Are Alleys the Key to Sustainability in LA?
Before everyone was bitten by the "green" bug, there were those in LA (or who visited) who had a vision for sustainability. Paul Glover was one of them. After creating the local currency that is Ithaca Hours, Paul opined about a way to bring ultra-urban Los Angeles into a sustainability community - all based on closing some alleys.
After closing alleys, Glover lays out six more steps for reducing the carbon footprint and building a truly sustainable community - one neighborhood at a time. With dated diagrams and an artist's rendering for each stage, this online guide is adapted from Glover's 1989 22-page booklet of which can still be found in the LA Public Library (two copies, actually).
Does it work? Glover shows a real L.A. neighborhood in a 1-mile area of Boyle Heights in theory. He also disclaims, though, that this eco-gentrification "process may take ten, twenty or fifty years." Check it out for yourself. And if his car-free, communal neighborhood design wasn't enough, he also provides a design for sustainable homes, or ecolonies.
How far off is he? Well, until about 5 years ago, the City actually had a alley closure program. See, alleys (as with all road ways) are technically owned by the adjacent property owners, usually each owning 50% (basically to the middle of the alley or roadway). So, if all the owners agreed to the closure of the alley, the City had funds to gate it off. This was done to mitigate crime and illegal dumping and returning these linear zones to community uses.
The funds to gate the alleys have since been discontinued, but alleys can still be closed and turned over to the adjacent property owners, if they choose to take over the maintenance of the former public right-of-way.
Paul Glover's plan could work, if people were willing to change their way of life. And based on the changes we've seen in the City over the last few years, this plan may need to be revisited by neighborhoods looking to truly take back their neighborhoods and the world around them.
photo by concrete cornfield via flickr