In 1967, Los Angeles Magazine published an article entitled: 'A Student's-Eye View of the City-To-Be'. In it, members of a UCLA Urban Studies class suggested new directions for the civic environment. At the time, the City's planning department was preparing to create an ambitious Master Plan for Los Angeles and sought to begin a dialogue between the department and the citizenry. The idea was to ask the city's residents to help in an examination of the quality, style, and purpose of their civilization, and therefore, that of their individual lives. The timing of this inquiry and the wave of interest in rebuilding the city coincided with a predicted flood of federal funds that were to be allocated to the nation's great metropolitan areas as soon as the Viet Nam war ended. Additionally, like many American cities, Los Angeles was facing a cycle of rising crime, congestion, smog, deepening racial tension, and the erosion of the middle class in their mass exodus to suburbia. It is widely accepted that it was to be L.A.'s last chance to divert its course and build not simply the basic elements of infrastructure, but an interesting and sustainable civilization.

BT

left: Jerome Sirlin
center: Woody Garvey
right: Ron Baers