Name: Why Los Angeles Is Americas Most Confusing City
Uploaded: 2025-11-17T21:01:20.000Z
Duration: 8 min 5 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

This is Los Angeles, a city that's often described as the definition of the typical urban sprawl we see in most of America,

consisting of endless, low-density suburbs, freeways in every direction and parking lots everywhere.

Adverbs of degree

While this isn't entirely wrong, Los Angeles, despite what most would guess, is actually the single most densely populated urban area in the United States.

With 7,009 people per square mile, even denser than New York's 5,239.

but it tells us something important about how this region was built up and how it really works.

Unlike New York, where density gradually decreases farther from the city center,

Los Angeles maintains a more evenly distributed population across its sprawling metro area.

Part of the reason for this is that what most people think of as Los Angeles isn't just a single city.

It's a collection of more than 80 independent municipalities all connected into one massive continuous metro.

For comparison, this is the actual city of Los Angeles, which doesn't include places like Santa Monica, Beverly Hills or Compton,

all of which most outsiders assume are Los Angeles.

And how did LA become one of America's most confusing cities?

To understand how Los Angeles became the city it is today, we need to go back to the late 1800s.

At this point, LA was still a remote town with limited connections to the rest of the country.

The arrival of Southern Pacific and Santa Fe railroads connected LA to national markets and attracted thousands of people.

Thanks to the promotions of its sunny Mediterranean climate and cheap land.

In just 30 years, the population increased from 11,000 in 1880 to 319,000 by 1910.

Around this period, the Los Angeles Aqueduct was constructed.

Because only the city of Los Angeles could access the water supply,

LA annexed several neighboring communities like Hollywood, San Pedro and the San Fernando Valley in order to expand.

This largely enabled urban sprawl because land that was previously dry and undeveloped could now support homes.

By 1930, the city had reached 1.2 million people, surpassing San Francisco and becoming the fifth-largest city in the country.

After World War II, LA, much like other American cities, embraced the car as the default way to get around.

And the extensive freeway system that was built to accommodate all the cars made it easy for people and businesses to spread out across the region,

instead of concentrating growth in the city core.

Shortly put, the area became extremely sprawling.

With each passing year, the gaps between the different cities shrank as new developments pushed farther outward.

It's only in recent years that Los Angeles growth has really begun to slow significantly the results.

Well, a giant urban area that has basically taken up all the developable land, home to 18.3 million people.

But as I mentioned at the start, even though it looks like one city,

it is made up of five different counties and home to hundreds of incorporated cities and towns.

Los Angeles county has 88 separate cities by itself, each with its own mayor and council.

Most will even have their own fire and police departments.

But aside from this, knowing which city you're actually in can be tricky.

Just look at the map of the actual city of Los Angeles.

It is strangely shaped, mainly due to the shoestring strip,

which is a long, narrow strip of land that connects the main city to the port towns of Wilmington and San Pedro.

This land was annexed by LA to ensure that the city controlled the port and the economic benefits that came with it.

There are also independent cities that are basically surrounded by the city of LA, like Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood and San Fernando.

This fragmented setup makes the whole area feel kind of chaotic and inconsistent.

You can drive for just a few minutes and cross multiple city limits without even realizing it.

The different cities also have their own zoning and land use laws, which can vary widely depending on the city.

You can clearly see this for example, when you walk into Beverly Hills from Los Angeles.

On the LA side, you'll generally see taller buildings and mixed-use developments,

while Beverly Hills has shorter buildings as a result of their stricter density restrictions.

A similar contrast appears when you're crossing from West LA into Santa Monica.

Santa Monica's zoning emphasizes a much more pedestrian-friendly coastal character with narrower streets and consistent building forms.

While Los Angeles feels more sprawling and car-oriented just a few blocks away.

As a result of the way the Los Angeles metro area has developed, it has also become much more dense than most people realize.

As I mentioned at the start of the video, it is actually the most densely populated urban area in the US,

with approximately 7,009 people per square mile, which is even more than New York's 5239.

Compared to not just New York, but Most large cities, LA's downtown area is very small.

And additionally, as you can see in this map, 74% of the land in just the city itself is zoned exclusively for single family homes.

Well, despite this, the density is very evenly spread out across the whole area, rather than concentrating in the city core and tapering off the further out you go.

And even in places that feel suburban, like Highland Park, North Hollywood, Long beach or Pomona, the housing isn't as low-density as it looks.

First of all, the houses are pretty close together all throughout the metro.

On most streets, you'll also find duplexes, small two or three-story apartment buildings,

courtyard buildings and backyard units tucked behind single-family homes.

This kind of housing is often called the missing middle because it is lacking in many US Cities.

In LA, however, these smaller multifamily buildings are everywhere,

while quietly adding population density without changing the character of the street.

Yet the way LA has developed hasn't come without a number of problems.

One of the biggest issues is the lack of public transit.

In the early 20th century, Los Angeles had what many considered one of the world's best public transit systems, known as the electric red car.

However, after the 1940s, it declined significantly because the city pretty much ditched it in favor of cars.

LA has invested a lot of money into its metro system in recent years and plans to expand it even further.

It's still not efficient enough, especially considering driving often takes less time.

The current layout would simply make it nearly impossible to build a transit system that effectively serves everyone.

That's why, despite being the most densely populated urban area in the country, LA is still extremely car dependent.

As I mentioned, after the 1940s, its entire transportation network was rebuilt around the assumption that everyone would drive,

However, as the population has continued to grow, its highways have become some of the most congested in the world.

According to inrix.com, LA drivers lost an average of 88 hours in traffic in 2024,

which made it the third-worst city for traffic in the country after New York and Chicago.

Despite its chaos and problems, LA's sprawling and fragmented structure hides a surprising density and complexity that makes it unlike any other city in the country.