We’re facing climate change, and our attitude about the natural world, natural resources has changed. What’s really come to an end is this kind of frontier mentality about the city—this idea of infinite growth and infinite expansion, and that the way to study the city is to look at the edges, where it’s gobbling up new territory. [...]

This idea that we can grow our way out of any problem and that we’re always a city that’s expanding and finding or even colonizing new territory—that has ended. — LA Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne – boomcalifornia.com

Bardell and Howe have been working together for the past decade and have started executing guerrilla-style living sculptures in the river, a project they call the River Liver Series. [...]

“One of the things that keeps us here is how exciting we think the next 10 years is going to be,” Howe says of L.A. “When they actually do this river revitalization, it’s going to be L.A.’s Central Park. Culturally, I think it’s the spot to be on the West Coast.” — laweekly.com

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

“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

When we finally see this river restored to its natural beauty, it’ll be thanks to the work of thousands of people over decades.

The work that Frank Gehry is doing builds upon this—looking at how we can stitch together these 88 cities of LA County, including the 15 different jurisdictions along the river’s 51 miles—some of the most diverse and interesting communities that we’ve ever known. [...]

people have put aside their differences and said: This is an opportunity to move forward. — planningreport.com

From a concrete ditch, the river is now, very, very, very slowly becoming that green, recreational space many supporters have imagined. But, the question is, what's taking so long?

As anyone who's ever set out to build in Los Angeles knows, things aren't always as simple as they seem. A vision becomes reality at a glacial pace, which can be a good or bad thing. — kcet.org

When Mayor Garcetti announced Gehry’s appointment, he declared him to be the “Olmsted of our time,” referring to godfather of landscape design, Frederick Law Olmsted, creator of New York City’s Central Park. He is nothing of the sort. As Gehry himself admitted: “I told them I’m not a landscape guy.”

What he might prove to be is the funding-friendly, catch-all solution to pulling the river’s statutory partners together to make something happen. — Olly Wainwright

Mia Lehrer, a Los Angeles landscape architect who helped prepare a master plan for the river in 2007, said Mr. Gehry’s involvement had distressed people wary of top-down directives, and raised fears that he would derail the plan by the Army Corps of Engineers just as it was gaining momentum.

Still, she said Mr. Gehry was welcome to join the fray. “He’s a creative dude,” Ms. Lehrer said. “So the answer is, ‘Why not?’” — The New York Times

Gehry insists that he isn't interested in the river as the site for new landmarks. He says he told the Revitalization Corp. board members who first visited his office last year that he would take on the job only if he could look at the river primarily in terms of hydrology. [...]

"I told them I'm not a landscape guy. I said I would only do it on the condition that they approached it as a water-reclamation project, to deal with all the water issues first." — latimes.com

Gehry's involvement is a potential turning point in the decades-long movement to transform the concrete-lined waterway that winds through the heart of the Los Angeles Basin. [...]

it appears to be a broad reworking of the Los Angeles River Revitalization Master Plan that L.A. city officials adopted in 2007 [...]

the new plan is getting a cold reception from the community of activists who have helped draw attention over the years to what was once a forlorn environmental cause. — latimes.com

If Los Angeles aims to add more housing, it should look at the neighborhoods lining its long-maligned river to do it. [...]

The city could make a big dent in Mayor Eric Garcetti's goal of adding 100,000 housing units by 2021 if it streamlines permitting and creates incentive zones in places along the river [...].

The report comes in the wake of a billion-dollar plan by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to revamp 11 miles of the L.A. River north of downtown [...]. — latimes.com