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You can’t knock him for setting the bar too low

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Kazys Varnelis, editor of a new collection of essays on Los Angeles called ‘The Infrastructural City,’ is pleased with the final product:

Our goal was not modest: we set out to replace Reyner Banham’s Los Angeles[:] The Architecture of Four Ecologies as the key text for understanding the city urbanistically. Looking at the finished product, I can’t help but think that we accomplished this goal. I wouldn’t say this if I didn’t feel this was true.

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Is he right? Can ‘The Infrastructural City’ hold a candle to Banham’s hugely influential 1971 book? And what will new funding from the stimulus package and recent ballot measures on subway construction and high-speed rail mean for the L.A. infrastructure of the future?

Read my assessment here.

— Christopher Hawthorne

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