Los Angeles voters will decide whether high-density developments should be harder to build

The Los Angeles City Council voted recently to let voters decide whether large, high-density developments should be harder to build.

City residents will have their say on the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative on March 7. The measure would put a two-year ban on zoning changes necessary for many large-scale construction projects to advance.

Opponents call the question a blatant expression of NIMBYism that would worsen the city's affordable housing shortage. Advocates counter that the initiative would keep developers from calling the shots at City Hall, and prevent the traffic snarls and lower quality of city services that they say often come with giant projects.

Some opponents have also cited a fear of gentrification in opposing some recent large mixed-use proposals in the city.

New York City has two very large buildings dedicated to answering the 911 calls of its five boroughs. With more than 11 million emergency calls annually, it makes perfect sense. The second of these buildings, the Public Safety Answering Center II (PSAC II) is located on a nine-acre parcel of land in the Bronx. It’s an imposing 450,000 square-foot structure—a 240-foot-wide by 240-foot-tall cube. The gleaming aluminum cube risesthe equivalent of 24 stories from behind a grassy berm, projecting the unlikely impression that it might actually be floating. Like most visually striking structures, the building has drawn as much scorn as it has admiration.