The votes have been counted and KPCC has the list of 10 projects that are going to make Los Angeles super awesome in 2050. Well, hopefully. The projects are all winners in the LA2050 competition and get to split $1 million in prize money--the competition fielded 270 ideas that might make LA a better place in 37 years, and pledged to give $100,000 to the top vote-getter in each of eight categories, plus two additional wildcard projects chosen by the sponsoring Goldhirsh Foundation. And it turns out Angelenos really want to do something about all our vacant lots and underused spaces: TRUST South LA, which won in the housing category, plans to increase affordable housing by buying up abandoned and foreclosed houses on larger lots in South LA, rehabbing them, and adding a second house on the property. The say their $100,000 grant will enable them to provide permanent affordable housing for 12 families in a one-year pilot program.
LA Open Acres will use their money to help local residents take over vacant lots, fields, alleys, easements, and other underused spaces and make them into attractive, usable community spaces. They plan to do this by cataloging all the available space in LA, pooling knowledge, and connecting community members.
Even biketastic CicLAvia sees its benefit not necessarily as getting Angelenos out of their cars, but as providing neighborhoods with new (albeit temporary) spaces to come together. And for that, they also won $100,000 to keep the bike parades coming.
Meanwhile, the Hammer Museum won a grant for their plan to create an artsy pop-up village this summer to help reinvigorate Westwood Village, where 30 vacant storefronts give the area the highest retail vacancy rate in the city.
No single $100,000 project is going make LA a utopia in 2050, of course, but the hope is that each of the projects will start a small change in its community that will help make LA a happier, healthier, fairer place.
· Announcing the winners of the LA2050 project [SCPR]
· 14 Fun/Weird/Wonderful Ideas to Make LA Amazing in 2050 [Curbed LA]
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