Doug McIntyre writes about making LA bullet proof.

If you’re around my age, you may remember aluminum siding.

Instead of painting the house, you’d just hose it off once or twice a year. It looked great until one too many tennis balls thwapped into it, or dents from the extension ladder the old man used to clean the gutters left their dimples. After a while, your house looked like it had a bad case of cellulite.

Aluminum siding is a relic of the pre-Glock, Mac 9, AK-47 San Fernando Valley of orange groves, sock hops, slingshots and BB guns. Today’s L.A. is more interactive. Your home needs something tougher, Kevlar siding, something that can stand the onslaught of an army of domestic terrorists: Crips, Bloods, Avenues 43, MS-13, Latin Kings, Vineland Boys, 18th Street, whatever. Drive-by shootings have actually spawned a new school of urban planning, “defensive architecture.” So move over Post-Modern, make room for Post-Moral. L.A. went from Bauhaus to crack house. From Art Deco to Art Ducko, as in hit the deck before a stray bullet hits you.

City Councilman Ed Reyes represents one of the most densely populated districts in the city, with as many as 66,000 residents per tract. He correctly asks, “What do we have to do so every time there’s a backfire from a bad muffler they don’t have to hit the floor…? How do we bring the parks back for families and kids?”

Part of the solution is Reyes’ “defensive” designs for housing, pubic buildings and parks.

It’s hard not to see the pragmatism. It’s also hard not to puke. How pathetic that we’ve allowed gunfire to become so commonplace, we have to make buildings drive-by proof.