I went on a tour of the LA River — organized by the Friends of the Los Angeles River — yesterday, during which I learned a lot and got sunburnt –

The City of Los Angeles released its much-anticipated Los Angeles River Revitalization Master Plan — a comprehensive plan to make our river into something more than an ugly concrete channel.

The $2 billion Master Plan lays out a 20-year blueprint to makeover the 32-mile section of the LA River within the City of Los Angeles; the entire river spans 51 miles. Plans consists of 239 projects, including a massive clean-up of the river, creation of new parks in many parts of the city, and an effort to allow more vegetation and wetlands to replace some of the concrete in serving the river’s current flood-control role.

This revitalization effort connects social, cultural, economic, and environmental issues by bringing diverse communities together to participate in shaping each revitalization project. Projects must serve multiple uses, from creating public access to new parks and other recreational spaces, to restoring nature and putting sustainable practices into place, to encouraging sustainable economic development, thereby adding value to underutilized areas and communities.

More on Worldchanging Los Angeles.

Update, 2/28/07: My pictorial ode to the LA River.

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