California Needs More Urban Density

“This could have the added benefit of increasing demand for public transportation -- presuming, that is, people would trade car ownership for reduced rent. Increased demand would hopefully spur development of commuter-friendly projects like a long-delayed Westside subway line.

“But Gail Goldberg, L.A.'s planning director, said any proposal that includes cutbacks in parking tends to go nowhere. "People feel like there's already not enough parking and that people are intruding into their neighborhood. This is a difficult discussion to have."

Here we see the core problem: those who established themselves in these neighborhoods in the 20th century, under a now-obsolete version of the California Dream, refuse to admit that their perspectives and expectations need to change. Whether they know it or not, those who oppose density are helping establish a "homeowner aristocracy" - where the benefits of society go only to those who were lucky enough to buy a house before 2000, or who inherited from someone who did. In order to maintain the fantasy that urban neighborhoods can have enough parking for everyone who wants a car, LA is now making it unaffordable to rent a home if you are not making an upper middle class income, and those who can't afford it are forced to drive - and bear the brunt of peak oil's arrival.

San Franciscans might empathize. The squeeze on parking spaces there is legendary; a garage is almost a mythical prize. And yet, as many more San Franciscans are realizing, there is really no good reason to own a car if you live in the City. MUNI has its problems, but it gets people around. Carsharing services like Zipcar or City CarShare allow one to access a vehicle on the few occasions they might need it, reducing the need for parking spaces and car ownership.

As more and more scholars are coming to realize, car ownership has high costs for workers - "you work on Friday to pay for your auto". Adding in the environmental and climate costs of long car commutes, and anti-density policies are clearly having a catastrophic effect on our state. City centers can thrive with less parking, and it brings the added benefit of not bankrupting the workers who keep that city going.

Lazarus suggests that alongside going after the parking requirement, we pursue mixed use development:

“A more politically practical remedy may be to ease zoning requirements for mixed-use properties, thus allowing creation of urban villages featuring retail outlets at street level and moderately priced living spaces overhead.

“This is already happening to some extent above a handful of subway stations, such as the Wilshire Vermont Station project in Koreatown. But creation of dynamic transit villages throughout L.A. remains a distant prospect at best.”

It's unfortunate that this seems a "distant prospect at best," especially because so many other West Coast cities already embrace mixed use. Seattle, where I lived from 2001 to 2007, is an excellent example of mixed use, and in my last years there I got along quite well without having a car at all. SF and Oakland exhibit effective mixed-use policies. So does my current home of Monterey - virtually everything I need, from the library to the supermarket to bars and entertainment is a short walk or bike trip away.

Much of Southern California looked like this as well, at least before 1950. Since that time, under the leadership of conservative Republicans, SoCal pioneered the single-use, car-based sprawl that has now brought the American economy to the brink of collapse. SoCal gambled that cheap oil and affordable land would last forever. That gamble is now quite clearly lost - so why should we listen to the anti-density forces who basically would have us double down?

If we are to renew the promises of the California Dream - affordable, clean, pleasant living for all the state's working people - we are going to have to turn to density. We need to invest in public transportation, apartments and condos, and mixed use policies. If we do, we can restore the promise of economic security to the people of our state. If we do not, we will create a pattern of inequality that will likely dominate our society for the entire century.

Robert Cruickshank is a historian, activist, and teacher living in Monterey. He is a contributing editor at Calitics.com and works for the Courage Campaign, in addition to teaching political science at Monterey Peninsula College. Currently he is completing his Ph.D. dissertation in US history, on progressive politics in San Francisco in the 1960s and 1970s. A native Californian, he was raised in Orange County and educated at UC Berkeley.