Los Angeles from the Sidewalks

Los Angeles is a city that at different times in my life I have detested with every bone in my body, and thirsted desperately to return to. When I first began learning about urbanism I thought Los Angeles was too far gone, and my goal in life was to escape the car dependent sprawl. But every time I return I’m happy to be back.

As I began High School I found myself with a new freedom to explore the city, but a freedom that was constrained by my inability to drive. I remember, as a freshman, walking twenty minutes in the beating sun along an arterial road for a bus that arrives once an hour. Despite these limits I persisted in my exploration of my city. From Chinatown, to Olvera Street, to Grand Central Market, the Bradbury Building, and Angel’s Flight, I walked, exploring as far and wide as I safely could. But the inconvenience of getting around without a car made me long for a place where cars were not needed. Despite this friction I continued my exploration of Los Angeles on foot.

This constraint is what laid the foundation for my love of Los Angeles. I was forced to see Los Angeles from the sidewalks. When walking in LA, you notice things that are invisible to the world of people gliding past at forty miles an hour. The small businesses and thriving informal economies that spring up in parking lots and between old warehouses, the subtle shifts in language, architecture, and signage from one block to the next. The sprawl of Los Angeles is not uniform, it is more of a patchwork, uneven, improvised, yet still vibrant and alive. 

My deep connection to Los Angeles has only solidified as I have had the opportunity to directly shape the city. The past two summers I worked for Los Angeles Neighborhood Initiative (LANI), a NGO working to improve the built environment for everyone, across Los Angeles County. Los Angeles is a massive city where many underrepresented groups are completely ignored and LANI works to fill those gaps. During my time here I had the opportunity to get involved with the two business improvement districts (BIDs) that the non profit managed. 

My first interaction with the BLQ BID was through working on a project noting down every business within the BID boundaries. A task we were soon to discover was nearly impossible. But before that revelation I spent multiple days walking the two mile stretch of Pico Boulevard between Western Avenue and the 110 freeway. Lining Pico Boulevard are densely packed one and two story commercial buildings adorned with signage advertising countless businesses that seemed as if they could never all realistically fit under one roof. The majority of these establishments had no online presence and no contact information with the BID. It felt as if I had stepped into a thriving enclave completely separate from the city of LA. A community with Greek and Latino heritage and deep roots in the city but just another neighborhood for City Hall to gloss over. When conversing with business owners, they all highlighted the absence of any city run programs, despite being closer to City Hall than Hollywood or the beaches.

Los Angeles contains a plethora of similar neighborhoods. But from the perspective of the average driver this all blends into the background of the roads and highways snarled with car traffic. The average Angeleno misses out on the incredible array of different subcultures and informal communities when locked inside their car. Only from the sidewalks can one truly observe and take part in what makes Los Angeles great.