Post by bennyp81 on Jun 15, 2005 13:09:29 GMT -8
[This post references the 2002 World Series, in which the AL Anaheim Angels defeated the NL San Francisco Giants in 4 of 7 games to win the title. --bennyp81]
Roberto
User ID: 8374593 Oct 16th 5:06 AM
Anybody else just see the report about the World Series on CNN? It was about the rivalry between the North and South halves of the State, and it featured SoCal people and NoCal people both saying why their part of the State is the best.
SoCal folks said their main complaint about NoCal was that it was "too cold".
The FIRST thing the NoCal gang threw against the South was "NO PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION"! "Whenever you go down South, you spend all day stuck on the freeways".
Let's work hard to finally break that horrible reputation we have here. That's always one of the first complaints about our city from visitors, whether they're from San Francisco, New York, London, or Tokyo. In fact, it's now becoming one of the biggest complaints of the local people too.
As soon as they break ground on Expo, I would consider L.A.'s rail network to be halfway to reaching an acceptable level for a world-class metropolis. There is definitely light at the end of the tunnel ... with a little luck, we could catch up to the others within 20 years or so.
Marty
User ID: 0317884 Oct 16th 10:16 AM
Yeah, I just got back from Peru and met a bunch of European backpackers, and that was the same reason they gave for not wanting to travel to LA. Many of them had already visited San Francisco but had skipped out on LA because they didn't want to spend all the money to get a car rental or for cabs.
The Red Line extension could knock out a lot more of these destinations (Miracle Mile, BH, Beverly Center, Westwood) and make LA a much more travel-friendly place. Of course we'd still need better connections to LAX and Disneyland, as well as Venice & other beaches, the Getty, Sunset Strip, Melrose, and other tourist places.
Marty
User ID: 0317884 Oct 16th 10:35 AM
And speaking of Disneyland, they could start by subsidizing the Metrolink ticket cost towards the price of a Disneyland ticket. A direct shuttle bus could also meet each train at the Anaheim Station. Oh wait - this all makes too much sense. Sorry.
Art G
User ID: 9454293 Oct 16th 1:27 PM
That lack of a good transportation system is the key to making LA a truly worldclass city. I honestly if the general population begins using transit, that it will have signifigant positive sociological impacts on our populace. The first wouldbe on barrier being broken down between different racial/class groups.
PForce
User ID: 0596854 Oct 16th 2:56 PM
I’m with you, Art. It’s bad enough in our city that most contact with strangers is a glance out the window of one’s car, or maybe in a restaurant or store. There is practically no interaction on sidewalks (do they still make those?), and that which does exist (such as in Santa Monica) is between people of similar backgrounds and income levels. One of the few great improvements in recent years in this regard is the growth in the number and size of neighborhood farmer’s markets.
I too hope that the rise of mass transit (not buses) in this city will help to break down artificial barriers (homogeneous cities), and make LA feel like a real city with all kinds of people who see each other in the flesh rather than on TV or in a newspaper photograph.
Roberto
User ID: 8374593 Oct 16th 5:36 PM
I've pretty much seen all the great cities of the world, and there are two things they always have in common ... 1)an extensive, efficient rail network ... 2)lots of exciting neighborhoods jam-packed with pedestrians.
Those are the two things that L.A. is missing to put it up there with the other great cities of the world. We have the fantastic weather, we have an awesome variety of ethnic restaurants, we have some interesting and famous attractions, and prices in L.A. are generally lower than in other world-class cities ... however, we are still not considered a "user-friendly" place to visit, so in the eyes of most of the world, we fall short of the other cities.
The thing that usually lingers in the minds of tourists that pass through here is endless hours sitting on the freeway, getting lost on the complex road system, and having to gather enough cash to pay for parking at every stop. They also find the eerily deserted sidewalks in most of the city to be somewhat unnerving.
If we can keep the tide going in the right direction, however, we're not far from a big improvement ! L.A. could greatly benefit from an increased tide of tourist dollars constantly flowing into the city, not to mention the increased business investment an improved transportation network would bring. Even the locals would help boost the local economy by spending more money in the city if it was easier for them to get around.
PF, you hit it right on, one of the most interesting things about the Metro Rail system is that you can actually SEE Angelenos ! They have always been a very "invisible" people (in my lifetime anyway), rarely spotted in public ...
mike wills
User ID: 1181464 Oct 16th 9:01 PM
strange- i've never got that impression about angelenos being invisible. maybe it's because i was brought up on the bus, and as an adult i tend to hang around in places where there is a lot of foot traffic; hollywood, downtown l.a., santa monica, westwood, westside pavilion area
perhaps my experience is relatively unusal.
mike
Roberto
User ID: 8374593 Oct 17th 4:09 AM
I think it's rather what different people think is "alot" ... compared to any day in Manhattan, London, Paris, Tokyo, or Hong Kong, the foot traffic in Downtown L.A. or on the Sunset Strip is very light.
Whenever I'm showing my friends from other countries around L.A., even if we're in Hollywood or in Santa Monica on a Saturday evening, they almost always ask "why is it so dead tonight?" I always have to say "for L.A. this is crowded!" And if it's a Tuesday or Wednesday night, it's even worse, there are usually fewer than 30 pedestrians within eyesight in the entire area.
Really the only times I'm used to seeing crowds of local people here is inside enclosed buildings, like a shopping mall in December, or at the supermarket on a Saturday afternoon. Broadway on a Saturday early afternoon is one outdoor place that could be considered "bustling". The street festivals around town do sometimes bring out the big crowds I like to see, but we don't have enough of them. For the most part, unfortunately, L.A. sidewalks are still pretty deserted. But things can only get better !
Art
User ID: 9454293 Oct 17th 11:20 AM
I think a big key to making LA a lot more of a great place to live or visit is maybe investing some resources into our immigrant population. It is obvious that in most parts of the core city these people are the lifeblood that keeps areas thriving. And it seems like they(or we) are just marginalized and penalized by local governments. Broadway is 99% asian/latino yet I see no attempts by our city to encourage immigrant entreprenuership or anything of the sort. As long as LA will spend millions to get luxury apartments in downtown while not dropping a penny into working class public spaces(except for police or parking cops) all the problem s this city has will get worse. If you go to south LA you will never find the investment in public space that you see in encino or westLA, unless it is more police.
PForce
User ID: 0596854 Oct 17th 12:38 PM
Art,
Excelent. I agree with you completely. This city sometimes seems more about speeding up traffic, fighting crime, and attracting splashy wealth than in making life better for our ordinary fellow citizens.
Andrew S
User ID: 0269124 Oct 17th 12:46 PM
I know he is not universally popular, but let's not forget the Gray Davis decided to invest state money into making the "Cornfield" site near Chinatown a park with a school. Unbelievably, Riordan wanted one of his buddies to build a Warehouse park there.
That to me, is a wonderful and rare example of doing things for the ordinary citizens. I have to believe that this all ties in to "voter apathy". Davis's strong push for the East Side rail line is another example.
Roberto
User ID: 8374593 Oct 17th 2:15 PM
Basically I think most people doing the planning in L.A. really have to go live somewhere else for awhile to see how it's really done. They keep saying they want a 24/7 Downtown, with lots of pedestrians all the time, but they have no clue how to do it. They build huge stadiums and concert halls, but leave hardly any room for sidewalks amidst all the driveways and ramps going into parking structures. And street level is completely devoid of retail. And when there is retail, they build a big wall and enclose it like a mall, so that passerbys don't even know there's people there.
They don't realize that a little donut shop or a newspaper vendor on the corner will generate much more street life than the entire Staples Center. Places like Staples Center are designed for people to drive in, see whatever they're going to see, then drive away. Small retail, particularly food vendors and book or clothing shops to browse in, tempts people to linger in the area. And the shops and pedestrians have to be visible from the street, or the only people in there would be people that intended to go exactly to that one place the moment they started up their car.
If people see lots of pedestrians in some area, they feel more comfortable walking around there themselves. No passerbys are going to stop and stroll around an empty street.
The huge monuments they are working on are great, but they will not generate any street life whatsoever if no room is left for strings of smaller vendors to sprout up at street level. L.A. urban planners seem to be scared of small vendors, normally trying to wipe them out completely, but they are the main ingredient to the vibrant neighborhoods they are trying to emulate.
PForce
User ID: 0596854 Oct 17th 2:15 PM
Good points, Andrew. I'm also glad to learn that Davis supported the East Side rail line. Let's hope that he gets a big majority so that he can feel free to support even more progressive projects and policies that benefit ordinary people. (In the past he has seemingly felt the need to appear more hard-hearted than his opponents.)
mike wills
User ID: 1181464 Oct 18th 1:25 AM
Roberto- I agree that most of L.A. does not resemble London, or even Bath [where I lived for 3 of my 8 years in the UK]as far as pedestrian traffic goes.
But my point was that the locations that I mentioned are often not deserted, and some of the locations that I mentioned do have a fair amount of nightlife and weekend foot traffic, notably Santa Monica, and Westwood, both of which rival Bath at least if not the West End.
One major thing that makes L.A. different from, say, London is the fact that our city centre is significantly smaller relative to our metropolitan area compared to london and our nightlife spots are relatively isolated.
On the other hand, once you get out to the London suburbs there is not nearly as much pedestrian traffic [although still a bit more than a typical LA suburb]
A better comparison, perhaps, would be Berlin which like L.A. does not have that much of a downtown either, and as a result the pedestrian centres are more spread out than London's. Of course, Berlin's metropolitan area is still a lot smaller, and we don't have anything like Kudamm.
Regardless, even after 8 years of living in the UK, I never thought the streets of L.A., or at least the westside as being especially empty.
As I said above, I am sure that has a lot to do with how I chose to get around.
Roberto
User ID: 8374593 Oct 18th 4:17 AM
Well, I spend alot of time in L.A.'s "hot spots" (Santa Monica, Hollywood, etc) and I find the pedestrian traffic very sparse. Sunset Strip is one perfect example ... street traffic grinds to a halt on weekends, but you'll rarely see more than 20 people actually walking down the sidewalk (people standing in line to get into a club, or to pick up their cars at the valet don't count as "pedestrians").
I spent one year in London, and just about ANY evening in London's West End has at least double the pedestrian traffic of 3rd Street Promenade on Saturday (the busiest night). So I guess alot of it has to do with your opinion of "crowded" (glass half-empty, half-full sort of thing). Almost any major city in the world has at least double the amount of people on the sidewalks. In fact, I cannot think of another city with the population of L.A. that has as few people walking around.
I know part of the reason is the spread-out, decentralized geography of L.A., but I still think there are two other major problems ... 1)getting around L.A. is too time-consuming and difficult, discouraging walking ... 2)since everything is built for cars, there aren't many parts of the city particularly attractive to pedestrians. And since you have to drive to wherever you're going, people are reluctant to stroll too far away from the parking lot.
For those reasons, I have found that L.A. people tend to stay home and watch TV more than any other people I know of. Very rarely does somebody call me up and suggest that we go walking around some neighborhood. The most outgoing L.A. people seem to do that 2 or maybe 3 times a week at most. But that is something people do almost every single day in other big cities.
If we get our basic rail framework completed with 8 or 9 Metro Rail lines, and we add a few more pedestrian-friendly areas, and I think we could double or possibly triple the pedestrian traffic around town. We'll probably never rival London's West End for sheer pedestrian density, but we can sure make L.A.'s streets much more lively than they are today.
I wish your statement was correct that there are areas in L.A. that rival London's crowds ... but I've never ever seen in all my years here. Actually, that would be going a little TOO far (there's so many people in London that you're constantly being bumped from all sides and pushed from behind ... on Oxford Street, sometimes you have to walk on the street because the sidewalk is full), so if we double or triple our pedestrian traffic in L.A., that would be about right. I want enough people around to make it "bustling" and "exciting", but not so many that it's dangerous or annoying.
mike wills
User ID: 1181464 Oct 18th 12:51 PM
minor correction: I didn't say London's crowds- I said Bath's.
Roberto
User ID: 8374593 Oct 18th 7:58 PM
Whoops ! Sorry about that. I misread your above quote as meaning London's West End, not Bath's. I've never been to Bath (which explains why I'm unfamiliar with the names of its neighborhoods), but I want to visit next time I'm in Britain. I've heard it's nice. :-)
mike wills
User ID: 1181464 Oct 18th 9:17 PM
Bath is a wonderful city in my opinion. If I had done better as an undergraduate, I might still be living there.
I did mean London's West End but my phrasing was ambiguous. What I meant to say is that some places in L.A. rival Bath's foot traffic, but those places in L.A. do not in general rival tthe West End in terms of foot traffic. Sorry about the ambiguous phrasing.
Ray
User ID: 0471064 Oct 18th 11:06 PM
Guys... There's fewer peds... 'cause there's fewer PEOPLE... POPULATION PER SQ. MILE:
Los Angeles: 6,720
London Pop. Per Sq Mile: 22,224
Paris: 24,450
Hong Kong: 153,522
whilst Bath has a very small 1,235..
Art G
User ID: 9454293 Oct 18th 11:42 PM
I think LA's density is much more variable if you take out richer neighborhoods and industrial areas. Ive never been to hong kong but I know of numerous LA neighborhoods that have densities that rival New York. Macarthur Park's Density is around 125,000 per square mile.
Roberto
User ID: 8374593 Oct 16th 5:06 AM
Anybody else just see the report about the World Series on CNN? It was about the rivalry between the North and South halves of the State, and it featured SoCal people and NoCal people both saying why their part of the State is the best.
SoCal folks said their main complaint about NoCal was that it was "too cold".
The FIRST thing the NoCal gang threw against the South was "NO PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION"! "Whenever you go down South, you spend all day stuck on the freeways".
Let's work hard to finally break that horrible reputation we have here. That's always one of the first complaints about our city from visitors, whether they're from San Francisco, New York, London, or Tokyo. In fact, it's now becoming one of the biggest complaints of the local people too.
As soon as they break ground on Expo, I would consider L.A.'s rail network to be halfway to reaching an acceptable level for a world-class metropolis. There is definitely light at the end of the tunnel ... with a little luck, we could catch up to the others within 20 years or so.
Marty
User ID: 0317884 Oct 16th 10:16 AM
Yeah, I just got back from Peru and met a bunch of European backpackers, and that was the same reason they gave for not wanting to travel to LA. Many of them had already visited San Francisco but had skipped out on LA because they didn't want to spend all the money to get a car rental or for cabs.
The Red Line extension could knock out a lot more of these destinations (Miracle Mile, BH, Beverly Center, Westwood) and make LA a much more travel-friendly place. Of course we'd still need better connections to LAX and Disneyland, as well as Venice & other beaches, the Getty, Sunset Strip, Melrose, and other tourist places.
Marty
User ID: 0317884 Oct 16th 10:35 AM
And speaking of Disneyland, they could start by subsidizing the Metrolink ticket cost towards the price of a Disneyland ticket. A direct shuttle bus could also meet each train at the Anaheim Station. Oh wait - this all makes too much sense. Sorry.
Art G
User ID: 9454293 Oct 16th 1:27 PM
That lack of a good transportation system is the key to making LA a truly worldclass city. I honestly if the general population begins using transit, that it will have signifigant positive sociological impacts on our populace. The first wouldbe on barrier being broken down between different racial/class groups.
PForce
User ID: 0596854 Oct 16th 2:56 PM
I’m with you, Art. It’s bad enough in our city that most contact with strangers is a glance out the window of one’s car, or maybe in a restaurant or store. There is practically no interaction on sidewalks (do they still make those?), and that which does exist (such as in Santa Monica) is between people of similar backgrounds and income levels. One of the few great improvements in recent years in this regard is the growth in the number and size of neighborhood farmer’s markets.
I too hope that the rise of mass transit (not buses) in this city will help to break down artificial barriers (homogeneous cities), and make LA feel like a real city with all kinds of people who see each other in the flesh rather than on TV or in a newspaper photograph.
Roberto
User ID: 8374593 Oct 16th 5:36 PM
I've pretty much seen all the great cities of the world, and there are two things they always have in common ... 1)an extensive, efficient rail network ... 2)lots of exciting neighborhoods jam-packed with pedestrians.
Those are the two things that L.A. is missing to put it up there with the other great cities of the world. We have the fantastic weather, we have an awesome variety of ethnic restaurants, we have some interesting and famous attractions, and prices in L.A. are generally lower than in other world-class cities ... however, we are still not considered a "user-friendly" place to visit, so in the eyes of most of the world, we fall short of the other cities.
The thing that usually lingers in the minds of tourists that pass through here is endless hours sitting on the freeway, getting lost on the complex road system, and having to gather enough cash to pay for parking at every stop. They also find the eerily deserted sidewalks in most of the city to be somewhat unnerving.
If we can keep the tide going in the right direction, however, we're not far from a big improvement ! L.A. could greatly benefit from an increased tide of tourist dollars constantly flowing into the city, not to mention the increased business investment an improved transportation network would bring. Even the locals would help boost the local economy by spending more money in the city if it was easier for them to get around.
PF, you hit it right on, one of the most interesting things about the Metro Rail system is that you can actually SEE Angelenos ! They have always been a very "invisible" people (in my lifetime anyway), rarely spotted in public ...
mike wills
User ID: 1181464 Oct 16th 9:01 PM
strange- i've never got that impression about angelenos being invisible. maybe it's because i was brought up on the bus, and as an adult i tend to hang around in places where there is a lot of foot traffic; hollywood, downtown l.a., santa monica, westwood, westside pavilion area
perhaps my experience is relatively unusal.
mike
Roberto
User ID: 8374593 Oct 17th 4:09 AM
I think it's rather what different people think is "alot" ... compared to any day in Manhattan, London, Paris, Tokyo, or Hong Kong, the foot traffic in Downtown L.A. or on the Sunset Strip is very light.
Whenever I'm showing my friends from other countries around L.A., even if we're in Hollywood or in Santa Monica on a Saturday evening, they almost always ask "why is it so dead tonight?" I always have to say "for L.A. this is crowded!" And if it's a Tuesday or Wednesday night, it's even worse, there are usually fewer than 30 pedestrians within eyesight in the entire area.
Really the only times I'm used to seeing crowds of local people here is inside enclosed buildings, like a shopping mall in December, or at the supermarket on a Saturday afternoon. Broadway on a Saturday early afternoon is one outdoor place that could be considered "bustling". The street festivals around town do sometimes bring out the big crowds I like to see, but we don't have enough of them. For the most part, unfortunately, L.A. sidewalks are still pretty deserted. But things can only get better !
Art
User ID: 9454293 Oct 17th 11:20 AM
I think a big key to making LA a lot more of a great place to live or visit is maybe investing some resources into our immigrant population. It is obvious that in most parts of the core city these people are the lifeblood that keeps areas thriving. And it seems like they(or we) are just marginalized and penalized by local governments. Broadway is 99% asian/latino yet I see no attempts by our city to encourage immigrant entreprenuership or anything of the sort. As long as LA will spend millions to get luxury apartments in downtown while not dropping a penny into working class public spaces(except for police or parking cops) all the problem s this city has will get worse. If you go to south LA you will never find the investment in public space that you see in encino or westLA, unless it is more police.
PForce
User ID: 0596854 Oct 17th 12:38 PM
Art,
Excelent. I agree with you completely. This city sometimes seems more about speeding up traffic, fighting crime, and attracting splashy wealth than in making life better for our ordinary fellow citizens.
Andrew S
User ID: 0269124 Oct 17th 12:46 PM
This city sometimes seems more about speeding up traffic, fighting crime, and attracting splashy wealth than in making life better for our ordinary fellow citizens.
I know he is not universally popular, but let's not forget the Gray Davis decided to invest state money into making the "Cornfield" site near Chinatown a park with a school. Unbelievably, Riordan wanted one of his buddies to build a Warehouse park there.
That to me, is a wonderful and rare example of doing things for the ordinary citizens. I have to believe that this all ties in to "voter apathy". Davis's strong push for the East Side rail line is another example.
Roberto
User ID: 8374593 Oct 17th 2:15 PM
Basically I think most people doing the planning in L.A. really have to go live somewhere else for awhile to see how it's really done. They keep saying they want a 24/7 Downtown, with lots of pedestrians all the time, but they have no clue how to do it. They build huge stadiums and concert halls, but leave hardly any room for sidewalks amidst all the driveways and ramps going into parking structures. And street level is completely devoid of retail. And when there is retail, they build a big wall and enclose it like a mall, so that passerbys don't even know there's people there.
They don't realize that a little donut shop or a newspaper vendor on the corner will generate much more street life than the entire Staples Center. Places like Staples Center are designed for people to drive in, see whatever they're going to see, then drive away. Small retail, particularly food vendors and book or clothing shops to browse in, tempts people to linger in the area. And the shops and pedestrians have to be visible from the street, or the only people in there would be people that intended to go exactly to that one place the moment they started up their car.
If people see lots of pedestrians in some area, they feel more comfortable walking around there themselves. No passerbys are going to stop and stroll around an empty street.
The huge monuments they are working on are great, but they will not generate any street life whatsoever if no room is left for strings of smaller vendors to sprout up at street level. L.A. urban planners seem to be scared of small vendors, normally trying to wipe them out completely, but they are the main ingredient to the vibrant neighborhoods they are trying to emulate.
PForce
User ID: 0596854 Oct 17th 2:15 PM
Good points, Andrew. I'm also glad to learn that Davis supported the East Side rail line. Let's hope that he gets a big majority so that he can feel free to support even more progressive projects and policies that benefit ordinary people. (In the past he has seemingly felt the need to appear more hard-hearted than his opponents.)
mike wills
User ID: 1181464 Oct 18th 1:25 AM
Roberto- I agree that most of L.A. does not resemble London, or even Bath [where I lived for 3 of my 8 years in the UK]as far as pedestrian traffic goes.
But my point was that the locations that I mentioned are often not deserted, and some of the locations that I mentioned do have a fair amount of nightlife and weekend foot traffic, notably Santa Monica, and Westwood, both of which rival Bath at least if not the West End.
One major thing that makes L.A. different from, say, London is the fact that our city centre is significantly smaller relative to our metropolitan area compared to london and our nightlife spots are relatively isolated.
On the other hand, once you get out to the London suburbs there is not nearly as much pedestrian traffic [although still a bit more than a typical LA suburb]
A better comparison, perhaps, would be Berlin which like L.A. does not have that much of a downtown either, and as a result the pedestrian centres are more spread out than London's. Of course, Berlin's metropolitan area is still a lot smaller, and we don't have anything like Kudamm.
Regardless, even after 8 years of living in the UK, I never thought the streets of L.A., or at least the westside as being especially empty.
As I said above, I am sure that has a lot to do with how I chose to get around.
Roberto
User ID: 8374593 Oct 18th 4:17 AM
Well, I spend alot of time in L.A.'s "hot spots" (Santa Monica, Hollywood, etc) and I find the pedestrian traffic very sparse. Sunset Strip is one perfect example ... street traffic grinds to a halt on weekends, but you'll rarely see more than 20 people actually walking down the sidewalk (people standing in line to get into a club, or to pick up their cars at the valet don't count as "pedestrians").
I spent one year in London, and just about ANY evening in London's West End has at least double the pedestrian traffic of 3rd Street Promenade on Saturday (the busiest night). So I guess alot of it has to do with your opinion of "crowded" (glass half-empty, half-full sort of thing). Almost any major city in the world has at least double the amount of people on the sidewalks. In fact, I cannot think of another city with the population of L.A. that has as few people walking around.
I know part of the reason is the spread-out, decentralized geography of L.A., but I still think there are two other major problems ... 1)getting around L.A. is too time-consuming and difficult, discouraging walking ... 2)since everything is built for cars, there aren't many parts of the city particularly attractive to pedestrians. And since you have to drive to wherever you're going, people are reluctant to stroll too far away from the parking lot.
For those reasons, I have found that L.A. people tend to stay home and watch TV more than any other people I know of. Very rarely does somebody call me up and suggest that we go walking around some neighborhood. The most outgoing L.A. people seem to do that 2 or maybe 3 times a week at most. But that is something people do almost every single day in other big cities.
If we get our basic rail framework completed with 8 or 9 Metro Rail lines, and we add a few more pedestrian-friendly areas, and I think we could double or possibly triple the pedestrian traffic around town. We'll probably never rival London's West End for sheer pedestrian density, but we can sure make L.A.'s streets much more lively than they are today.
I wish your statement was correct that there are areas in L.A. that rival London's crowds ... but I've never ever seen in all my years here. Actually, that would be going a little TOO far (there's so many people in London that you're constantly being bumped from all sides and pushed from behind ... on Oxford Street, sometimes you have to walk on the street because the sidewalk is full), so if we double or triple our pedestrian traffic in L.A., that would be about right. I want enough people around to make it "bustling" and "exciting", but not so many that it's dangerous or annoying.
mike wills
User ID: 1181464 Oct 18th 12:51 PM
minor correction: I didn't say London's crowds- I said Bath's.
Roberto
User ID: 8374593 Oct 18th 7:58 PM
both of which rival Bath at least if not the West End.
Whoops ! Sorry about that. I misread your above quote as meaning London's West End, not Bath's. I've never been to Bath (which explains why I'm unfamiliar with the names of its neighborhoods), but I want to visit next time I'm in Britain. I've heard it's nice. :-)
mike wills
User ID: 1181464 Oct 18th 9:17 PM
Bath is a wonderful city in my opinion. If I had done better as an undergraduate, I might still be living there.
I did mean London's West End but my phrasing was ambiguous. What I meant to say is that some places in L.A. rival Bath's foot traffic, but those places in L.A. do not in general rival tthe West End in terms of foot traffic. Sorry about the ambiguous phrasing.
Ray
User ID: 0471064 Oct 18th 11:06 PM
Guys... There's fewer peds... 'cause there's fewer PEOPLE... POPULATION PER SQ. MILE:
Los Angeles: 6,720
London Pop. Per Sq Mile: 22,224
Paris: 24,450
Hong Kong: 153,522
whilst Bath has a very small 1,235..
Art G
User ID: 9454293 Oct 18th 11:42 PM
I think LA's density is much more variable if you take out richer neighborhoods and industrial areas. Ive never been to hong kong but I know of numerous LA neighborhoods that have densities that rival New York. Macarthur Park's Density is around 125,000 per square mile.
