Spatial Suicide: The Imminent Break-Up of The City of Los Angeles

July 8th & 15th, 2002 - Since we began our website, we have consistently reminded readers that the deteriorating transportation infrastructure for commuters coupled with the increasing division of specialized labor will eventually contract the urban form from the metropolitan scale to the municipal scale, producing severe economic, social and political impacts. Well the City of Los Angeles is clearly exhibiting signs of an imminent breakup.

This November the residents of San Fernando Valley are going to the polls to vote in a referendum on separation. If a majority vote to leave Los Angeles, the new city of San Fernando Valley will instantly become the nation's sixth largest city with a population of 1.3 million spread over a land-mass of 222 square miles. What is terrifying the City of Los Angeles is that a successful San Fernando Valley secession will lead to other communities wanting to leave. The community of Hollywood is assembling a secession movement as well.

The residents of San Fernando Valley believe that their community receives little in exchange for the tax revenue they send to Los Angeles. Whether library services, safety and security, or mass transit, the residents continue to feel short changed. For example, despite paying $1.3 billion in taxes for the new subway, the subway does not extend fully into the Valley but merely abuts the community with one station.

Although transportation is not the only service the residents complain about, it is one of the most poorly performing infrastructure components of the city. The Valley is growing more distant from the downtown area of Los Angeles because of congested freeways. Residents frequently complain about having to drive for nearly two hours to get to City Hall. The Santa Monica Mountains isolate this community and with longer car trip journeys anticipated in the region, the residents of the Valley are going to feel even more isolated.

Where one lives and works is the defining characteristic that delineates a city boundary. It is this spatial integration that is rapidly deteriorating throughout Los Angeles, Southern California and elsewhere. The economic impact of isolated communities will only grow in the New Economy. Should San Fernando Valley succeed in its secession, both it and the remaining City of Los Angeles will suffer long-term economic harm. Certainly, local government will be less motivated to improve commuting transportation options between what is left of the City of Los Angeles and San Fernando Valley.

While at the one hand, existing transportation technologies are driving communities further apart, New Economy employers are being forced to reach even further beyond existing city boundaries to recruit skilled labor.

Even Peter Calthorpe and William Fulton in their book, "The Regional City" would categorize the secession as "Spatial Suicide" for both San Fernando Valley and what's left of Los Angeles.

"Spatial suicide is an apt term for the manner in which many American metropolitan areas choose to tear themselves apart rather than adapt to the idea of an economic region. As we will discuss below, the mismatch between regional economic reality and local political fragmentation often leads to such severe social and economic inequality across a region that it cannot function well either as an economic unit or as a social unit."

It is very significant that both Peter Calthorpe and William Fulton argue against the fragmentation of the urban form because Peter Calthorpe is one of the founding members of the New Urbanism Movement.

A maglev technology that is capable of converting existing intercity travel markets into time, cost, and convenience equivalent intracity commuting markets could bring the community of San Fernando Valley closer to the City of Los Angeles. A 40 km. commute from the valley into the downtown center could be accomplished in about 15 to 30 minutes, depending on the alignment and the technology. The key however, is that this new transportation mode must be affordable to every day commuters and always reliable.

A successful urban maglev mass transit system linking the Valley to downtown Los Angeles would certainly provide the economic and social benefits to the residents of the Valley, alleviating the pressure for secession.

But in the absence of an urban maglev technology, continued urban transportation failures will trigger secession movements across Urban America. However for a majority of urban planners who believe that Small is Beautiful, the imminent spatial contraction is a welcome end to the domination of the automobile.

We at Magplane believe that a successful urban maglev application that increases the range of home-work commutes transforming the metropolis into an Interactive Megalopolis will also spell the end of the commuting automobile, because the range and volume of the automobile are becoming limited. Because maglev transportation is inherently cleaner, this new urban form can be more environmentally sustainable than the current metropolis. And because station access will always remain an important location criterion, the maglev station deployment network will see a more centralized urban development scheme in the vicinity of maglev stations, a key design element advocated by the New Urbanist planning ideology.

(Source: The Economist, June 15th, Los Angeles without the Valley: The road to Camelot)

In the archives section of this website, is a large collection of stories that describe the causes and the economic and social effects of urban contraction.

Readings

The Economist, Los Angeles without the Valley: The road to Camelot

This article is published with the express permission of Richard Zavergiu. Please visit http://www.magplane.com/html/stories.htm#7_8_15_02