Now is the time for bold action.
History is littered with plans that were never built. Olmsted’s L.A. River Plan would have created a 50-mile park; instead, we have a concrete basin. Yet when grand plans are built, the results can define a city for generations: Washington’s National Mall, New York’s Central Park, and the transformed waterfronts of San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland.
Santa Barbara’s El Pueblo Viejo vision sits somewhere in between. After the 1925 earthquake, it imagined a Spanish-style, walkable downtown filled with architecture, paseos, and civic spaces. Parts were realized; others were not. But city planning is never finished. Communities change, plans evolve, and new ideas become places…