Creating walkable neighborhoods across L.A.

Transforming urban sprawl into a web of vibrant communities

pretty street with bicyclist and pedestrians

What is a ‘Livable Community’?

A HOLISTIC SOLUTION

A town center vision for LA

Imagine LA as a collection of Town Centers with a charming, walkable street and high-quality naturally-affordable housing built over retail.

Learn More About this Vision

3 Key Elements

Housing

HIGH QUALITY HOMES

Airy bright apartments, leafy courtyards, residential-over-retail, 3-5 stories of charming architecture.

Retail

CHARMING LOCAL SHOPS

Ground floor retail that serves daily and weekly needs such as grocery stores, pharmacies, coffee shops. No big box stores.

Streets

WALKABLE AND BEAUTIFUL

The sidewalks, the streets, the bike lanes and spaces all come together to make a livable, walkable, beautiful community.

LOCATIONS FOR TOWN CENTERS

Where in LA?

LA has thousands of miles of low-quality commercial corridors. We can transform them into high-quality, leafy, inviting and vibrant streets lined with local retail and residential housing above while incentivizing every parcel owner on the street to build. A few hundred miles would be the equivalent of LA’s housing and home ownership deficit.

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CAR-LIGHT, NOT CAR-LESS

What about parking?

In a car-dependent city like LA, the most frequent question when it comes to housing is: ‘what about parking?’ There’s a solution!

The LCI building typology of residential-over-small-retail doesn’t physically accommodate parking. Affordability would be lost if it did because parking-lots-in-housing raises rents up to $800/month.

Our design comes from a highly successful redevelopment in Lancaster, CA added a ‘Parking Ramblas’ and solves three issues at once: slowing cars, adding trees and shade, and providing parking for visitors, shoppers, residents’ cars/car-share and EV charging, ADA, work vehicles.

MORE ABOUT PARKING

Why can’t we have this?

Current Rules Incentivize…

Windowless rooms. Limited airflow. No residential + retail. Car-dependency. No outdoor space.

Updated Rules Incentivize

Naturally affordable and sustainable homes. High quality architecture. Bright and airy rooms. Courtyards of safe green space. Retail serving daily and weekly needs.

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How do we make it happen?

A STREAMLINING STRATEGY

Change the rules, speed the process

Our state and local government officials need to implement a few changes that reduce the cost and time to build, improve the street and transit, and incentivize the neighborhoods we want.

The 10 needed government actions

Why is LCI the way forward?

A COMPLETE, SIMPLE PLAN

Synergy surpasses piecemeal approaches

This approach solves the affordable housing crisis, combats our ever-increasing traffic troubles, and addresses the climate crisis by making a few essential changes ALL AT ONCE.

Why this? Why now?

Resources

Comprehensive research

Read the LCI Mobility Plan

Our peer-reviewed paper explains how the LCI plan addresses our traffic, housing and climate crises

Read Report

More Reports and Resources

Join over 4,500 Angelenos working to create a more livable L.A.

Would you want to live in a ‘Livable Community’?

Sign your name if you or someone you know would want to live in a Livable Community: