Issue 023: The Los Angeles Issue

"If I close my eyes and picture L.A., all i can see is one big varicose vein." When Marilyn Monroe uttered that wonderfully unpleasant line to Trueman Capote, she captured the grotesque beauty of one of the world's strangest cities; clogged, expanding, and straining at its physical limits.

When we close our eyes and picture anything, all we can see is LA.A. it's a place of borrows nostalgia for thousands of fictional sunsets; a stand-in for far-flung coastlines and fantastical worlds; a land of competition, contradiction, and (often maligned) creativity. And as much as any city in the world, it's a product of the 20th century, from its infrastructure to its industries to its insistence on doing everything it does with the help of a car. The challenges facing L.A. are the same as those facing any city in the developed world- just more so.

In this edition of GOOD, we study critical issues facing global cities by looking through the lens of Los Angeles. Can we turn this swollen beast into a healthy, 21st-century city? If we can do it here, we can do it anywhere.