Any L.A. River rethinking needs to consider people as well as water
任何關於洛杉磯河的重新規劃都需要考慮到人和水
It became popular among a certain segment of Los Angeles River enthusiasts several years ago to predict that the 51-mile-long, concrete-encased, freeway-adjacent, mostly dry waterway could become L.A.’s High Line, a reference to one and a half miles of abandoned elevated railroad in Manhattan that was made over into a garden-lined walkway.
幾年前，洛杉磯河（Los Angeles River）的某一群愛好者中流行這樣一種預測：這條長51英裡、由混凝土襯砌、與高速公路毗鄰、大部分乾涸的河道可能會成為洛杉磯的空中花園，這種預測是參考了曼哈頓一條被改造成花園式人行道的1.5英裡的廢棄高架鐵路。
But the L.A. River’s potential, its challenges and its central place in the life and geography of Southern California (not just Los Angeles, but 16 other cities as well) are on a scale that far outstrips any other urban makeover project. Nor can we allow the river to be merely a sewer, a park, a beachfront or a housing development, although various interests have envisioned it as each of those things.
但是，洛杉磯河的潛力及其面臨的挑戰，以及它在南加州（不僅是洛杉磯，還有其他16個城市）生活和地理上的中心地位，其規模遠遠超過了任何其他城市改造項目。我們也不能讓這條河流僅僅成為一條下水道、一個公園、一個海濱區或一個住宅開發區，儘管各種利益集團已經把它想像成這些東西。
Bigger ambitions are captured in the L.A. River Master Plan, a nearly 500-page document released this week by Los Angeles County and its Department of Public Works. It is the second such plan, coming a quarter-century after the county’s first effort to plot the river’s revitalization. It is broad in scope, calling for projects that keep in mind — as they should — both water and people. It is massive and will take days or weeks to fully digest.
洛杉磯郡及其公共工程部（Department of Public Works）本周發布了《洛杉磯河總體規劃》（L.A. River Master Plan）——一份近500頁的文件——這個規劃體現了更大的雄心壯志。在洛杉磯郡第一次嘗試規劃洛杉磯河的振興的25年後，這是第二個這樣的規劃了。這個規劃涉及的範圍很廣，呼籲洛杉磯河的改造方案既要考慮到水也要考慮到人——這是這些方案應該做到的。這個規劃的內容很多，需要幾天或幾周才能完全消化。
It’s often easy to forget that the river, much of it reduced to trickles of water running down a central channel carved into a much larger concrete structure, can rage. It features a sharp drop in elevation that can turn mountain rainfall into sudden, monumental flooding.
人們常常很容易忘記，這條河流也會狂怒，它的大部分都變成了涓涓細流，順著一條由更大混凝土結構圍邊的中央河道流淌。它的特點是海拔急劇下降，可以把山區降雨變成突然的、巨大的洪水。
So any viable plan for the river has to account not just for the once-a-century storm but also for the growing likelihood of more frequent, more severe flooding due to the changing climate and increasingly volatile weather patterns. That’s why the master plan is properly placed into the hands of the Public Works Department and engineers who understand flood protection — even if engineers were the ones who destroyed the river’s ecosystem with concrete nearly a century ago.
因此，任何可行的河流規劃都不僅要考慮到百年一遇的風暴，還要考慮到氣候變化和日益多變的天氣模式導致發生更頻繁、更嚴重洪水的可能性越來越大。這就是為什麼總體規劃被恰當地交到了公共工程部門和懂得防洪的工程師們手中——即使工程師們是在近一個世紀前用混凝土破壞了洛杉磯河生態系統的人。
As for people, the plan does a thorough job of describing, and accepting blame for, the inequity exacerbated by past engineering projects. In so doing, it lays out a welcome plan for remediation, especially for communities along the lower part of the river that suffer from too little green space, too little affordable housing and too much industrial contamination.
至於人這一因素，這個規劃對過去的工程項目所加劇的不公平進行了詳盡的描述，並接受了指責。在這樣做的過程中，它制定了一個受歡迎的補救計劃，特別是針對河流下遊地區的社區，這些社區的綠地太少，經濟適用房太少，工業汙染太多。
The challenge is to provide enough channel space for floodwaters, which would mean converting fewer concrete riverbanks into natural space than many observers would have liked, and perhaps building less riverfront housing than affordable housing advocates — and developers of market-rate housing — would have sought.
面臨的挑戰是為洪水提供足夠的河道空間，這意味著將比許多觀察家所希望的更少的混凝土河岸轉化為自然空間，並且或許比經濟適用房倡導者——以及按照市場價格開發住房的開發商——所希望的建造更少的濱河住房。
Beyond water, people and the natural environment, there are other elements to consider as well, especially time and money. The master plan is only that: a plan. Will it cost more or less, in money and in equity, to build platform parks than to raze riverside housing to construct ground-level parks? And will any such amenity be built soon enough that people now living along the barren concrete channel will benefit?
除了水、人和自然環境，還有其他因素需要考慮，尤其是時間和資金。這個總體規劃只是：一個規劃。在資金和權益方面，建造平臺公園的成本會比拆除河邊房屋來建造地面公園的成本高還是低？這樣的便利設施是否會很快建成，讓現在生活在貧瘠的混凝土河道沿線的人們從中受益？
Realization will require funding, which will in turn require buy-in from the region’s often competing interests that have their own ideas for the river. Without that kind of support, grand projects never get built.
實現這一目標需要資金，而這反過來又需要該地區經常相互競爭的利益集團的支持，而這些利益集團對這條河流都有自己的想法。沒有這樣的支持，宏偉的項目永遠無法建成。