It's the Infrastructure, Stupid!

Yesterday's Los Angeles Times "Opinion" section featured an essay from St. Zev the Panderer about the coming populist revolution against density in Los Angeles.

Puh-leeeze.

Yes, people in Los Angeles are angry about density. Yes, people in Los Angeles feel like developers own the government. And yes, people feel that elected officials who keep approving development after development are clueless. But the sentiment rings hollow and shallow coming from Yaroslavsky -- despite the unquestioning affection the media has been giving his recent pronouncements on the subject.

The problem is not density; it is infrastructure.

We know the population of Los Angeles is going to increase. We can't stop time. We can't prevent people from having children. We can't forbid people from moving here. And unless we build more housing, the existing housing stock will become even more unaffordable.

The real issue is not whether to build more housing, but how to accommodate it. It is about infrastructure. The quality of the infrastructure largely determines whether additional population blends in seemlessly or results in gridlock. How do we move all these people around? Do we have mass transit to get them to and from work? Do we have enough schools and parks for their children? Do we have enough capacity in our sewage lines or on our electrical grid?

These are the questions our elected officials need to be answering. It is not enough to approve housing developments because we need more housing. It is absolutely essential that we concurrently build the infrastructure that we know the additional population will require.

Zev has been one of the top ten most influential Los Angeles political figures for a couple decades, so it is fair to hold him accountable. He has been on the City Council, the Board of Supervisors, and the MTA. So where's our mass transit? While he has been a force behind the Orange Line in recent years, let's remember that Zev made a career for himself fighting the Expo Line and the Wilshire Subway.

It's time Zev got off his high horse about development and got into the trenches to build some infrastructure.