What are the characteristics of Urbanization in LA specifically and the U.S.A as a whole?
What is the main point raised by this case study?
Los Angeles’ has a specific Urbanization. The city grows sprawling and horizontally where
most of its urban functions housing, malls, workplaces, infrastructure, etc) spreads out over
the ground, increasing the urban surface in exchange for rural and natural grounds. Whereas
cities like New York tend to grow more vertically, building sky scapers. As result, the city of
Los Angeles is known for its extreme area coverage of 88,000 km2.
This specific form of growth is due to several factors such as :
Los Angeles started to grow and become a city at the same time when motor cars were being
developed and used. During the 1960s people started to use motor vehicles which offered
them the chance to move around the city and live far away from their job location. Urban
Sprawl was therefore favored in Los Angeles.
Indeed L. A has a low-rise building character as well due to its frequent earthquake risk
character.
Compared to New York, Los Angeles is much younger (its origins date back to 1871). It was
originally settled by the Spanish colonizers, but the Americans took control of California after
the Mexican-American war, which ended in 1847.
The 10 largest cities in America on average were settled around the mid-18th century. The
urbanization of the USA has taken place over the last 200 years. People live more often in
suburbs to get home rather than in multiple-story buildings in the USA. Urbanization in the
United States was often encouraged by the development of railways. However, Los Angeles
was much more developed with the introduction of the motor car industry which permitted
much faster urbanization. We can also add to it a succession of lucrative economic activities
like the film industry and entertainment, oil reserves, tourism, and modern manufacturing.
The land, in America, is cheaper than in suburbs. It was easier to get a home in the suburbs
than city center therefore Consequentially, there was an important movement of the middle
class and wealthy people who tended more and more to gradually live in the suburbs. This
was the decentralization of cities, like Los Angeles which drained the downtown area of both
people and businesses. The United States is a country very marked by the free-market
economy and ideology. Planners have been often unable to exercise control over the
urbanization of the town and cities. The result and impact of this suburbanization which has
forced the public authorities to invest more and more in important road networks. Therefore,
suburban intensification and re-urbanization are very rare in the United States. The US has
more skyscrapers, and 11 cities in the top 50. The main point of this case study might be to try
to find out the particular and original urbanization that happened in the United States which is
due to an more important presence of free market ideology compared to other countries, the
United States has a much more different definition of urbanization than European countries.