Things to do and read for urbanists @Los Angeles

Photo by Jack Finnigan on Unsplash

It is a series profiling interesting urban projects, reading lists, initiatives, and places for urbanists to get the gist of what is happening in a city at a glance. Email me if you, or someone you know, wants to introduce about your city!

Things to do, places/project to check out

1. Downtown Los Angeles's Art Walk

2. A public program that lets people to build a community parklet easily: People St program

3. A 10-year economic development and revitalization initiative to get an identity back to the city. Bringing Back Broadway

4. An interesting project that brought the nature back to the former-industrial, challenged area. Augustus F. Hawkins Natural Park

5. Famous art spaces like HAUSER & WIRTH and Art Share L.A. are also worth visiting.

6. 18 places in LA where black architects left their mark — this is a ultimate list and mapping.

7. A world-renowned independent architecture schools, and it often has exhibition that is open to the public. GALLERIES AT SCI-ARC

8. A famous architecture designed by Frank Lloyd Wright — Hollyhock House

9. A residential dwelling design by Frank Lloyd Wright — Ennis House

Read

10. I found this beautiful book at a book store in Art Share L.A.:Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles written by David L. Ulin — it is his journey of trying to 'make sense' of the city. His another book of L.A. looks equaly interesting too: Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology

11. Get to know the overall picture of what is happening in LA

12. Very helpful resources to understand urban design principals in LA

13. I spent hours to check out Curbed's all mapping projects — it's a great way to get to know LA from various perspective. Especially these urban-renewal related mapping projects are helpful to check a slew of new developments that's is coming/happening to some neighborhood.

• Mapping the changes on Westlake’s horizon
• Changes underway in Chinatown, mapped
• Mapping the Arts District's never-ending parade of development

14. Watch Chinatown (1974) and read this interesting article about the movie, arguing about white supremacy and gentrification in L.A.

15. Activist and journalist Alissa Walker's blog is a great introduction to the city and it makes wanna walk L.A.

Organization

15. Skid Row Housing Trust is a great initiative that provides permanent supportive housing for people who need supports. For those who are not familiar with Skid Row area, watch this short documentary.

16. Do ArT Foundation, a non-profit social enterprise created to produce publicArt programs, projects and exhibitions.

17. L.A. Forum for Architecture and Urban Design is an independent nonprofit organization and organizes public programming, exhibitions, and publications. I went to one of their event "TRANSFORMING THE CITY FROM INSIDE OUT // L.A. & TAIPEI CITY" and it was quite interesting.