, other built infrastructure. humbling for architects i suspect, especially if buildings were broken out into SFH, warehousing, and other.
LA owes its ugly side and a few degrees of extra heat to parking lots and parking requirements are like 'urban design apartheid' if not mob rule.
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.