"Reyner Banham examined the built environment of Los Angeles in a way no architectural historian before him had done, looking with fresh eyes at its manifestations of popular taste and industrial ingenuity, as well as its more traditional modes of residential and commercial building. Within his construct of four ecologies, he examined how Angelenos relate to the beach, the freeways, the flatlands, and the foothills. Banham delighted in this mobile city and identified it as an exemplar of the posturban future. In his new introduction, Anthony Vidler assesses the book's influence on how we see Los Angeles and how architectural historians look at cities."--BOOK JACKET.