Los Angeles Olmsted–Bartholomew Parks Plan
Core idea
Greenways and parks network (largely unbuilt)
Why it matters
Lost blueprint for a greener LA
Description
A regional open-space plan for Los Angeles County commissioned by the Chamber of Commerce and delivered in 1930 by the Olmsted Brothers firm and Harland Bartholomew, published as 'Parks, Playgrounds and Beaches for the Los Angeles Region'. It proposed a vast interconnected system of parkways, greenways along the region's rivers and arroyos, protected beaches and mountain reservations, financed through a dedicated regional authority. The sponsoring interests suppressed the report and almost none of it was carried out.
Significance
The plan has become the emblematic 'lost blueprint' of American landscape planning, invoked whenever Los Angeles confronts its shortage of public open space and its channelised river. Its rediscovery from the 1990s onward has directly informed river revitalisation and regional greening efforts, and it figures prominently in debates about how private power can foreclose public alternatives.
What shaped it
- Plan of Chicago (1909)
- The linear park / greenway (1878 / 2009 revival)
- The public park (1843–1858)
- Ecology (1866 / 1935)
Plans it influenced
Sources
- https://www.si.edu/object/eden-design-1930-olmsted-bartholomew-plan-los-angeles-region-greg-hise
- https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/departures/the-emerald-necklace-vision-for-a-healthier-l-a-county