Have you ever wondered where the names of streets, neighborhoods, or schools in Los Angeles come from? The book Inventing Paradise tells the story of how Los Angeles went from a small town to the metropolis that it is today. 

And it tells this story through the architects of the city. No, not real architects, but the men who gained status in the city and shaped it using their influence, expertise, and status. 

Of course, they didn’t do this without benefiting themselves as well. And as a result of their impact on the city, most of them got their names attached to streets, neighborhoods, parks, and more. 

What’s It About? 

In Inventing Paradise, author Paul Haddad follows the city’s growth through its first period of expansion, from the 1870s to the 1930s. This expansion is attributed to the actions of several key men: Phineas Banning, General Harrison Gray Otis, Harry Chandler, William Mulholland, Henry Huntington, Charlie Eaton, and Moses Sherman. 

William Mulholland is widely seen as the person most responsible for the city’s first boom. He is after all the person who controlled water and brought it to the city from thousands of miles away. 

But like most United States history, Mulholland is a hero to some and a villain to others. The people in the Central California Valley hated Mulholland for taking away their livelihoods but he expressed only contempt for them standing in his way. Haddad doesn’t shy away from presenting this other side. 

Beyond water, the city’s expansion was about land. Inventing Paradise also dives into the real estate purchases made throughout the city and San Fernando Valley to help the likes of Huntington, Sherman, and Chandler build wealth in the young city. 

And speaking of Harry Chandler, you’ll also learn a bit about how Chandler and his father-in-law Gray Otis used the Los Angeles Times to push their own conservative and often racist interests. The Times were involved in everything from removing obstacles to the aqueduct, to red-lining parts of Los Angeles ensuring white-only neighborhoods without explicitly calling it segregation. 

Why Did I Read It?

Before this book, I’d read Haddad’s Freewaytopia. That book focused on how Los Angeles changed as each freeway opened, from the initial planning of the freeways to when the 105 freeway opened in 1993.

Freewaytopia tells the story of the modern expansion of Los Angeles: the changes needed to push the city to its present level. Paradise looks at the first expansion, the water and land grabs that made the city a metropolis. Together, the two books take you through the entire history of growth of Los Angeles as a United States metropolis.

“Inventing Paradise and Freewaytopia bridge the pre- and post-freeway eras, forming a continuum about Los Angeles that spans some 150 years.” — Paul Haddad

Is Paradise For You? 

This is an easy one to answer. If you care about the history of this incredibly large city that overwhelms visitors and envelops us Angelenos in lifetimes of exploration, then this book is for you. 

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