Courtesy Tom BakerToday in happy urban eye candy (previous installations here and here), photographer Tom Baker gives us a look at what some Los Angeles thoroughfares would look like without traffic.

Point being, L.A.’s built environment is one manner of placemaking — one that uses a lot of cement, takes up a lot of space, and makes it difficult to get around in any fashion except driving or busing. By removing vehicles and people, Baker dramatizes just how out-of-scale these landscapes are to human bodies. They’re built for machines. Machines, people! (Says the guy on the streetcorner…) See Steve Price for ideas on how to remake these kinds of places.

A few more from Baker’s full collection:

Courtesy Tom Baker

Courtesy Tom Baker

Courtesy Tom Baker