Los Angeles conjures a particular image in the popular imagination: sprawling and spacious, dotted with single-family homes and riddled with traffic. But Angelenos have signaled that they are ready for a change, most recently by voting down a measure that would have slowed new construction for two years.

The effort to slow construction, known as Measure S or the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative, was financed mainly by Michael Weinstein, the president of the Hollywood-based AIDS Health Foundation. Mr. Weinstein’s office is on the 21st floor of a Hollywood skyscraper with a view of the hills, next to the future site of two 28-story mixed-use residential towers.

Mr. Weinstein said that kind of development was out of character for the neighborhood. He and other supporters of Measure S have contended that new luxury developments can contribute to rising rents.

The Measure S campaign pitted slow-growth factions, who called the city’s planning process corrupt, against a coalition of public officials, developers, labor groups and others who conceded that while reform was necessary, so was growth.