Re: A Califronian Saunter

Hey Aaron,

I just wanted to let you know that I've been trying to keep up with your online journal thing for the cure for cars... unfortunately, I haven't been able to make it through all of it yet! Goddam school gets in the way of pretty much everything in life... Anyway, I want to say that I really do enjoy reading about your experiences, it's nice to live vicariously through someone out experiencing the world in such a visceral way. I've had about as much as I can take of school, sitting around only reading about shit and then hearing people bitch about that shit for marks... I often think about how nice it would be to just walk away from it all and talk to more people who have a different point of view than me...

Also, I'm taking a class right now called Urban Transportation Geography, and Los Angeles comes up a lot in it, mostly about how it was the biggest disaster in transportation and land planning in the history of North America... in particular there was this one article taking about the development of The LA and San Fernando Valleys in the 20th century, basically how California was a "garden of Eden" during the great depression, with some of the most fertile soils in the country, home to lush orange, lemon and avacado groves which were a beacon of hope during those hard times... that productive land which caused this economic prosperity in the first place was then the first to be paved and covered with extremely land-consumptive low-density detatched homes from that point on. Some planners tried to stop such action but apparently developers fought tooth and nail for their right to develop land in a way that would produce the most profit... Thus CRAZY subdividing followed, eating up, by the present date, virtually ALL of the green land in the area for private suburbs. Currently, LA has the lowest amount of parkspace of all American cities (a measly 0.6% of land cover) with a full third of its total area devoted to the car (roads, freeways, parking lots and driveways). Once a "breadbasket" for the country, now the biggest crop grown BY FAR is LAWN!!

...it's a tragic story, really

Anyway, I thought you might find that interesting, mostly the fact that there WERE people who tried to stop the insanity, even though their voices weren't heard in the end...

I haven't read much past you leaving Los Angeles, but I sure hope it got better! But I'll be reading that soon! keep on exploring the world!

Mark

p.s. I laughed for a long time at the thought of you towering over a group of Mexicans, while you both pointed and laughed at one another.. hehe