What if L.A.'s so-called flaws were underappreciated assets rather than liabilities?

In the wake of January's horrific fires, detractors of Los Angeles -- an urban reality often seen as a toxic mixture of unsustainable resource planning and structurally poor governance systems -- are having a field day. Los Angeles knows how to weather a crisis -- or two or three. Angelenos are tapping into that resilience, striving to build a city for everyone. Their criticism is not new: For most of the 20th century -- and certainly for the last five decades or so -- Los Angeles has been seen by many urbanists as less city and more cautionary tale -- a smoggy expanse of subdivisions and spaghetti junctions, where ambition came with a two-hour commute. Planners shuddered, while architects looked away, even as they accepted handsome commissions to build some of L.A.'s -- if not the world's -- most iconic buildings.