'Place Shock' in Los Angeles
Considerations of Rebuilding Amid the Ecology of Fear
Yesterday, north of Santa Fe, I took a short video of a light snowfall, with each flake adding to the slowly changing land. The transformation was slow and graceful and did not affect my memory of what was there before. This was not a sudden erasure that disfigured the past, as in parts of Los Angeles.
I’ve studied sudden shifts in life and location, especially over the past three years. However, I am not qualified to tell an evacuation story. Nor can I describe firsthand what it is like to experience“place shock,” a term I suggest to describe familiar contours eliminated by wind and fire within minutes, hours, or a day.
How do you conceive of a place after such a “place shock” occurs?
I’ve read of others who have had trouble writing recently because they do not feel words adequately describe the radical changes the Los Angeles fires present. Or, like Maria Shriver, they delayed their response to process heartbreak from the week.
I’m in the latter camp, and observing the slow change of a snowfall helped me unlock some of the thoughts about radical landscape change presented below.
My friends lost houses, possessions, and pieces of themselves. CNN interviews and more private grieving—celebrities and everyone else—describe losing physical structures (usually homes), momentos, and disorienting first views. The before-and-after views once the fires died down deny the locale of memories.
In her Substack entry over the weekend, my friend Gena, who lives in Venice (see my August 20, 2024 entry), has captured a place that has transformed her since 2019 and has become an urban love letter to Los Angeles.
Within, she presents an ode to a meaningful hike that is no longer, and, significantly, grieves an incinerated path, flora, fauna, and missing view:
Nothing like hiking Paseo Miramar, with its panoramic views, wild and craggy canyons, scented wildflowers, groves of old oaks, hummingbirds swarming, quails scurrying, birds singing, and bunnies hopping. The marine layer rolling in, surrounding us in a cocoon of whispery clouds and mist. Only the sounds of crickets, birdsong, and the wind. Witnessing the supermoons rising, doing hikes solo and with friends, it will never cease to take my breath away. This immense beauty. Such a special, soulful place. Like heaven on earth.
We need not dwell too much on the well-known risks of living in Southern California, even as these risks play out to an unprecedented degree. Houses of brick are less common because of earthquakes; ironically, many wood houses are now lost to fire.
As the late Mike Davis foretold years ago in Ecology of Fear, this worst-case outcome, still unfolding, is no surprise among closely positioned homes with surrounding brush during a substantial drought and Santa Ana winds. To the north in Santa Barbara, many—including author Pico Iyer (as told to Oprah)—have seen their lives change by the whim of fire.
After such personal loss, people focus more on the immaterial, look within, and better understand the destruction of war.
Over thirty years ago, Davis wrote about the inevitable outcomes of unsustainable building practices or the inherent dangers of affected geographies. Even without climate change front and center, he pointed to the long-term history of this Mediterranean climate and that Gena’s paradise might be more temporary than chambers of commerce can know.
But in each case last week, no one could reasonably predict the exact circumstances of how things would unfold. So far, places like the Getty Villa in Malibu have benefitted from double-walled construction and a perimeter methodically cleared of brush. But it would be simplistic to say, as have some, that yard maintenance is the only key.
Burning cities are hardly novel. Peacetime urban fires have blessed Chicago, Rome, London, Seattle, San Francisco, and Lisbon. Often, the reconstructed places dispense with certain elements attributed to the fires’ cause. In the 17th century, London was rebuilt without timber overhangs over narrow streets but without other revisions argued for by Sir Christopher Wren. Paradise, California, has been rebuilding since 2018 without overhead power lines.
As the city embarks on the arduous task of rebuilding, the question arises: how do we reconcile the imperatives of safety and sustainability with the deeply ingrained human desire for continuity, for a sense of rootedness in the familiar?
Soon, my consultant friends will join (and contrast with) Governor Newsom’s already controversial Marshallesque Plan to rebuild and urge—at least in words—a design ethos loyal to the land. They will offer the Palisades and Altadena versions of Katrina Houses, perhaps “Angelino Abodes.” They will assign acronyms and monikers like “sustainable restoration” and “climate-oriented affordability” and discuss them on AI-assisted social media.
We will hear much more about low-impact development, presenting resource-sensitive development patterns at various densities and “new ways” to govern distances between buildings. We will read many discussions about mandated fire-resistant building materials, enforceable and strict defensible space regulations, heavier investment in wildfire mitigation and water delivery, and empowering residents through genuine community-driven planning.
Inevitably, as Newsom’s approach unfolds, others will follow “repair and replace” traditions and rebuild in patterns that risk ongoing vulnerability. In America, after storms, floods, and fires, this is the stuff of property rights and human nature. Still, others will counsel against rebuilding in many sensitive areas, even beyond the most dangerous places.
The ensuing balance may ignore the stark reality of a climate-altered world.
Despite their vulnerability, these places are beyond physical, with memories, histories, and a sense of belonging that cannot be easily erased. The challenge is to find a balance that honors safety imperatives and the human desire for continuity.
I’m more focused on the ethereal questions as the after-times unfold.
What are the post-disaster elements of a place? If they are not merely a matter of physical structures, do they also include the familiar contours of a now-lost landscape? And we now know that place resides more deeply in the intangibles that linger beyond the acrid air.
How will memories be honored? How will intangibles be rebuilt, and how possible will this be?
I’m reminded of towns I’ve researched and immersed in—that have had to rebuild because their legacy location is no longer suitable—such as Kiruna, a far-north Swedish mining town. Kiruna moved its town center due to the subsidence of land caused by mining practices. The redevelopment depended heavily on citizen input and an eclectic approach that honored tradition, environmental considerations, and future needs.
Buildings were not necessarily moved or rebuilt literally. Although the city hall maintained some traditional building materials, interior features, and familiar configurations were replicated in different architectural styles.
The result was elements that keyed memories. A poignant example was—at an elderly couple’s request—moving a park bench from the old downtown to the new, as that was the place where they first met.
Watching light snow slowly fall, I’m reminded that how memories are honored may be the north star of successfully reconstructed communities.
Los Angeles's challenge is efficiently rebuilding homes and infrastructure while acknowledging how actual rebuilding transcends the physical. It's about encouraging the intangible, honoring memories, and cultivating a sense of belonging.
Paradise is fragile, says climate change and its progeny of storms, melts, heat, and drought. In this case, it's a matter of purposely reflecting on how resilience and beauty coexist amid political compromises and Davis’s ecology of fear.
Beautiful and powerful 🙏🏼❤️🩹
Thanks for this. It really helped to organize my thoughts. I hope you continue to track on the recovery - whatever path is taken.