ABSTRACT
Los Angeles, or more precisely, the Southern California region, has many claims on our attention, but until recently it has been regarded as 328an exception to the rules governing American urban development. Since the mid-1980s, a remarkable outpouring of scholarship has given birth to a “Los Angeles School” of urbanism. This essay outlines the intellectual history of the LA School, explains the distinctiveness of its break with previous traditions (especially those of the Chicago School), and advocates the need for a comparative urban analysis that utilizes Los Angeles not as a new urban “paradigm,” but as one of many exemplars of contemporary urban process.
