Does Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa Want to Destroy Your Backyard?

Joel Kotkin reports on the strange utterances of L.A.'s reactionary Mayor:

In a series of speeches around town, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has recently begun to flesh out a utopian vision for Los Angeles that gives new meaning to the idea that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

The way he sees it, Los Angeles shouldn't be Los Angeles at all but should be reshaped into something that mimics the lifestyles of the great cities of the East Coast and of Europe — dense, transit-dependent cities of high-rise apartment buildings like New York, Chicago, Boston and Paris.

"This old concept that all of us are going to live in a three-bedroom home, you know, this 2,500 square feet, with a big front yard and a big backyard — well, that's an old concept," the mayor suggested in a speech last week.

Instead, he said, Angelenos need to move away from that and look at the "good life" lived in traditional, densely packed, apartment-dominated cities.

Actually being stacked up in a high rise with limited parking is rather 20th Century Europe.You'll want to read the whole piece.Another great one from America's expert on the cities Joel Kotkin.