Critical Planning

A just future is within reach for UCLA’s Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. To achieve this end, the Playboy Mansion must be destroyed. This essay will present the Mansion’s history to explain why in terms of socio-sexual justice, then recommend how to execute demolition in order to avoid repeating the mistakes that have left Westwood’s residential space so misallocated. Neither private nor public agencies have the capacity to mark the Mansion for demolition without re-enclosing this property for the purposes of elites. Only the people themselves can destroy the Playboy Mansion in a way that will guarantee this land’s future uses as a common good.