Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Why many houses in CA don't have basements?

nitelyfe · 01-19-2006, 06:27 PM

I've lived in the L.A. area all my life and there are some exceptions that have basements. If you look at a map of Southern California from a geological perspective, and go back about 100 years, you'll see that the entire L.A. basin is one giant floodplain. Which means that all the runoff from the mountains washes to the sea in one really wide wave.

I don't know for certain, but my guess is that when experiencing floods, a basement is probably the last place you would want to be. Now, civil engineering has done a lot with the region and the storm drain system (notably the L.A. River and the San Gabriel River) is an engineering marvel in itself. It's probably the one joint venture that all Southern California cities agree on. This is the only reason why we do not experience the type of floods that devastated the South last year.

So the chance of flooding has now been taken out of the equation. Does this mean that architects will start designing houses with basements again? Not likely. Southern Californians have grown accustomed to not having a basement and the trend will continue. Instead, you'll continue to see more cathedral ceilings, skylights, pools and spas.

I can't think of a reason that I would want to have one.

01-19-2006, 06:27 PM	#31 (permalink)
nitelyfe Upright Location: Long Beach, CA	I've lived in the L.A. area all my life and there are some exceptions that have basements. If you look at a map of Southern California from a geological perspective, and go back about 100 years, you'll see that the entire L.A. basin is one giant floodplain. Which means that all the runoff from the mountains washes to the sea in one really wide wave. I don't know for certain, but my guess is that when experiencing floods, a basement is probably the last place you would want to be. Now, civil engineering has done a lot with the region and the storm drain system (notably the L.A. River and the San Gabriel River) is an engineering marvel in itself. It's probably the one joint venture that all Southern California cities agree on. This is the only reason why we do not experience the type of floods that devastated the South last year. So the chance of flooding has now been taken out of the equation. Does this mean that architects will start designing houses with basements again? Not likely. Southern Californians have grown accustomed to not having a basement and the trend will continue. Instead, you'll continue to see more cathedral ceilings, skylights, pools and spas. I can't think of a reason that I would want to have one.