What Los Angeles Needs Is More Roman Courtyards

The international panel on climate change says global warming is going to cause severe droughts over the Southwest. It will destroy agriculture in the Central Valley. People won't have enough to drink. A politicians are no doubt easily writing laws right now to limit CO2 emissions, which is fine but also I think fairly useless. I don't see how does any good to reduce CO2 emissions by 20% while allowing the rest of the population to increase 20%. That's just spinning your wheels.

But there are some things we could do right now to deal with the upcoming water shortage. People could get rid of their green lawns, most of which require oceans of water and few of which people would ever use for anything other than pure decoration.

The other problem in Southern California is a growing demand for housing, which is one of the reason housing prices are so hyperinflated. So here's how we solve both problems at the same time.

I was looking at Rome, Italy, last week on Google world (it shows satellite photos from space). And it reminded me of something I had once seen in person. Many houses are surrounded by high walls which start right at the sidewalk. You can be walking down a busy avenue with six great lanes of Fiats whizzing by at high speed. Then you come to a break in the wall and if the gate is open you get to look inside. What you see is this beautiful quiet courtyard with maybe a fountain, tree, flowers, a garden, a long table with a white tablecloth with bottles of wine and loaves of bread with the family quietly eating dinner while all this chaos is roaring by outside the gate 40 or 50 feet away.

Because of the wall which is usually thick stone and two stories high, the noise and congestion doesn't get through. The residents get to make use of all the space they own, not dedicate their expensive front yards for the enjoyment of passing motorists. It doubles the size of the House. The outside wall can also be part of a whole series of upstairs bedrooms or downstairs sitting rooms, libraries, recreation rooms, family rooms--whatever the residents need. You double the number of people who can live there on the same lot size. You have protection from criminals, noise and litter. And you save water to boot.

There's no reason we couldn't do the same thing here in Los Angeles. The housing supply would increase in the demand for water would go down. Crime would go down along with it.

Of course some neighborhood activists would go nutso. They want everything preserved just as it is. I hope it is the water shortage will help them realize it's a waste of resources to have green lawns in the desert. Of course that probably won't be their conclusion at all. They will probably say we need to start using drought resistance native plants. Put cactuses in the front yard. We got to send them all to Rome to see how delightful courtyard living can be. Worth the very least, send them links to Google world show they can at least look at courtyard photos from space.