The view from below may tell a different story

Although I enjoyed “A Modern Cliffhanger” [Nov. 18] detailing the lives of those who build and live on precariously steep slopes, I wish the article had shown how many of these vulture buildings loom over neighbors and overshadow canyons with concrete pillars and walls.

While the occupants enjoy a sense of liberation and soaring, the rest of the neighborhood is forced to look at these bunkers of ugliness. Since the slopes are so steep, no trees or bushes planted below can possibly screen the buildings. Hillsides are transformed from shrub or tree-covered natural states into vertical slabs of concrete.

Engineers will argue homes can be built safely with enough concrete and steel. What cannot be remedied is the quality of life for those forced to look at or live under these homes.

Suzanne Mitus-Uribe

Glendale

•

I have a couple of questions for the nouveaux riches who inhabit the sterilized, glass cliffhangers of Malibu and the canyons: Who does the windows, and who picks up the carcasses of the unfortunate birds flying into your “walls”?

Michele Mooney