The Reluctant Metropolis: The Politics of Urban Growth in Los Angeles

by William Fulton

A Los Angeles Times Bestseller"William Fulton is the Raymond Chandler of Los Angeles real estate."―Kevin Starr, California State Librarian and author of Material Los Angeles through the 1920s In twelve engaging essays, William Fulton chronicles the history of urban planning in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, tracing the legacy of short-sighted political and financial gains that has resulted in a vast urban region on the brink of disaster. Looking at such diverse topics as shady real estate speculations, the construction of the Los Angeles subway, the battle over the future of South Central L.A. after the 1992 riots, and the emergence of Las Vegas as "the new Los Angeles," Fulton offers a fresh perspective on the city's epic sprawl. The only way to reverse the historical trends that have made Los Angeles increasingly unliveable, Fulton concludes, is to confront the prevailing "cocoon citizenship," the mind-set that prevents the city's inhabitants and leaders from recognizing Los Angeles's patchwork of communities as a single metropolis.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Cities, Urban Planning, Politics, Urbanism, Urban Studies

424 pages, Paperback

First published August 9, 2001

Reviews

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fascinating but superficial look at LA politics, the kind you get from being in the midst of the wheeling and dealing. It is certainly one aspect of how things work in L.A., but fails to dig beneath the surface.

This is the story of LA as "one of he most effective growth machines ever created." Set in motion by a handful of rich and powerful men: Henry Huntington, heir to a San Francisco railroad fortune, William Mulholland, engineer, Harry Chandler, the publisher of the Los Angeles Times, and his father-in-law Harrison Gray Otis, founder of the LA Times and real estate speculator. They were all real estate speculators. Land development was always the key, and this small group of men drove through L.A.'s development

Lacking water, the cartel simply imported it from hundreds of miles away, using whatever political clout and legal skullduggery was required. ("If we don't get it," William Mulholland once said, "we won't need it.") Lacking people, they imported bodies, luring trainload after trainload from the frigid winter climes of the Midwest with the promise of an eternal summer, a moral society, and a nice little bungalow, Lacking an economy, they invented one, using a Ponzi scheme of real estate speculation until they could kick-start other industries, such as entertainment, oil, and aerospace. No challenge in this task of city-building was too great...

These engineers of the growth machine engaged in a wide variety of activities-streetcar companies, electric utilities, water service, publishing. But many of these tasks were loss leaders that didn't see a profit. Their real purpose was to facilitate the growth machine's underlying goal: to consume land profitably. And for everything that Los Angeles lacked, land was one raw material available in abundance.

Growth was successful, LA sprawled in an effort to be the antithesis of a city, selling itself to midwesterners as suburban paradise. It's size demanded mayoral campaigns be run through media and mass-mailing campaigns which require money. Developers are the ones who front that kind of money, and as a result

In short, power in Los Angeles city politics revolved largely around an iron triangle of nominally nonpartisan politicians, developer/ contributors, and the Democratic party-an iron triangle which, though theoretically liberal in political philosophy, was really part of the business-oriented growth machine.

In the suburbs substitute Republican for Democrat, but the dynamics remain the same.

This has all come apart however, with nothing to replace it. The affluent have continued to remove themselves from the city, in a physical manner by putting up walls and gates. But

The suburban cocoon can be figurative as well, keeping outsiders away through financial and political means. Special taXing districts established by cities and developers after the passage of Proposition 13 have woven financial cocoons around many suburban subdivisions. Unable to pay for roads, parks, and schools out of property tax revenue, the cities essentially bill the residents of new subdivisions for the cost. Also since [340] Proposition 13, suburbanites have turned increasingly to the practice of seceding from the surrounding metropolis by creating new cities. It should not be surpriSing, then, that people living inside these suburban cocoons become cocoon citizens, defining the common good as that which benefits only those inside their particular cocoon. Far from identifying themselves as citizens of a region or a metropolis, they often have trouble identifying themselves even as citizens of the small suburban cities of which they are a part.

I agree that land development and money is key in L.A., and given the span of time it covers, it isn't really possible to cover all of the machinations and wheeling and dealing that was happening, even for the case studies he zeroes in on. For some of the incidents I know something off, it definitely wasn't the way I would have told the story, and missed some things I would have included. For instance the long section on the rise of the automobile and the demise of the red car is quite simply wrong. Perhaps people weren't enjoying their jaunts on public transportation as much as they once did due to overcrowding and such, but the reality is that the red cars were bought up entirely by auto interests and purposefully scrapped. After uproar. Rather different than a gradual demise due to consumer preference.

It is also written from a very particular point of view. for example he writes:

The standard joke urbanists make about denizens of the Los Angeles metropolis-the joke that is intended to single them out for ridicule as people who truly live on Mars and not in a real city-is that most of them have never been downtown. ... But you would never, ever mistake downtown Los Angeles for an actual place that has significance in your life.
Unless, that is, you are somehow connected to L.A.'s blueblood elite, such as it is.

I find that so telling, as outside of the moneyed hub, downtown in extraordinarily vibrant, crowded, and busy. It's just not white folks using it. I find it telling that issues of race should be found in the chapter on consequences rather than as a driver of L.A.'s development patterns. There is little to no reflection on the dynamics of race, politics and development as part of the argument, it is an aside.

I did enjoy pondering this, however

And to the arriving hordes of Midwesterners, many of whom had cashed handsomely out of the family farm, the new subdivisions offered exactly what they wanted: a reminder of a rural past without the harsh realities of the hardscrabble life they'd left behind. The popularity of the car was the result of L.A.'s suburban ethos, not its cause.

An interesting proposition.

[Bryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about Los Angeles, but would be a good read for anyone who has lived in LA and/or wants to know how the development of cities are pushed and pulled by the interests of both the many and the few. As Fulton notes in his "updated" (as of 2001) afterward, the story of the development of LA is not a unique story regarding major cities in America. But, due to the time it saw major development as well as various political actions that occurred in California, the story of LA magnifies the trials and triumphs of issues that all major cities have faced, as well as the implications.

While the book saws it is a series of essays, it still reads like a book, jumping around the county of LA but not feeling disjointed or haphazard. I appreciate the way Fulton, while describing the events that occurred in LA, lets his opinions be known, but simultaneously does not have this color his narrative (at least in my opinion).

I most enjoyed reading about the places I have lived or intimately know about in LA, so if one was unfamiliar with the landscape it might not be as tantalizing. But I think there is still enough corruption, backhandedness, and political buffoonery to keep even the non-Southern Californian engaged.

[Kyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

A series of essays about things that should be boring related to urban planning and politicking in Southern California from 1981-1997 or so; instead I found it to be captivating and the truest portrait of life and the attitudes that exist here. Fulton writes in his final chapter of "Cocoon Citizenship" and "Toon Town Urbanism" persuasively about how the "American dream" post-WWII was the creation of the suburb (thanks to the interstate and rapid travel), and let lower/middle-class families nationwide live a comfortable, suburban, safe life that existed outside of the traditional metropolis. Los Angeles was the perfect city for such behavior and Fulton narrates in compelling fashion exactly how the city feels the way it does.

[Robert Baird · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another essential book for understanding Los Angeles.

[Gordon Howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best book I've read about urban planning in Los Angeles. Bears some similarities to Mike Davis, but without Davis' nihilistic tendencies.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit outdated, but still an excellent history of modern Los Angeles. Lots of juicy political details!

[Josh Stephens · Rating 5 out of 5]

An essential analysis of urban planning policy, politics, and economics in the Los Angeles region, most notable for its explanation of "the fiscalization of land use." Many of the principles that Fulton lays out are as true today as they were when it wrote them two decades ago.

[Susan Card · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was recommended by a friend when my husband and I first relocated to Los Angeles and everything about the place was a mystery. It is a difficult read in that it is a series of scholarly essays, not a conversational guide to the city, but everything I have come to understand about LA started with reading Fulton's insightful book. It may well be of interest to those of a certain ilk in other cities but it really should be required reading for Angelenos.

[Eli · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great political perspective on the history of urban planning and politics in the SoCal area over the past 30-40 years. Not only is Fulton an extremely knowledgable writer, but he really emphasizes key causes of why LA has become the way it is with repsect to its lackluster sprawled out planning methods and auto-minded politicians. A really interesting and intelligent read.

[Jennifer]

He was my professor and a guru of Smart Growth, so I kind of feel obligated...