Density increased in Manhattan AFTER the advent of subways.
In 1900 (before the subway) Manhattan had more people than today.
Manhattan was dense because at the time when most of it was built out people didn't have cars. You walked, or used horses to get around.
LA is a car city, it was laid out and built up with the assumption people would use cars.
Also zoning and development restrictions in many places in the LA area make it difficult to build very high density housing even if the economics of it work out.
"...In a 2003 article, Glaeser and Gyourko calculated the two different land values for 26 cities (using data from 1999). They found wide disparities. In Los Angeles, an extra quarter acre cost about $28,000—the pure price of land. But the cost of empty land isn’t the whole story, or even most of it. A quarter- acre lot minus the cost of the house came out to about $331,000—nearly 12 times as much as the extra quarter acre. The difference between the first and second prices, around $303,000, was what L.A. home buyers paid for local land-use controls in bureaucratic delays, density restrictions, fees, political contributions. That’s the cost of the right to build..."
austinzoning.typepad.com
Of course that is just a regulatory and political issues, it could change if enough people want it to |
