Spencer Pratt Is the Factory-Reset Option for Los Angeles

"For starters, he'll clear the drug-ravaged homeless encampments of downtown, bring in developers from all over the world, and use 3-D-printing technology to build "an entire art deco, vibed-out affordable housing." On the issue of bike lanes, a pet cause of the YIMBY voters who are backing one of his main opponents, Pratt says he'll do them one better."

""I'm going to have bike tubes through the sky!" he says. "You know, like it's endless possibilities when you enforce a law and you get rid of the zombies." Zombies is Pratt's term for the tens of thousands of people who live in depraved conditions on L.A.'s streets, many of them addicted to drugs that leave them profoundly incapacitated and sometimes violent."

"For anyone not living here, it's nearly impossible to comprehend what has become of the place. It's not just that, in January of 2025, wildfires destroyed more than 16,000 structures and engulfed nearly 40,000 acres across the county. Apocalyptic as the fires were, they are not the main story and never really were. The main story is one of a city seemingly annihilating itself."

"Potholes crater the roads. Street lights, stripped of copper wire by organized-theft crews, are out across the city. Vector-borne diseases such as typhus are breaking out at record levels, the result, at least in part, of 45,000 people (a low estimate"

Plans include clearing drug-impacted homeless encampments in downtown, bringing in developers from around the world, and using 3-D printing to create art deco, affordable housing. Bike infrastructure is framed as an upgrade beyond bike lanes, using “bike tubes through the sky” to enable continuous movement. The term “zombies” is used to describe people living in severe drug-affected conditions, including hallucinations and violent behavior. The city’s problems extend beyond wildfires, with widespread infrastructure decay such as cratered roads and street lights disabled by copper wire theft. Vector-borne diseases like typhus are reported at record levels, linked in part to large numbers of people living on the streets.

Read at The Atlantic