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Comment by ProfessorLayton | Hacker News Reader

This is a pretty good article.

Centering most of the greatest U.S. cities around the automobile is one of the greatest tragedies we're still living through today.

However, It's not just the automobile that is making us suffer through endless traffic and increased housing costs. The article also touched on the various housing ordinances that were racially charged, and were precisely implemented so that only PoC could not afford to move out of their designated neighborhoods.

These ordinances are stratifying the well-to-do from the poor to this very day.

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> The article also touched on the various housing ordinances that were racially charged, and were precisely implemented so that only PoC could not afford to move out of their designated neighborhoods.

This is something that is very interesting for me. When I post in USA forums how good are housing ordinances, that keep public spaces, protect beaches and make life a lot better for Spanish citizens. And how bad is that it took so long to implement, as a big chunk of the Spanish coast was destroyed anyway. I get a lot of answers vilifying housing ordinances. Nowadays, I understand why. It is a completely different history depending on where you live.

Regulations and market self-regulation can be good and bad. This article does an amazing job giving background to the current situation of LA and by extension some other USA's big cities.

Beach access in California is another hot issue. In general, beaches (defined as the strip of sand between the water and the high-tide line) are supposed to be open to the public all along the California coast (with exceptions, like military bases).

But just because you are allowed to play and picnic on the beach, does not mean you can get to it. In a host of notable beach locations, the owners of rows of houses along the beach have used all kinds of shady or illegal tactics to keep people from getting to the beach.

You may be aware of all this, but here is a starting point: http://www.latimes.com/local/westside/la-me-lopez-malibu-acc...

Similar racially-motivated tactics were used in New York. Specifically, I recall that Robert Moses designed bridges and roads out of the city to not be accessible by bus, so only people who could afford cars could live in the suburbs.

"City of Quartz" by Mike Davis is a book that explores the life of Los angeles, most notably through housing and style evolution - there is some heavy discussion in there on the creation of panopticon-like malls, and how the architecture is slowly devolving into this two tiered system, the well-to-do and the others. A bigger discussion surely - but the book is a labor of love, make no mistake.

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