Column: ‘No’ on Measure S means ‘Yes’ to a 21st-century Los Angeles

The idea of Los Angeles that sold the middle class and the Midwesterner on this place well over a century ago is still deep in our brains: the R-1 home with its lawn, its 3 bedroom-2 bath and garage. But the city’s changed, and Angelenos’ needs have too. Measure S, on the March 7 ballot, gets boiled down to embracing those changes with development and with the city’s housing and zoning regulations, or putting development on hold for two years — from projects that increase building heights and density, to the City Hall haggling that gets politically astute developers the “spot zoning” changes they want, with patchwork results. Mark Vallianatos is co-founder of Abundant Housing L.A., and he’s opposing Measure S, not to enrich developers, he says, nor to punish current homeowners, but to make the housing pie bigger, so everyone who wants it can get a slice of the good life, L.A.-style.

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