
Images of Los Angeles when it was covered in wetlands - sologoub
http://www.businessinsider.com/history-of-los-angeles-ballona-creek-wetlands-watershed-2018-2
======
jboggan
Looking at that original wetland map makes me better understand the
liquefaction zones south of Santa Monica. I'm very happy that my apartment is
on the original surface bedrock, but it's amazing how much has been built on
relatively baseless infill. That's going to be huge trouble during the next
big earthquake.

[http://geohub.lacity.org/datasets/4842ad85584c43048124685228...](http://geohub.lacity.org/datasets/4842ad85584c430481246852280257c2_9?geometry=-119.23%2C33.789%2C-117.364%2C34.131)

~~~
robocat
For anyone from LA visiting Christchurch in New Zealand, go to the some of the
empty areas of the eastern suburbs of Christchurch: large areas where homes
used to be - all removed due to liquifacation.

------
apo
Water in the American West is one of those topics that sounds boring on the
surface, but gets more interesting the further down you go.

A good introduction is the "Cadillac Desert" documentary:

[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0444F9186975498D](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0444F9186975498D)

~~~
nikolay
Great documentary! Too bad its quality is so poor!

------
njarboe
One thing to keep in mind that a natural wetland area in the LA basin in
1800's is going to be full of mosquitoes that carry malaria. People were
highly motivated to eliminate all standing water that mosquito larva could
breed in. Thus, fill in the marshes/wet meadows to create dry land and/or
dredge to make lakes/ponds. Most current First World inhabitants greatly
underestimate the scourge of malaria, especially before modern medicine
allowed for a cure. The herd immunity like situation of modern California to
endemic malaria is due to a wide assortment of factors and is maintained with
relatively small cost today, but I imagine malaria could tip back to being
widespread pretty quickly.

------
abhishek0318
The history of US fascinates me as a foreigner. How it went from a totally
unknown land to a super power within few centuries.

~~~
maxxxxx
In places like LA it only took a few decades from the late 1800s on. Almost
like China now.

------
odammit
I lived in Playa del Rey for years just a few blocks from the house on the
hill in the 4th pic.

A few of the local coffee shops and restaurants have some of these old photos
and I always found it amazing that you could still see the resemblance despite
all the development.

The building being built along the road in the 4th pic is a karate school now.
The lagoon is a few ugly condos, a baseball field and mostly mud now.

~~~
fezz
As far as I can tell, that building is next to the karate school. My office
last year was the two upper left windows. Crazy seeing how different it was!

~~~
odammit
Do you know what all of that piping and industrial looking stuff is east of
Playa on Culver?

~~~
fezz
There are methane storage wells as wells natural methane pockets under playa
vista and that area or playa del rey. Those pipes are part of the wells.

------
noahmbarr
Almost like we’re a virus that invades something beautiful and balanced,
replicates at breakneck speed with no limiter— except when it kills / ruins
its host entirely....

~~~
subway
Was it ever beautiful and balanced if it gave birth to such a virus? We didn't
come to be outside of nature.

------
klorp765
So it wasn't a desert after all, and all those people claiming 'all' of LA's
problems are due to idiots building a city in the desert are just... false?

~~~
maxxxxx
From what I have heard LA could support around one million people naturally
along a very thin strip along the coast. Certainly not the number of people
there now.

It's also not a desert climate but "arid mediterranean climate".

~~~
vkou
> From what I have heard LA could support around one million people naturally
> along a very thin strip along the coast. Certainly not the number of people
> there now.

One million people at what level of resource efficiency? The efficiency of the
1970s, when washing machines used ~200L of water per load, and people watered
their lawns with spray sprinkers, which would evaporate half the water before
it touched the ground?

Or one million people using modern, water-conserving appliances, and, heaven
forbid, not having evergreen lawns?

~~~
maxxxxx
This statement was made at a workshop I attended a while ago. I don't think it
was meant as a precise statement but to illustrate that the LA area is vastly
overpopulated in comparison to local resources.

------
herf
A lot of it was "tamed" with major engineering around the river.

[http://lariver.org/](http://lariver.org/) for pictures

------
spraak
What will be left of earth in 100 years? We can't seem to understand, or be
disciplined with what we understand, that we're destroying what ultimately
sustains us.

These are beautifully sad pictures. If there were any pictures of the vast
Icelandic forests before they were razed, I'd feel the same.

Nearly every space of earth is trending towards pavement and buildings. I'm
asking myself, what can be done, where is there hope...

~~~
epistasis
What can be done is to build up areas which are already built up, increase
density, and bring people out of sprawl. Preserve areas and leave them
untouched, and meanwhile make the most of the areas that we do use.

This is good for humans (far higher economic activity) and good for the
environment. We must fight height restrictions, and other sprawl inducing
laws. We must have more protected areas. And we need to provide transit
options that scale well in dense areas.

~~~
avenoir
I'd wager that Agriculture has eliminated more natural habitats than any
population sprawl. I'm reminded of this every time I drive out of Colorado and
into Kansas.

~~~
epistasis
Yes, agriculture is a massive impact, but as we get better at farming we
require less land (at least in the US, I'm not very familiar with other
countries.)

From the 1920s to the 1970s, forests on the Eastern seaboard had actually been
rebounding due to less intense agricultural use:

[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/us-eastern-
forest...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/us-eastern-forests-
resume-decline/)

But then since the 1970s they have begun shrinking again as suburban sprawl
took over.

------
kbwt
Warning: This site breaks your navigation and spews modals at you even with
uBlock Origin.

------
RickJWagner
Cool! I had no idea.

~~~
spraak
What is cool about this? I understand the beauty and also the amazement about
not knowing this before, but just to say it's neat is so disconnected from
what followed. I.e. "wow, that's so cool the area used to be vast wetlands and
now it's all paved over and suffering from droughts etc etc!"

~~~
scrollaway
The user you're replying to read a cool article, with some cool photos,
learning a cool new fact, and wanted to express that it was "cool" in the
comment section of the link.

Don't be weird with people, it makes people less likely to hear your message.

------
foobaw
That URL...

