A Tale of Two Cities: L.A. Growth From the Coast to Inland

Santa Monica and Glendale are an unlikely match. One is a coastal city known for its shoreline; the other is an inland hub for large entertainment campuses. However, the two markets are close in age and in similar phases of growth—making them the perfect case study to take a closer look at development policies and public planning.

“Both Glendale and Santa Monica were incorporated a little over a hundred years ago as independent cities from Los Angeles, and generally followed similar growth patterns up until the 1980s,” Alan Loomis, principal of urban design at PlaceWorks, tells GlobeSt.com. “Both cities were connected to downtown Los Angeles via streetcar, and the streetcar routes helped establish the basic business districts we still see today.”

The two cities also offer similar local amenities—or did at one time—like an airport, hospital and retail. “Both cities had a regional airport that originated as airfields for aircraft manufacturers. Santa Monica’s still operates as a local airport, but Glendale’s was long ago closed and developed as an industrial park, which is now largely occupied by various Disney business divisions,” says Loomis. “Large regional hospitals and associated medical businesses are located in both Glendale and Santa Monica. Both cities built an enclosed shopping mall on the edge of their respective downtowns in the 1970s.”

While these two cities began with a similar foundation, they have experienced different cycles of growth. This is due to both geographic differences and demographic differences. “The somewhat parallel history of Glendale and Santa Monica largely diverges in the 1980s when Santa Monica started to leverage its position on the beach to promote tourism, opened the now-famous Third Street Promenade, and began converting old industrial lands on the east of the city into office space,” says Loomis. “Since then, Santa Monica has become a regional and international tourist destination as well as a hub for entertainment and tech businesses.”

Glendale, on the other hand, saw an influx of Amenian immigrants, which drove growth and helped make Glendale into a diverse metropolitan community. “Glendale does not have the advantage of a beachfront, but in the 80s it became a popular entre from Armenian immigrants, and their presence as a cultural, social, business and ultimately political force made Glendale a far more cosmopolitan city than it had been prior to then,” says Loomis. “In many ways, Glendale is today a more diverse city than Santa Monica, which has become less affordable over the years.”

These differences have also driven a different perspective of business growth and development policy. “While development politics in Santa Monica are largely defined by a no-versus-pro-growth polarity, in Glendale development issues are often colored by cultural meanings that stretch back hundreds of years,” says Loomis.

However through policy, Santa Monica has been able to generate affordable housing development, but Glendale hasn’t created the same policies for affordabilty. “Santa Monica is a leader in requiring new development to shoulder responsibility for affordable housing and mobility issues through inclusionary housing policies and transportation impact fees,” says Loomis. “Glendale would have been well served to have followed this model when it experienced a significant building boom during the 2010s. Thousands of new housing units were built in this decade and Glendale received relatively little public benefit from this growth.”

Glendale has a significantly different approach to development than Santa Monica, and it is much more friendly to developers. “The development review process in Glendale is significantly simpler and less time-consuming than in Santa Monica,” says Loomis. “Santa Monica has a process wherein almost every project requires a separately negotiated development agreement, ostensibly to generate public benefits out of each project. But it is debatable whether that process has generated better results than Glendale’s expedited review process. Glendale has done a much better job than Santa Monica in aligning its various departments and divisions responsible for development review into a stronger unit with a clearer chain of command amongst city staff and commissions.”