LOS ANGELES & WATER

THE SAN FERNANDO VALLEY: A STUDY OF LAND, WATER, AND DEVELOPMENT [2018]

“In the West, it is said, water flows uphill toward money.” - Marc Reisner, Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water

I have investigated the underlying power networks behind the relationship of the Los Angeles River and the development of its adjacent urban fabric from the beginning of the San Fernando Valley to today.

The San Fernando Valley is the urbanized valley in northwestern LA, defined by the mountains of the Transverse Ranges circling it. Home to 1.77 million people, it is north of the larger, more populous Los Angeles Basin. The Los Angeles River begins at the confluence of Calabasas Creek and Bell Creek in Canoga Park. These creeks' headwaters are in the Santa Monica Calabasas foothills, the Simi Hills' Hidden Hills, Santa Susana Field Laboratory, and Santa Susana Pass Park lands. The river flows eastward along the southern regions of the Valley.

The intention is to foster an understanding of urban ethics and political awareness that is applicable to different parts of the built world, leading to a broader understanding of the dimensions of the cultural ecology of a place over time.

THE SAN FERNANDO VALLEY: ALMOST-A-CITY ON ALMOST-A-RIVER [2018]

[WITH ANDREW SCHEINMAN]

The San Fernando Valley has, throughout its history, teetered between its many images. To some, the Valley is a rustic, country Eden away from the hustle of Los Angeles. To others, it’s a postwar American Dreamscape, a place to build the perfect family. It is simultaneously the paragon of cookie-cutter, like, totally “Valley Girl” suburbia, and a seedy, post-apocalyptic wasteland racked with sleaze, violence, and cyborgs riding motorcycles in dry creek beds. Whatever you see when you think of the Valley, the place beneath these representations is multifaceted and complex—representative of Los Angeles and California, but definitively unique. No matter its identities, the San Fernando Valley is undeniably a thing apart from the rest of the city, a cultural, social, and urban entity all its own…