Enviro website Grist has just completed a series of articles examining the Los Angeles River as "a potent example of the city's defiance and control of nature, and an emblem of everything that environmentalists love to hate about the City of Angels." Mercifully, they're looking on the bright side of the river's recent transformations:"There's more and more hope that, instead of being the butt of jokes, the Los Angeles River could become a point of pride for the city." LA River aficionados won't find much new information in these articles, and of course the story pauses more than once to reference Drive and Terminator 2 (fine by us!), but it's nice to see a national media outlet telling a nice story about the Los Angeles River. As for what it's going to take to transform the LA River in the way that neighborhood activists and environmentalists want, Melanie Winter, the director of The River Project, doesn't mince words talking about the holistic approach the city should be taking toward river restoration versus riverside park and greenway projects like the 2007 project on the Tujunga Wash: "I couldn't give a shit about a riverside greenway if that's the main objective ... If you focus on the entire watershed--the land use, the tributaries, everything else--then you'll get a greenway. You'll also get a local, sustainable water supply, and better public transportation, better public health, and 50,000 other things."
· Los Angeles River checks into rehab [Grist]
· Can sprawling Los Angeles learn to let a river run through it? [Grist]
· Plan to Spiff the Area Around the LA River Rolling Right Along [Curbed LA]
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