Photo of Downtown L.A.: David Galvan/Flickr

For a decade Los Angeles has tried to build-up it’s urban core in an effort to densify and change the character of the city from its sprawling reputation to a more traditionally urban one.  However, instead of modeling its growth after that of New York, a pattern formerly referred to as the "Manhattanization of Downtown" by Mayor Villaraigosa, perhaps Los Angeles should be following the example set by Paris instead of our older brother on the east coast. 

That theory is put forth from Jarrett Walker, a public transit consultant who runs the blog Human Transit.  Walker explains why he feels that Paris is more like Los Angeles than it is like New York:

This observation has one interesting and controversial corollary for
Los Angeles.  At least from a transit perspective, the last decades’
effort to build up downtown Los Angeles as THE pre-eminent center of
the region may not be the path to a more sustainable city.  If you want
a really balanced and efficient public transit system, nothing is
better than multiple high-rise centers all around the edge, with
lower-rise density in the middle, because that pattern yields an
intense but entirely two-way pattern of demand.  If
balanced and efficient transit were the main goal in Los Angeles
planning, you’d focus your high-rise growth energies on multiple
centers such as Westwood, Warner Center, Burbank, Glendale and perhaps
new centers in the east and south, while continuing to add density in
the middle as opportunities arise.

I "spoke" with Walker over email yesterday and he expressed interest in hearing our take on how we think L.A. should be growing.  So what do you think?  Should we be scrapping "Manhattanization" for "Parisization?"  Feel free to leave comments here or at the Human Transit story.