It once seemed like a herculean, if not insurmountable, challenge – raising $600 million or more for an ambitious modernist building to serve as the new home for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Skeptics abounded when plans were first announced three years ago. But momentum now seems to be shifting in LACMA's favor with the announcement this week of two major donations that will push the fundraising campaign near the halfway point. — Los Angeles Times

It has been more than 50 years since anyone has served time in the old Lincoln Heights Jail. The five-story building on San Fernando Road next to the L.A. River has been vacant for much of that time but now the city is launching its most recent effort to find new uses for the historic landmark as efforts are underway to restore the river and build new projects and parks along its banks.

The city is seeking ideas and concepts for the 229,000-square-foot complex... — the Eastsider

Under the new law, the city would be able to relax some of the rules that often stop such [bootlegged] apartments from being legalized, allowing more density and loosening parking requirements.

In return, landlords who seek to legalize bootlegged units will have to provide some affordable apartments at those buildings — and guarantee that they remain affordable for at least 55 years, under a legal covenant documented with the county recorder. — latimes.com

A realtor who invited clients to tour the neighbourhood for bargain properties and enjoy “artisanal treats” felt the backlash within hours.

“I can’t help but hope that your 60-minute bike ride is a total disaster and that everyone who eats your artisanal treats pukes immediately,” said one message. “Stay outta my fucking hood,” said another.

Fearing violence, the realtor cancelled the event.

[...]

Welcome to Boyle Heights – or not, depending on how locals view you. — the Guardian

the city's council voted unanimously to create a program to "develop autonomous vehicles as public transportation."

The council's vision is for self-driving vehicles to provide "on-demand, point-to-point transportation," with citizens "requesting a ride using their smartphone." The shuttles wouldn't replace public transportation, but augment it [...]

Phase one of the city council's program includes reaching out to companies like Tesla and Google to explore "potential partnerships." — theverge.com

Facing a potentially bruising ballot fight over real estate development next year, Los Angeles' political leaders announced Wednesday that they will seek a sweeping update of the plans that govern the size and density of new buildings that go up in scores of neighborhoods.

Mayor Eric Garcetti and several council members said they want the Planning Department to revise nearly three dozen “community plans” by 2026, a task that will require the hiring of 28 new employees at a cost of $4.2M a year. — latimes.com

The Associated Press reports a California legislative panel advanced a bill Tuesday committing the state to cover up to $250 million in cost overruns as part of Los Angeles’ bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics.

The Senate Governmental Organization Committee approved the bill in a 7-0 vote after proponents said they’re confident they can provide the Games without the serious deficits that have challenged other recent host cities. They pointed to Los Angeles’ profitable hosting of the 1984 Olympics. — gamesbids.com

A first-in-the-nation complex to be built in Hollywood would house about 200 LGBT seniors and young adults on the same campus.

Lorrie Jean, CEO of the the Los Angeles LGBT Center, which is building the $100 million complex, calls the two generation groups "the two most vulnerable parts of our community." — scpr.org

PodShare's site is laden with millennial-friendly tech buzzwords, like the sharing economy, pod culture, nomadic freelancers, access not ownership, and even “Podestrians,” the company's name for guests, each of whom get profiles on its website.

“We’re creating a social network with a physical address,” said Beck. “Our open-floor model offers the highest rate of collisions for social travelers. We do not identify with hostels—we are a co-living space or a live-work community.” — motherboard.vice.com

The police had allowed me to fly with them so that I could see the world from their perspective. Through its aerial patrols, the division has uniquely unfettered access to a fundamentally different experience of Los Angeles, one in which the city must constantly be reinterpreted from above, in real time, with the intention of locating, tracking and interrupting criminal activity. This also means that the police are not only thinking about Los Angeles as it currently exists. — New York Times

“If we do it right,” Gehry said at an event in September, “we can really make the High Line look like a little pishy thing.” Given that Manhattan’s elevated park, at merely 1/35th the length of the river, has helped transform the surrounding neighborhood into a playground for the rich, residents of LA’s river-adjacent communities are right to be concerned. — thenation.com

That the skin is an exercise in advanced digital fabrication, applied with such élan is, in itself, a proclamation, a sort of late-career renaissance, which thrusts the firm into a next generation spotlight.

Whether naively assuming (wrongly) that Los Angeles was ready for a jolt of architectural electricity, or sincerely reflecting a populist genre (rightly), Kohn succeeded in outflanking its neighbors, and disrupting the conventions governing the museum establishment. — Craig Hodgetts – formmag.net