The City That Never Was: How LA Almost Became New York

http://www.architizer.com/en_us/blog/dyn/74731/never-built-los-angeles/#.URGTOR2YuSo

As modern metropolises go, Los Angeles and New York couldn’t be more different. But it only took a few failed proposals from the early 20th century to send LA into a self-reinforcing spiral of freeways and sprawl. If a couple of prescient planners had had their way, the city might have grown into a model of urbanism besting the Big Apple (or at least Portland), with hundreds of miles of subways and elevated rail, thousands of parks linked by parkways, and even a raised bicycle freeway connecting Pasadena with downtown.