Let's imagine a future that works for all of us

When L.A. Times staffers started to assemble a Future of L.A. project last year, we wondered which topics might deserve a deep dive. Housing? Transportation? Entertainment and popular culture?

Is L.A. broken, as some say, or could it become a model of urban sustainability? Or something in between?

That’s a lot to bite off in a sprawling metropolis with millions of people and thousands of opinions about how we might navigate the next few decades.

Then Los Angeles was beset by fire, and the Times staff did what it does best, swarming to cover the biggest news story in the city’s history. The future would have to wait.

But not for long.

As Angelenos mourned their dead and sought recovery assistance and cleared the debris of what used to be their homes, it became increasingly clear that the fires left L.A. with an imperative: to pause and think. So we asked an array of experts and our readers and ourselves: What can we —should we — do in the next 25 or 30 or40 years to make our city a sustainable and equitable home for everyone?

In these pages you will hear from community leaders about their hopes for Los Angeles, and read about how we might might build the housing we so desperately need. You’ll encounter a landscape architect who is helping to build “sponge cities” and whether they might be a solution for flooding problems in Southern California. You’ll learn about future possibilities for fire mitigation — and much more.

Times columnist Michael Hiltzik reminds us that Los Angeles and California are “the subject of unending curiosity for readers of history and current affairs. … That has been true since the vision of a land of gold — El Dorado — drew the Spanish conquistadors to these shores.

“The world wishes to know what L.A. and California are, and where they are headed.”

So let’s imagine a future that works for all of us. It’s imperative.

— Alice Short

PART I