In 2007 I began a 2 1/2 year period where every 3rd Sunday night or Monday morning I would fly out of the green, misty jewel-box of Seattle and into the sun-blasted, smoggy mars-scape of Burbank, California. I would stay in North Hollywood, in a shitty 1br apartment where my design aesthetic was "things that hang from the ceiling", for three weeks, working in television and movies. Then, three weeks later, I would hop an Armenian taxi, board a flight to Seattle, and descend back into the beautiful jewel box that is Seattle. The first book I read on the plane was Solaris by Stanislaw Lem, which, movies to the contrary, is about an alien intelligence the size of a planet that isn't omnipotent, isn't benevolent, but is completely alien, completely incomprehensible and completely uncaring as to the humans that crawl over it attempting to eke out some sense of understanding. Los Angeles became my Solaris and every flight became a research voyage to a remote outpost. It started with a marvelous flight through incredible scenery, became a monotonous haul through brown and blue, and ended with a descent onto a Hadean landscape that any thinking human being would avoid out of principle. While there I would do my job, perform my hustle, eat my rice-a-roni and tend my hanging garden until such a time as I could leave and return to Earth. Los Angeles, more than any other municipality in North America, reflects post-war industrialism. It would be impossible without air conditioning and would be nothing without the car. As outlined in the (excellent) article, it is very much an architecture in defiance of nature. I've managed to find pockets down here where I can retain my perspective on it without being consumed; I'm less than a mile from the ocean where I am and feel an affinity to the airport, knowing which planes are flying when and where they're going. But it remains an alien landscape. Fans of this article might also appreciate The End of Suburbia, which features Kuntsler at his best, and the ouvre of George Steinmetz. Start Here.
Could the same be said of all large metropolitan areas of the Southwest (Phoenix comes to mind right away)? None, obviously, is as big as LA, they all seem to be a giant "fuck you" to the principles of livability. If LA is the poster child for postwar industrialism, then Phoenix is the poster child for I-am-the-master-of-the-universe-and-nature-is-but-a-tiny-obstacle-to-me Reaganism. I enjoy visiting friends in LA, but I could live happily without ever setting foot in Phoenix. Incidentally, I think that the lack of sustainability in the SW might be the savior of the Great Lakes region. When AZ and TX run out of water it might not seem so bad to endure the winters in Detroit (not that we don't have a major urban sprawl problem, as well) to have access to the one resource that we absolutely cannot under any circumstances survive without.