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Building Los Angeles: Urban Housing in the Suburban Metropolis, 1900-36 Author: Todd Gish Dissertation School: University of Southern California Pages: 333 Publication Date: June 2006 Availability: Access Number: 10811 Abstract: How does public policy affect the variety of rental housing stock? This dissertation will scrutinize the formulation of policy regulating residential land and structures in early 20th century Los Angeles, then examine changes resulting to a long-ignored but critical part of its urban development—multifamily housing. Historical analysis will uncover the complex political, economic, and social problem of accommodating dense, urban rental housing in a city striving to project a distinctly suburban image of a homeowner's paradise. Then, changes to the city's rental housing inventory will be tracked relative to implementation of the new policies and controls, in a before-and-after comparison. Potential lessons for current decisionmakers are substantial, as housing shortages continue to vex cities struggling to preserve perceptions of environmental quality. Policymakers must recognize that this problem is a continuing one-one that has received intense, creative energies from both the private and public sectors over the last century. A chief goal of my research is to provide officials with their predecessors' hard-earned lessons about consequences of housing and land regulation. Historical methods and analysis constitutes my research plan. The timing of new, intensive housing reform and city planning activities near the midpoint of my study period will enable before-and-after comparisons of the affect of public policy on the local residential building stock. I will address two sets of questions, one qualitative, and the other quantitative. First, how vocal were interest groups in making input to the agencies responsible for crafting new housing policies? What did official agencies see as their mission? Were private lobbying efforts successful in getting policy shaped a certain way? Specifically, how did new regulations treat different kinds of multi-family residential development? Answers to this set of questions-on policy inputs, relative to dwelling type-will come from analyzing an abundance of historical documents, including materials kept by participating public agencies and private organizations. Also, complete runs of local trade journals are available from the period, giving voice to the major players in the production sector: builders, designers, landlords, and financiers. Second, what observable near-term changes to residential development resulted from new regulations? Did the variety of dwelling types diminish? These questions-on policy outputs in the form of housing stock-will be answered via quantitative historical methods. Building permit records will combine with statistics from the U.S. housing census, city planning reports, and local trade publications to furnish a numerical picture of the variety of dwelling types before (1910s) and after (1930s) implementation of new controls. |
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