Notebook On Cities And Culture

Colin Marshall sits down in Silver Lake with Alissa Walker, writer on urban design, architecture, and the cityscape — especially Los Angeles' — for publications like GOOD, Dwell, the LA Weekly, and more. She also associate-produces KCRW's DnA: Design and Architecture. They discuss Sunset Triangle Plaza, the area of reclaimed street where they sit, and what it says about the Angeleno "mind shift" toward getting out of the car; how many small, cheap improvements can alter the urban experience in the same way as a few large, expensive ones; her friends' lingering fear of getting "all sweaty" while riding bicycles, buses, and trains; the complacency Los Angeles instilled in its residents in the seventies, eighties, and even nineties; increasing the "stumble upon" factor in a large, spread-out city; her experience building a more accurate narrative of Los Angeles, a city that hasn't done much to brand itself lately, than the ones in the New York Times; the urban projects that work in this city and the ones, like