Living near work is possible

Re “To go green, live closer to work,” Sept. 21

Living near where you work is a dream that could be a reality. Los Angeles has a wonderful opportunity to use the West Valley as a model for such future development.

The Canoga Park business district has great housing, massive manufacturing and major retail. All it needs is a guiding hand to make it a compact city within a city in which people in the West Valley can both live and work. The benefit is a greener and more efficient community, but, more important, more family time for people who work.

Ray Holm

Thousand Oaks

I moved to Los Angeles in 1962 and immediately found a place to live within walking distance of my office. I quickly decided that the way to cut smog was to shut down the freeways and thus motivate all to live close to work.

My daughter and her husband both bicycle to work.

William F. Steagall Sr.

El Segundo

Compact, mixed-use communities are not the fix for global warming. This sounds like another developer’s ploy for more building on less space, and the city looking for more tax revenue. People are still going to drive because of the unstable job market and the lack of good public transportation. Building roads doesn’t encourage sprawl. People are moving to get away from crime, noise and filth.

Why don’t we clean up what we already have, develop more parks and hire more police?

Fran Potaski

North Hills