Government
A Transit-Themed World's Fair May Be Coming to Los Angeles
A group of architects, engineers, and venture capitalists are pushing for it. There are obvious problems—and a not-so-obvious benefit.
When the writer Henry Adams visited the 1893 Chicago's World's Fair, he found his reaction to it "uncommonly complicated." He wrote to his friend Lucy Baxter:
This was the Columbian Exposition, the most famous World's Fair in history. In the midst of a slumping economy and growing awareness of urban poverty, it introduced electricity to the masses and valorized productive urban life (Daniel Burnham launched his iteration of "City Beautiful" there). What perplexed a prominent 19th century intellectual would later be understood as having ushered in the 20th century.