ABSTRACT
Latino settlement patterns in Los Angeles (LA) are transforming inner-city neighborhoods and inner-ring suburbs into vibrant, reinvigorated places. This is achieved by Latinos retrofitting the auto-oriented built form to make it pedestrian friendly through their behavior patterns. Like many other immigrant groups, Latinos arrive to this country with few resources and settle into economically depressed, fragmented parts of the city that typically lack parks and adequate housing. However within these fragmented zones, Latinos often retrofit elements of the built form to satisfy their economic and social needs: outdated gas stations become taquerías, defunct rail yards become parks, large abandoned manufacturing plants become mercados, and front yards become courtyards. Latinos bring with them different uses of urban space to an already existing built environment (Rojas 1991).
