I would really, desperately like to agree with this article, but I hit this point and may not read further because this is a completely clueless statement: If

I would really, desperately like to agree with this article, but I hit this point and may not read further because this is a completely clueless statement: If they do not also change their parking policies, such efforts amount to little more than window-dressing. There is a one-word answer to why the streets of Los Angeles look so different from those of London, and why neither city resembles Tokyo: parking. I wanted to be an urban planner and I have done a fair amount of related reading. Los Angeles sprawled before it became known for being so car oriented, back when people took the tram and walked everywhere. It sprawled because it was built in the desert. The fact that water has to be imported to the area means that you had to develop large tracts of land in order for the financing to make any sense. It has to do with how much it cost to develop the necessary underlying infrastructure. It's layout is somewhat unique due to the environment and circumstances in which it was built, the way that Venice is unique for being built in a swamp. If you don't study the history of the place, you can't understand how it came to be the way it is. I would love to see the U.S. become less car centered. I would love it if we stopped whoring our cities out to the cult of the car and built more walkable communities and provided better public transit. But arguing for some particular approach and basing that argument on completely made up facts without understanding the history behind the places used as examples does not in any way impress me.