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Angels and Apples: The Late-Twentieth-Century Western City, Urban Sprawl, and the Illusion of Urban Exceptionalism
- University of New Mexico Press
- Chapter
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AnAmericanAirlines traveler could spot the discrepancy on landing anywhere in California at any AA stop. It appeared at San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, or Palmdale in the Antelope Valley north of Los Angeles.The California city was supposed to sprawl,but in fact it was now growing rather compactly.Large,twostory houses,shoehorned onto small,cookie-cutter lots prevailed and were supplemented by many apartment houses,which squeezed even more residents onto the small spaces.Trees were usually growing everywhere, especially in the suburban spaces.All this did not seem quite proper for cities that supposedly wasted space and denuded and destroyed the environment. California cities were not understood to be like this. Above all, Los Angeles was not supposed to follow this pattern. It was presumed to be the king of American “urban sprawl,” or rather the queen, being Our Lady of Los Angeles. For the last fifty years, Our Lady has been lambasted by critics of all kinds for its horizontal character and devastating environmental impact. Many modern observers, like Carl Abbott and Greg Hise, have entered reservations to the general critique of Los Angeles and, by implication, of western cities.In many ways they have found them well planned and functional rather than anarchic and dysfunctional. Nearly everyone seems to agree,however,that California cities in general and Los Angeles in particular “sprawl.” That characteristic seems to be taken for granted.Still,there does seem to be some evidence to the contrary.This essay will investigate whether California and western cities actually do “sprawl” more than other American cities and inquire if the impact of western-style urbanization undermines western cities’“livability.” Although publicists and planners have long discussed the horizontal city, American historians have not devoted much time to the subject.The“sprawl city” appears in some historians’ discussions but not much in-depth analysis of it.A search of the bibliography of Writings on American History, –; America, History and Life;the Urban History Association Newsletters; and the Journal of Urban Angels and Apples: The Late-TwentiethCentury Western City, Urban Sprawl, and the Illusion of Urban Exceptionalism Roger W. Lotchin History reveals virtually no titles on“sprawl.”Despite the importance of the urban form of our cities,our neglect of the subject has been manifest.Perhaps this comparison of American cities will begin to eliminate that gap in the literature as well as to suggest questions for future study. Since Los Angeles is so often pulverized by the rhetoric of her detractors, let us begin with Our Lady of the Angels. In , Los Angeles spread much less than manyAmerican cities,east and west.The remainder of urban California was not even close to the top of the list in that category.For example,Atlanta,Georgia, is half as dense in population per square mile as Los Angeles. New Orleans is even less dense thanAtlanta,to give just one more southern example. LosAngeles is not even the most spread out western city—it is just the reverse. Instead, the City of the Angels and California cities in general are the densest cities in the West. So much for the western myth of Los Angeles “sprawl”! But what about the notion that western cities in general and Los Angeles in particular spread out more than any otherAmerican cities?This question has two different answers. California cities are more dense than all but the most compactly settled eastern urban entities.The remainder of western urban areas have low densities.Western cities certainly have fewer persons per square mile than do many Rust Belt cities.Among cities with over , population,NewYork leads in crowding, with , per square mile, followed by San Francisco and Jersey City,with roughly ,. Of the nine major cities with populations over , per square mile,seven—NewYork,Chicago,Philadelphia,Boston,Miami, Newark, and Jersey City—are east of the Mississippi. San Francisco and Santa Ana, California, make up the rest. So the older areas of the country seem to be far more crowded than western cities, unless we consider the South. Southern cities often have very low densities .Table directly compares the cities of the two regions,rank ordered by people per square mile. Table : The Thirty-Four Largest Southern Cities and Largest Western Cities with More Than , Population S. Cities Pop. PPSM W. Cities Pop. PPSM Jacksonville , Okla. City , Chesapeake,Va. , Salt L. City , , Columbus, Ga. , Colo. Springs , , Huntsville,Ala. , Ft.Worth , , Nashville-Davidson , , Aurora, Colo. , , Chattanooga , , Corpus Chr. , , Montgomery,Ala. , , Tulsa , , Little Rock , , El...
