Turning Pavement into Plants: A Block-by-Block Approach to Adapting L.A.
DepaveLA is the first-ever comprehensive pavement analysis to map the distribution of every paved surface across Los Angeles County, distinguishing between pavement on streets, sidewalks, private properties, and other areas. The groundbreaking report reveals that Los Angeles County contains more than 312,000 acres (488 square miles) of pavement – an area so big it would form California’s largest city. Nearly half of this pavement may not be functionally necessary and represents a significant opportunity for closer, site-specific evaluation to determine where removal is feasible, suggesting a massive untapped opportunity to strengthen the region’s resilience.
Excess pavement worsens heat, flooding, and ecological decline. DepaveLA presents a data-driven framework for removing unnecessary paved surfaces and creating more healthy and resilient landscapes.
This report was prepared as a collaborative partnership between Accelerate Resilience L.A. and Hyphae Design Laboratory.
Report Contents
- Needs Assessment: Identifies how depaving can help reduce heat and flooding, increase tree canopy access, and address pavement burden.
- Pavement Distribution Analysis: Maps the location, distribution, and classification of pavement across different land use types within L.A. County.
- Pavement Necessity Analysis: Approximates how much pavement is essential under current code requirements.
- Design & Planning: Provides guidance for designing, planning and implementing depaving projects.
- Recommendations: Identifies policy recommendations for implementing successful depaving initiatives.
Key Findings
- Los Angeles County contains 488 square miles of pavement, enough to form California’s largest city.
- Approximately 137,000 acres — or 4 in 10 acres — are “non-core pavement”. This represents the upper bound estimate of pavement that could be studied for potential removal without impacting baseline infrastructure like roads, sidewalks and code-required parking.
- Nearly 70 percent of non-core pavement lies on private parcels, not in the public right-of-way, highlighting the need to engage property owners in depaving efforts.
- In the County’s most impacted “stacked needs” areas (the top 25 percent of communities with overlapping heat, flood, canopy, and pavement burdens), there are 788 acres of pavement.
- 79 percent of these stacked needs hotspot areas are located in Disadvantaged Communities (as designated under SB 535).
Resources & Downloads
- Full Report
- Executive Summary
- Interactive Data Viewer
- Use the interactive data viewer to explore the data from the report
- Living Infrastructure Field Kit
- Explore depaving hotspots and envision potential depaving projects using the Living Infrastructure Field Kit.