Make way.
If there's one thing we can all agree on, it's that Los Angeles is full. Full of people clogging up our world-class freeways and taking our precious on-street parking. Full of people polluting our environment and watering their silly lawns. Full of people complaining about how Los Angeles is full. There are too damn many people, I say, and something needs to be done about it.
And let me tell you another thing: the worst offenders are residents of single-family homes. Almost all of them drive, for one. They also take up more space than just about anyone else—space that could be used for parks and open space, trails, woods, you name it. Who do they think they are, anyway?
We've been downzoning Los Angeles for the past 60 years, so that many of the buildings we now live and work in would be illegal to build today. That's a great start, but why stop the downzoning at strip malls and single-family homes, you know? Why not make those illegal too? If we had even fewer people, homes, and jobs, things would be that much better.
LA was farms and orchards before it was streetcar suburbs, and I think we should just go back to the beginning—the beginning from the perspective of white people, of course. Let's bring back the Ranchos, man; those were the real good times. One thing I can tell you for certain: the small number of people able to afford them will enjoy some wonderfully idyllic lifestyles. Imagine calling all of Las Cienegas home! That's the kind of natural setting and open-space livin' that we owe our children—a few of them anyway.
Make LA Great Again!
If we really want to thrive we need to look backward, not forward. There's nothing a city can achieve that is more noble or progressive than to reclaim past glories, after all. You know the old saying: "More past, more glory." So let's go as far back as possible. Let's party like its 1899.
It's time to downzone single-family neighborhoods and bring back the real Los Angeles. Whatever and whoever is left will be really great, probably.