Los Angeles Planning History Group

Proposed regional centers and transit blueprint from the Concept Los Angeles General Plan, published in 1970.

The Los Angeles Planning History Group actively utilizes planning history in the Los Angeles region, including its individual cities, to guide those who are creating its future. The Group promotes the understanding and study of the LA region’s history through programs and conferences, the collection and preservation of major plans, oral and written histories and related documents in planning and related disciplines.

By the late 1970s, the historical legacy of major land use plans and documents for the Los Angeles region was disappearing at an alarming rate. Concerned planners from local agencies, such as the City of Los Angeles and the County of Los Angeles, and archivists from the Huntington Library, gathered informally in the early 1980s to establish a strategy for preservation and education. From these meetings the Los Angeles Region Planning History Group emerged

LAPHG incorporated in 1984 as a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving municipal, county and private sector planning documents from throughout the Los Angeles region. Over the past 30 years, thousands of documents have been donated to the Huntington Library by the County of Los Angeles, members of the LAPHG Board, and the professional planning community. The following is a summary of where they are described and reproduced.

• County of Los Angeles WPA (1936-1939) and later land use maps (Huntington Library—Digital Library)
• City of Los Angeles WPA (1936-1939) land use maps (USC Library–Digital Library)
• Southern California Regional Planning Collection (Huntington Library—Catalog–or Online Archive of California)
• Calvin S. Hamilton Papers (Huntington Library—Catalog or Online Catalog of California)