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urban planning and design
Building and Losing:
Patterns of Urban Development in Los Angeles
A spatial analysis of new construction and demolition across LA's community planning areas, 2010–2022
Los Angeles is one of the most dynamic and contested urban environments in the United States. For decades, the city has grappled with a deepening housing crisis, skyrocketing rents, and displacement pressure reshaping entire neighborhoods. Yet beneath these broad trends lies a more complicated spatial reality, in which development is not happening everywhere equally, and neither is loss.
This research maps twelve years of building and demolition permit activity across LA from 2010 to 2022, examining where the city is being built and where it is being lost. Drawing on data from the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety (LADBS), the analysis moves beyond citywide aggregates to assess how development pressure is distributed across LA's 37 Community Planning Areas (CPA).
Data and Methodology
The analysis draws on over 600,000 individual permit records, filtered to retain only new construction, additions, and demolitions with valid issued or finalized statuses, reducing the working dataset to approximately 150,000 records. Python was used for data processing and cleaning, including reconciling significant CPA name inconsistencies against the authoritative City of Los Angeles shapefile. A valuation threshold of one million dollars or more was applied to isolate significant capital investment. Census data from the 2020 American Community Survey were integrated through spatial joins to support the equity analysis. Methods applied include graduated color and bivariate choropleth mapping, H3 hexagonal tessellation, Getis-Ord Gi* hotspot analysis, and pie chart symbol mapping.
Development Activity by Neighborhood
(Bivariate New Development vs Demolition)
Construction, Demolition, and Urban Turnover
On paper, LA's permit count suggests an active response to its housing crisis. Spatially, however, construction concentrates in a narrow band of inner-ring and mid-city neighborhoods while large portions of the city, including the outer San Fernando Valley and harbor communities that house many of the city's most cost-burdened residents, remain peripheral to the boom. Demolition tells a parallel story, with pressure notably concentrated in South and Southeast Los Angeles, where housing loss is least easily absorbed and displaced residents have the fewest relocation options.
Neighborhoods experiencing both simultaneously are not simply growing or declining. They are turning over, with existing built fabric being systematically replaced in ways that carry profound implications for long-term residents, affordability, and community continuity.
1-1 Stable, low activity
1-2 Losing more than gaining
1-3 Significant loss, minimal replacement
2-1 Moderate growth, minimal displacement
2-2 Balanced moderate turnover
2-3 Demolition outpacing construction
3-1 Strong growth, low displacement
3-2 Active growth with moderate churn
3-3 Intense urban turnover
High
New Development
1-1
1-2
1-3
2-1
2-2
2-3
3-1
3-2
3-3
Low
Demolition
High
New Construction Permits by Neighborhood (2010-2022) vs Demolition Permits by Neighborhood (2010-2022)
**All maps are interactive. Click on any neighborhood to explore detailed data.
Development Activity Rankings by CPA, 2010-2022
Top 10 CPAs by New Construction Permit Count
**Interactive
Where Capital Concentrates and What Is Being Built
Not all construction is equal. Isolating permits with project valuations of one million dollars or more, representing the top three percent of new construction by value, reveals that high-value investment does not spread evenly. It clusters. To identify where this clustering is statistically significant rather than visually apparent, a Getis-Ord Gi* hotspot analysis was conducted on permit points aggregated into a hexagonal grid covering the city.
Hexagonal tessellation was chosen over administrative boundaries because it creates uniform spatial units of equal area, avoiding the distortions introduced by CPAs of vastly different sizes. The Gi* statistic then calculates, for each hexagon, whether the concentration of high-value permits nearby is greater than would be expected by random chance. Confidence levels indicate the statistical certainty of that finding. A hot spot at 99 percent confidence means there is less than a one percent probability the clustering is random. At 95 and 90 percent confidence, that probability rises slightly but the pattern remains statistically meaningful. Cold spots follow the same logic in reverse, identifying areas where high-value investment is statistically absent.
The result confirms what the point map suggests. A dense concentration of significant investment occupies a compact mid-city core while large portions of the city are statistically starved of major capital.
The composition of that investment compounds the imbalance. Residential permits represent detached or semi-detached homes serving individual households. Apartment permits represent multifamily buildings capable of housing many households in a single structure. Commercial permits cover retail, office, and mixed-use development. Despite enormous densification pressure, single family and duplex construction dominates across most of the city. Multifamily apartment development concentrates in a small number of inner neighborhoods. Building more homes does not address the housing crisis if most of what is being built serves only one household at a time.
Hotspot Analysis:
High Value Development Clusters
(3) Hot Spot 99% confidence: strongest cluster of high-value development
(2) Hot Spot 95% confidence: significant cluster of high-value development
(1) Hot Spot 90% confidence: moderate cluster of high-value development
(0) Not statistically significant: no meaningful spatial pattern
(-1) Cold Spot 90% confidence: moderate absence of high-value development
(-2) Cold Spot 95% confidence: significant absence of high-value development
(-3) Cold Spot 99% confidence: strongest absence of high-value development
All New Construction
vs High Value New Construction $1M+
Type of New Construction
by Neighborhood
Income, Race, and the Geography of Inequity
The geography of development does not exist independently of LA's broader social landscape. High-value construction maps closely onto the city's wealthiest neighborhoods, reinforcing existing spatial inequalities rather than redistributing investment toward areas of greater need. Meanwhile, demolition pressure is not racially neutral. Neighborhoods with the highest concentrations of non-white residents are disproportionately represented among those experiencing the most intense demolition activity, compounding existing vulnerabilities rather than distributing the costs of urban change equitably.
Median Household Income by Neighborhood (2020)
vs Percent Non-White Population by Neighborhood (2020)
Demolition Pressure and Community Demographics
(Bivariate Demolition vs Race)
1-1 Low pressure, low minority population
1-2 Low pressure, moderately diverse
1-3 Low pressure, highly diverse
2-1 Moderate pressure, low minority population
2-2 Moderate pressure, moderately diverse
2-3 Moderate pressure, highly diverse
3-1 High pressure, low minority population
3-2 High pressure, moderately diverse
3-3 High pressure, highly diverse
High
Demolition Pressure
1-1
1-2
1-3
2-1
2-2
2-3
3-1
3-2
3-3
Low
% Non-White
High
Findings and Planning Implication
Construction activity in LA is substantial but deeply uneven. High-value investment clusters in already prosperous corridors. Lower-density residential construction dominates citywide, limiting the capacity of permit volume to translate into meaningful housing supply. Demolition pressure falls disproportionately on non-white, lower-income communities least positioned to absorb housing loss. Investment incentives and zoning reforms should target underbuilt, cost-burdened neighborhoods. Demolition in communities of color warrants closer monitoring and stronger displacement protections. Construction volume should be evaluated not in aggregate but through a spatial equity lens, asking not only how much is being built, but where, what kind, and for whom.
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