The Los Angeles is part of notNeutral's City Plate Collection #1 themed around "City as Gateway" with Los Angeles, Shanghai, Cairo and Berlin chosen. With this theme they asked: how is each city dealing with the effects of agglomeration as its population begins to reach critical mass?

 

The Los Angeles plate design, ringed with freeways, shows that what used to be labeled 'sprawl', is now being looked at as a model for modern development. Los Angeles, with the port of Long Beach, is the largest port in North America, and is vital to trade with Asia and the Pacific Rim. The city, thanks to its youth and love of the automobile, has also developed in a singular way that runs counter to the traditional condensed urban cores of east coast cities. As cities' populations grow and cities themselves drift towards each other, the multiple city-center approach of Los Angeles is becoming more and more familiar.