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Ask any elder boomer who is an LA native about this, and be prepared for a looong discussion. I think that as with so many things the red cars in LA both bette

Ask any elder boomer who is an LA native about this, and be prepared for a looong discussion. I think that as with so many things the red cars in LA both better and worse than cars. I think they were especially better for younger people. But I think they were inseparable from a pre-car culture, ultimately.

uoaei 4y ago
LA was not a product of a "pre-car culture", quite the opposite. In fact everything about "car culture" could rightly be considered in colonialist framing: immediately after arriving as a common mode of transportation, they shut off streets to anyone else except cars, using up the resources that the people already there had painstakingly refined for their needs and criminalizing their built-up patterns of behavior (jaywalking). LA was the product of an intense need for justification of cars-as-way-of-life by designing a city to be bad for everything except cars. And it worked!
- surfaceofthesun 4y ago
  Adding to the point: After all of that, it’s not like driving in/around LA is fun.
- samatman 4y ago
  Los Angeles was founded in 1781. It helps to know such basic things about a city if you want to make confident pronouncements about its history.
  - uoaei 4y ago
    I would advise you, Sam Atman, to review the city limits and landscape as they changed over time, rather than eliminating all context from trite tidbits of information to make an underdeveloped and irrelevant point. City design doesn't stop the moment someone puts a flagpole in the ground.
    - BitwiseFool 4y ago
      This response is dripping with contempt.
      - uoaei 4y ago
        I'm only responding in kind. People ought to recognize how they come across in discourse, for the purposes of good faith discussion all around. What better way than to hold up a mirror? Or do we expect egos to be so domineering that they cannot recognize their own behavior in the reflection? I don't think it's imperative to disguise contempt for those who are so obviously not engaging in good faith. Doing so only provides cover for that same bad faith actor to abuse the culture of respectability politics and antagonize others.
        BitwiseFool 4y ago
        >"What better way than to hold up a mirror? Or do we expect egos to be so domineering that they cannot recognize their own behavior in the reflection?" Good advice, yet I'm sensing a lack of self reflection. Good-faith discussion is incumbent on all participants. You are quick to assume offense and once you perceive that you have been slighted you do nothing to try and steer the conversation back into the kind of discourse you desire. Indeed, you react with "contempt" - your words. There is a time and place for such reaction, but I feel like de-escalation and disengagement should be the go-to strategy most of the time.
      - samatman 4y ago
        It was. Happily I have a Jerk Filter and will never see that string of vowels on this site again.
        uoaei 4y ago
        See as the ostrich buries its head. As an ostrich it can do nothing else.

uoaei 4y ago

LA was not a product of a "pre-car culture", quite the opposite. In fact everything about "car culture" could rightly be considered in colonialist framing: immediately after arriving as a common mode of transportation, they shut off streets to anyone else except cars, using up the resources that the people already there had painstakingly refined for their needs and criminalizing their built-up patterns of behavior (jaywalking). LA was the product of an intense need for justification of cars-as-way-of-life by designing a city to be bad for everything except cars. And it worked!

surfaceofthesun 4y ago
Adding to the point: After all of that, it’s not like driving in/around LA is fun.
samatman 4y ago
Los Angeles was founded in 1781. It helps to know such basic things about a city if you want to make confident pronouncements about its history.
- uoaei 4y ago
  I would advise you, Sam Atman, to review the city limits and landscape as they changed over time, rather than eliminating all context from trite tidbits of information to make an underdeveloped and irrelevant point. City design doesn't stop the moment someone puts a flagpole in the ground.
  - BitwiseFool 4y ago
    This response is dripping with contempt.
    - uoaei 4y ago
      I'm only responding in kind. People ought to recognize how they come across in discourse, for the purposes of good faith discussion all around. What better way than to hold up a mirror? Or do we expect egos to be so domineering that they cannot recognize their own behavior in the reflection? I don't think it's imperative to disguise contempt for those who are so obviously not engaging in good faith. Doing so only provides cover for that same bad faith actor to abuse the culture of respectability politics and antagonize others.
      - BitwiseFool 4y ago
        >"What better way than to hold up a mirror? Or do we expect egos to be so domineering that they cannot recognize their own behavior in the reflection?" Good advice, yet I'm sensing a lack of self reflection. Good-faith discussion is incumbent on all participants. You are quick to assume offense and once you perceive that you have been slighted you do nothing to try and steer the conversation back into the kind of discourse you desire. Indeed, you react with "contempt" - your words. There is a time and place for such reaction, but I feel like de-escalation and disengagement should be the go-to strategy most of the time.
    - samatman 4y ago
      It was. Happily I have a Jerk Filter and will never see that string of vowels on this site again.
      - uoaei 4y ago
        See as the ostrich buries its head. As an ostrich it can do nothing else.