Video time travel: Los Angeles circa 1969, in French

This three-minute video from French television "is almost haunting in its poetic but spare portrayal of what was then seen as the city of the future," writes Kaid Benfield, director of the Sustainable Communities and Smart Growth program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, in a post picked up by The Atlantic. "In presenting L.A. from an outsider’s point of view, the little film was also unknowingly showing profound changes that were beginning to be experienced all across America in the form of sprawling suburban development, inner-city disinvestment, and an emerging culture of civic detachment and isolation."

Previously on LA Observed:
Dick Clark and The Turtles on Bunker Hill in 1965