LOS ANGELES | Downtown Project Rundown 4.0

[DJM19]

Id like to see a rendering of more of the project. It says it will be built in phases so this is potentially not what the whole thing looks like.

[LosAngelesDreamin]

Originally Posted by citywatch

but are those things really ugly? to you maybe, but not to certain other sspers. Ppl who say they either don't mind or even like the gritty feel or "real" look of LA. I recall one SSPer even saying that he didn't mind seeing, or even liked, the look of graffiti on fwys. Guess who that was? no less than brigham yen, originally known as "LAbeautiful".

I can agree with Brigham Yen about the graffiti on the freeways... Me being from San Diego, our freeways are clean compared to what i see in Los Angeles. But when i do go to LA and see the graffiti, for some odd reason i think it adds character to the freeways up there and looks "beautiful" in a weird way.. to others and locals it might seem disgusting and ugly but it makes SD's freeways look and feel completely boring and all you do is stare straight and get driving hypnosis or whatever its called, whereas in LA i go "oh cool i wonder what that says" or "oh look someone drew a smiley face haha" its basically art in my eyes... To me it just feels more urban, idk why it just does.

[alki]

Originally Posted by Illithid Dude

Brigham brings us a rendering of the Astani project. Ta da.

I like it. I like it a lot. I hope they keep the design into construction.

[alki]

Originally Posted by OneMetropolis

I get what citywatch is talking about though. Most of my friends were indifferent about LA too. Its so weird though, we could go to Vegas and they all love it, but LA they like to critize everything. Vegas probally has the same flaws, or worse, yet they get over looked, because Vegas has something LA dosen't I guess. Or they're just not that interested, or hate the city, like alki suggests.

I can't even conceive of the notion that Vegas is preferable to LA. They must really like to gamble.

[alki]

Originally Posted by citywatch

alki, by saying "devil's advocate" you make it sound like I rarely or never encounter ppl's comments that run counter to my own. I wish that were the case. I'm not creating a false discontent towards LA. It's other ppl who I've encountered who express a pov. For instance, I see some snotty povs about LA----esp from a person in baltimore, of all places ----in the letters sections in this webpage.....

First, lets get clear......this is hardly OT. This has been your meme since I've been posting on this thread..........while that's not a long time, you have been very consistent with this theme. So I think it might be a little late to worry about it being OT.

Secondly, people trash cities all the time. Here in Seattle......people complain it rains too much and that we are the last to get fashions. So what? Frequently, people who are unhappy with themselves will take it on their environment.......its human nature.

As for LA, its an easy target. It rarely does things the way the rest of the nation does. Its a very different American city. That can be its appeal as well as its Achilles Heel. I think to live in LA comfortably requires that you accept that notion.

However, there are certain cities like some of the best ones in europe that are both interesting, complete AND attractive. So are american cities like LA always going to have to make do with only 1 of those 3 options or only 2 of them, at best? I guess we can't have our cake & eat it too?

LA is never going to be 'pretty' like Prague. Why? Because the two cities grew up at different times in history. Most Euro cities developed before the industrial age and the advent of the car. American cities developed during the industrial age and were greatly impacted by the automobile. That makes for a huge difference. People call SF and Seattle the emerald cities but as you have so aptly pointed out......both cities have ugly sides to them. And that's because both cities started out as industrial/port cities and were laid out to accommodate the car.

I don't want this post to seem too OT, so I'll relate all of this to the question of why do so many businesses still not want to move to dtla. It's 2012 & the amt of empty office space in the hood remains quite high, as high as it was yrs & yrs ago. Is that possibly cuz ppl who own companies----& choose where their offices will be located----also have a impression of LA, cuz when they drive towards dt, they see so much that looks to them?

Now you are getting to the crux of the problem. I believe there is an anti urban attitude in LA. Because LA sees itself as cutting edge in all things, it decided decades ago it was going to reinvent the city. Arrogance precedes a fall. I believe there is a growing admission that maybe having a heart is critical to the success of a metro area. I think it started in the 90s when most new transit lines centered on DTLA. But old attitudes die hard. I can't tell you how many times I heard people say that a subway should not be built in LA because Angelenos do not want to be cut off from the sun. And I do not exaggerate.

the irony is that hollywood----the actual hood in LA, & both the symbol & original physical heart of showbiz----has long been known to be unattractive & anything but glamorous. So a lack of enough superficial gloss ironically enough has made visitors go or when trying to take in the real city. but maybe it's impossible for any city to live up to hollywood hype? btw, I think Hollywood----the place----is better today than it was during its really dark moments several yrs ago. But there still is lots of room for improvement. for instance, getting rid of the big deadzone where the 6200blvd proj is supposed to go up near Hollywood & vine.

The use of glitter is intended mostly to draw attention and infrequently is beautiful. Back in the 90s, tourists I meant were not so worried about Hollywood's lack of beauty but were more concerned with its crime problem and street people. Some places are not expected to be beautiful......prime example is Times Square. Their draw is the excitement they engender and yes, their glitter.


To balance things out, I would encourage you to post stuff you like as well as stuff you dislike. And btw I think its good to criticize. Sometimes these threads become indiscriminating cheerleaders for their cities. It makes me want to start a blog discussing what Seattle et al are doing wrong.

[alki]

Originally Posted by DistrictDirt

Seriously, stop it. I'm beginning to prefer Ed Luva's occasional trolling over your dead-horse-beating posts and Google streetview images. Every one of your posts could be summarized in a single sentence: "The ugly side of LA- parking lots, run-down storefronts, and overhead powerlines, bothers me a lot."

I think I must be the only one on this thread that likes what Ed Luva has to say. His presentation sucks but he does make some good points. IMO, of course.

[alki]

Originally Posted by ThreeHundred

Off topic a bit but I managed to take a picture of the rarely seen LA Prime Matter art piece actually on fire.

I like it. When was it installed?

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by alki

First, lets get clear......this is hardly OT. This has been your meme since I've been posting on this thread..

alki, my reference to OT was about the declining amt of TV & movie filming in LA. although alot of that does take place in dtla, I do admit that debating about that in this thread is stretching the subj of devlt.

Secondly, people trash cities all the time. Here in Seattle......people complain it rains too much and that we are the last to get fashions. So what? Frequently, people who are unhappy with themselves will take it on their environment.......its human nature.

personally, I'd find your hometown to be rather boring. Although boutique type cities, inc portland, do score high in certain ppl's eyes & surveys, they to me represent the preference of, strangely enough, the superficial over substance. But ymmv. IOW, ppl like the cuteness & comforts of a boutique city. In some ways, in local terms that would be similar to santa monica. I say that's strange cuz ppl often equate LA----& not cities like seattle, SF or portland, as being favored by those who like gloss over substance.

as for ppl who take on their environment, but in an overly unhappy way, that does remind me of a certain SSPer----who shall remain nameless---who is so over the top or trollish in his negativity about LA, that I often think there must be something wrong with him. that he's the type who might be even borderline suicidal.

LA is never going to be 'pretty' like Prague. Why? Because the two cities grew up at different times in history.

but san diego is no older than LA----& is very typically car centric & californized----& yet I've seen more ppl acting less towards it, or even feeling more about it than LA. I remember seeing a rating of CA cities, based on the POV of tourists, & SF was listed first, SD was listed second, LA was listed third. I think saying LA is the way it is cuz of cars, fwys or its newness is taking the easy way out.

Now you are getting to the crux of the problem. I believe there is an anti urban attitude in LA. Because LA sees itself as cutting edge in all things, it decided decades ago it was going to reinvent the city.

some of that is correct, but I think some of that is stretching the point. I bet if dtla had a long history of being a very nice hood, the anti urbanism you mention would never have gotten so strong in the first place. for instance, bunker hill was described as becoming over 80 yrs ago. I've seen alot of old pics of dt back in the 50s, 40, 30s & before, & my overall impression is that it was a mostly sad & tired looking place. If there was or is an anti urbanism in LA, it probably originates in things like that.

and thanks losangelesdreamin for your comment about thinking graffiti not only doesn't bother you, it even makes you think LA is more interesting than SD. I say that cuz when I've posted pics here of dt, it's in the eyes of the beholder to determine whether those pics should be taken as a or towards LA.

If I had posted pics showing a fwy with lots of graffiti & then the exact same location without graffiti----photoshopped or as it really is----it is up to the viewer to determine whether the "before" of before & after is better, or whether the 'after' of before & after is better.

this all comes back to my question of: it's 2012 & why don't many companies still want to move their offices to dt? As to why that's important to the main purpose of this thread? Look at the wilshire grand proj. It originally was going to be a very impressive 2 tower devlpt, with the office tower being the 2nd tallest in LA. but the devlpr said the lack of demand for new space in the hood has forced them to change their plans.

how about everyone wondering why the hood can't get really great dept stores, inc nordstroms? while the growth of the number of ppl living in dt is a good sign, 39,000 still isn't enough ppl to create the huge demand for stores that in other cities allow something like SF's union sq to do well, or certainly the big stores of NY to be crowded with shoppers.

Beyond even the total size of the number of ppl living in dt, that 39000 has to be qualified to around 20,000 or so. iow, how many of the 39,000 are ppl living----& barely surviving----in SRO apts? Ppl living on skid row? Those are the ones who definitely won't have the $$ to be supporting nicer stores in dtla or any other hood.

Downtown Los Angeles can stake its claim to being the most multicultural part of a racially diverse metropolis. Two researchers from Loyola Marymount University have found that the population of downtown L.A. –- the area bounded by the Los Angeles River and the 10, 110 and 101 freeways –- rose 50% between 2000 and 2010, from 26,000 to almost 39,000 residents. The researchers analyzed data from the 2010 census.

"Downtown L.A. was almost perfectly balanced in the 2010 census," Guerra said. "It may not stay that way, but we happened to capture a moment with this census. And it’s symbolically important that, for right now at least, downtown Los Angeles belongs to everyone."

The analysis shows that non-Hispanic white residents are now the largest share of the downtown L.A. population, climbing from 18% of the total in 2000 to about 26% in 2010. Latinos declined from 32% of downtown residents in 2000 to 25% in 2010. African Americans also dropped, from 24% in 2000 to 22% in 2010, and Asians gained, from 22% in 2000 to 23% now. Those who identified their race as "other" and said they were not Hispanic went from 3% of downtown residents in 2000 to 4% in 2010.

And most of the newcomers to downtown L.A. are young, as anyone who has been to the area's popular bars and dog parks lately is likely to know. The LMU researchers found that although the largest share of downtown residents is between the ages of 30 and 44, with the second biggest group aged 45 to 64, the fastest growing part of the community is made up of 18- to 29-year-olds. Their numbers jumped 79% over the decade, the analysis showed.

[alki]

Originally Posted by citywatch

alki, my reference to OT was about the declining amt of TV & movie filming in LA. although alot of that does take place in dtla, I do admit that debating about that in this thread is stretching the subj of devlt.

Fair enough. I misunderstood.


[/i][/b]personally, I'd find your hometown to be rather boring. Although boutique type cities, inc portland, do score high in certain ppl's eyes & surveys, they to me represent the preference of, strangely enough, the superficial over substance. But ymmv. IOW, ppl like the cuteness & comforts of a boutique city. In some ways, in local terms that would be similar to santa monica. I say that's strange cuz ppl often equate LA----& not cities like seattle, SF or portland, as being favored by those who like gloss over substance. [/QUOTE]

Talking about Seattle or Portland on this thread is definitely OT. However, I will be glad to discuss it with you on the Seattle thread.........I post there as well. So bring your post over there and we can go at it because I strongly disagree with your supposition.

as for ppl who take on their environment, but in an overly unhappy way, that does remind me of a certain SSPer----who shall remain nameless---who is so over the top or trollish in his negativity about LA, that I often think there must be something wrong with him. that he's the type who might be even borderline suicidal.

LA is a tough town........it grinds people down. What you say may be correct. Only he knows for sure.

but san diego is no older than LA----& is very typically car centric & californized----& yet I've seen more ppl acting less towards it, or even feeling more about it than LA. I remember seeing a rating of CA cities, based on the POV of tourists, & SF was listed first, SD was listed second, LA was listed third. I think saying LA is the way it is cuz of cars, fwys or its newness is taking the easy way out.

Now you're talking tourists and they are important.........I just don't consider their evaluations of cities all that noteworthy. My take on SD.......its a nice city but I would rather live in LA.

[/b][/i]some of that is correct, but I think some of that is stretching the point. I bet if dtla had a long history of being a very nice hood, the anti urbanism you mention would never have gotten so strong in the first place. for instance, bunker hill was described as becoming over 80 yrs ago. I've seen alot of old pics of dt back in the 50s, 40, 30s & before, & my overall impression is that it was a mostly sad & tired looking place. If there was or is an anti urbanism in LA, it probably originates in things like that.

Now you are arguing which came first.......the chicken or the egg. Given what I know about LA, I believe it was decided after WW II, then it was to be the city of the future.........a bold new city..........a jetsonian city. It wasn't going to be like any other city in the country. I further believe that one of the consequences of that vision was the decline of DTLA.

And yes, Bunker Hill had deteriorated as it became more fashionable to live further out but that doesn't mean that the entire DT area had to decline. Harlem's decline didn't mean the end of Manhattan. Georgetown's decline didn't mean the end of DC. Back Bay's decline didn't mean the end of DT Boston.

I can't think of one major city in this country where one side of the city is so much more powerful than the rest of the city......so significant that it growth comes at the expense of the DT area. I think that's an important consideration than can not be ignored.

[jamesinclair]

A few months ago, it was announced that a major department store was coming downtown.

Myself and someone else said it would be Forever 21. A few people were arguing that hell no, as Forever 21, in their mind, was not a department store.

Did we ever get the store behind that announcement, or could this be it?

[all of the trash]

I thought the dept store announcement ended up being a Ross

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by alki

LA is a tough town........it grinds people down. What you say may be correct. Only he knows for sure.

but, alki, remember what you yourself said in your previous posting, which I think applies to the SSPer in question: "people who are unhappy with themselves will take it out on their environment". The postings of that person are often so oddly negative & trollish, that I think they point to problems for that person from within, not without...or not necessarily having anything to do with where he lives itself. btw, that forumer pm'ed several yrs ago. He sent this weird, very immature rant to me at the time, accusing me of having mental problems. I got creeped out....a case of projection. that's another reason why I suspected something was amiss with him.

And yes, Bunker Hill had deteriorated as it became more fashionable to live further out but that doesn't mean that the entire DT area had to decline. Harlem's decline didn't mean the end of Manhattan. Georgetown's decline didn't mean the end of DC. Back Bay's decline didn't mean the end of DT Boston.

the key difference is that it wasn't just bunker hill that wasn't as good as it could or should have been. it was also alot of the rest of the hood too.

I've seen old pics of what's now known as south pk from over 70 yrs ago. It looked kind of depressing back then too. I've seen old pics from over 60 yrs ago of figueroa looking southward from around what's now the fin dist, & it looked not too great back then too.

However, a few streets like broadway, spring & Main did look much, much better back then. And they certainly were more active, full of crowds of ppl on the sidewalks. But those ppl still would have ended up in not such great areas if they walked or drove beyond those few streets. someone in the "LA noire" thread in the 'found photos' forum said he recalled thinking dt was becoming shabby even back when he was a child & visited the hood in the 1950s or earlier.

Originally Posted by jamesinclair

A few months ago, it was announced that a major department store was coming downtown.

it's disappointing that the most we can hope for at this time is a....ross dress for less. however, that's not too surprising after I looked at the figures for the hood's population. right now, there's perhaps around 20,000 ppl living in dt who can be assumed to be mainstream in terms of career & income. That's not many more ppl than in Staples during a basketball game.

by contrast, there's over 750,000 ppl living in the small area that makes up the borders of the city of SF. 50% of them are white, 30% are asian, 14% are latino, 7% are black. The larger yet still rather small area in NYC that makes up manhattan has a population of 1,585,873 ppl. 48% of them are non-Hispanic White, 13% of them are black, 11% of them are Asian, 25% of them are Hispanic.

So when it comes to residents alone----& not including the larger numbers of daytimers of office workers & tourists in cities like SF or NY----that's around maybe 500,000 ppl compared with 20,000, or 900,000 compared with 20,000. That's a big difference. It means that while ralphs or various restaurants & bars can do well in dtla, it gets iffier for other types of stores that depend on serious shoppers. Ppl who have enough $$ to probably not be big fans of things like all the swapmeets on broadway.

[pesto]

Originally Posted by citywatch

but, alki, remember what you yourself said in your previous posting, which I think applies to the SSPer in question: "people who are unhappy with themselves will take it out on their environment". The postings of that person are often so oddly negative & trollish, that I think they point to problems for that person from within, not without...or not necessarily having anything to do with where he lives itself. btw, that forumer pm'ed several yrs ago. He sent this weird, very immature rant to me at the time, accusing me of having mental problems. I got creeped out....a case of projection. that's another reason why I suspected something was amiss with him.



the key difference is that it wasn't just bunker hill that wasn't as good as it could or should have been. it was also alot of the rest of the hood too.

I've seen old pics of what's now known as south pk from over 70 yrs ago. It looked kind of depressing back then too. I've seen old pics from over 60 yrs ago of figueroa looking southward from around what's now the fin dist, & it looked not too great back then too.

However, a few streets like broadway, spring & Main did look much, much better back then. And they certainly were more active, full of crowds of ppl on the sidewalks. But those ppl still would have ended up in not such great areas if they walked or drove beyond those few streets. someone in the "LA noire" thread in the 'found photos' forum said he recalled thinking dt was becoming shabby even back when he was a child & visited the hood in the 1950s or earlier.




it's disappointing that the most we can hope for at this time is a....ross dress for less. however, that's not too surprising after I looked at the figures for the hood's population. right now, there's perhaps around 20,000 ppl living in dt who can be assumed to be mainstream in terms of career & income. That's not many more ppl than in Staples during a basketball game.

by contrast, there's over 750,000 ppl living in the small area that makes up the borders of the city of SF. 50% of them are white, 30% are asian, 14% are latino, 7% are black. The larger yet still rather small area in NYC that makes up manhattan has a population of 1,585,873 ppl. 48% of them are non-Hispanic White, 13% of them are black, 11% of them are Asian, 25% of them are Hispanic.

So when it comes to residents alone----& not including the larger numbers of daytimers of office workers & tourists in cities like SF or NY----that's around maybe 500,000 ppl compared with 20,000, or 900,000 compared with 20,000. That's a big difference. It means that while ralphs or various restaurants & bars can do well in dtla, it gets iffier for other types of stores that depend on serious shoppers. Ppl who have enough $$ to probably not be big fans of things like all the swapmeets on broadway.

Agree with all this. I hate to be the downer but we have to get over the idea that DT is an upscale neighborhood or is likely to attract shoppers from the westside or upper end of the SGV: the westside and Pasadena/Arcadia are far more convenient for these groups.

For now, Target; urban versions of Walmart, etc.; and middle market retailers (chain or one-off) are the real hallmarks of development. Failure to score a Barney's is NOT a sign of failure.

[Illithid Dude]

I feel like you guys talking about retail ignore what is right in front of you. Don't forget, but there is already retail in downtown, and it's high end, too! Hell, last week, some botique opened up, calling, like, pigtails and bows or something along those lines. I don't understand why you ignore all of these stores when you go on your tirades against downtown.

[alki]

Originally Posted by citywatch

but, alki, remember what you yourself said in your previous posting, which I think applies to the SSPer in question: "people who are unhappy with themselves will take it out on their environment". The postings of that person are often so oddly negative & trollish, that I think they point to problems for that person from within, not without...or not necessarily having anything to do with where he lives itself. btw, that forumer pm'ed several yrs ago. He sent this weird, very immature rant to me at the time, accusing me of having mental problems. I got creeped out....a case of projection. that's another reason why I suspected something was amiss with him.

I haven't seen a large number of his postings but the ones I have seen don't seem trollish to me. However they are brutally frank......maybe too frank. Clearly, Luva is not a cheerleader.

the key difference is that it wasn't just bunker hill that wasn't as good as it could or should have been. it was also alot of the rest of the hood too.

I've seen old pics of what's now known as south pk from over 70 yrs ago. It looked kind of depressing back then too. I've seen old pics from over 60 yrs ago of figueroa looking southward from around what's now the fin dist, & it looked not too great back then too.

However, a few streets like broadway, spring & Main did look much, much better back then. And they certainly were more active, full of crowds of ppl on the sidewalks. But those ppl still would have ended up in not such great areas if they walked or drove beyond those few streets. someone in the "LA noire" thread in the 'found photos' forum said he recalled thinking dt was becoming shabby even back when he was a child & visited the hood in the 1950s or earlier.

Pics of American cities from 70 years years ago tend not to look good for a number of reasons. First they usually are in black and white, not color. Urban aesthetics back down are not what they are now.......we have higher expectations. And as I mentioned in an earlier post, cities back then were not great places to live and work.

Have you seen photos of DT Pittsburgh circa 1940s? The first photo I saw of DT Pittsburgh, I thought it was one taken at nite. Turns out the photo was taken at noon. It was pitch black......so much so the street lites were on. It was due to pollution from its factories. Here's a similar photo taken at 10:55 AM in 1940.......its not the one I saw originally:



Similar photos can be seen here:

http://images.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin/i...e=boolean&med=1&view=thumbnail&c=hpicasc


Pittsburgh may be an extreme example but most American cities, including LA, had factories residing within their city limits. That meant the air was polluted and the city looked dingy. There was other reasons why people fled American cities for the suburbs besides the advent of freeways and cars.

And no downtown is 100% pristine. Even now, SF has its Tenderloin and in the 1980s, Times Square was the armpit of Manhattan. More importantly, Times Square is only a few blocks from Midtown which was and is a prestigious office area. Meanwhile, in DT Seattle, city leaders and police currently are dealing with Third Avenue which has become a haven for drug dealers and hookers. And Third Avenue is only a few blocks from Nordstroms. For me, this economic diversity is what makes cities and DTs interesting.

it's disappointing that the most we can hope for at this time is a....ross dress for less. however, that's not too surprising after I looked at the figures for the hood's population. right now, there's perhaps around 20,000 ppl living in dt who can be assumed to be mainstream in terms of career & income. That's not many more ppl than in Staples during a basketball game.

by contrast, there's over 750,000 ppl living in the small area that makes up the borders of the city of SF. 50% of them are white, 30% are asian, 14% are latino, 7% are black. The larger yet still rather small area in NYC that makes up manhattan has a population of 1,585,873 ppl. 48% of them are non-Hispanic White, 13% of them are black, 11% of them are Asian, 25% of them are Hispanic.

So when it comes to residents alone----& not including the larger numbers of daytimers of office workers & tourists in cities like SF or NY----that's around maybe 500,000 ppl compared with 20,000, or 900,000 compared with 20,000. That's a big difference. It means that while ralphs or various restaurants & bars can do well in dtla, it gets iffier for other types of stores that depend on serious shoppers. Ppl who have enough $$ to probably not be big fans of things like all the swapmeets on broadway.

I know this portion of your post is directed at another poster but from what I can tell, your numbers are way off. In this study:

http://www.downtownla.com/survey-2011-results.asp

They claim that DT LA has 45K residents who have a median income of $83K. They also claim there are over 400K people working in DT LA. Another report, albeit older, makes a similar claim:

http://www.downtownla.com/pdfs/econ_demo/DTLA_DemoSurvey022007.pdf

By comparison, this SF report states there are 280K employees in DT SF:

http://www.sf-planning.org/ftp/general_plan/downtown.htm

It would seem DT LA has more employees.

[alki]

Originally Posted by Illithid Dude

I feel like you guys talking about retail ignore what is right in front of you. Don't forget, but there is already retail in downtown, and it's high end, too! Hell, last week, some botique opened up, calling, like, pigtails and bows or something along those lines. I don't understand why you ignore all of these stores when you go on your tirades against downtown.

You're absolutely right. There is some hi end retail, including hi end restaurants, in DTLA and more is coming. A neighborhood upgrade doesn't happen over nite. When Third Street in SM went thru its renaissance in the early 90s, none of these current retail residents were anywhere where to be seen: Anthropologie, H&M, Barnes & Noble, Urban Outfitters, a three-story Gap, Forever 21, Abercrombie and Fitch, Sephora, Armani Exchange, LUSH Cosmetics, Guess?, Apple, Quiksilver, American Eagle Outfitters and Old Navy. They came much later.

[bobcat]

Originally Posted by alki

I haven't seen a large number of his postings but the ones I have seen don't seem trollish to me.

Of course not. Those were the ones that weren't deleted by the moderators.

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by alki

Pics of American cities from 70 years years ago tend not to look good for a number of reasons. First they usually are in black and white, not color. Urban aesthetics back down are not what they are now.......we have higher expectations.

other than the really bad air pollution, that one pic of pittsburgh doesn't make me think of a sad type of place. I'd say the same thing about old pics of broadway or spring st in dtla. I think the difference is they show larger bldgs that took some $$ to put together.

otoh, this pic of dt from the 1930s shows alot of what I'd consider as type devlpt. And even if it were in color, I don't think it would make most ppl think it was a fantastic looking hood.....


digitallibrary.usc.edu

^ I think that is the MAIN reason the hood was so vulnerable to going downhill from the beginning. Or was vulnerable whether fwys had been built or not, or whether we had good transit or not. maybe that's why I tend to go like this when some ppl believe that transit is the magic bullet that will cure what ails LA. I wish it were as simple as that.

there does seem to be a discrepancy between the population figures from the dt group & the 2010 census. I like to think the stats you're referring to are more correct, but I'm also not sure if they're more likely to be puffed up since they do come from a group that lobbies in behalf of dtla. but I'm also not sure if the US census figures don't include all the new residential devlpt west of the harbor fwy, including all the faux euro apt bldgs that represent a big portion of new housing.

Since SF has far more office space in their dt, I'd be surprised if they have fewer ppl working in that hood during the day. But i'm also not sure how the figures for SF & LA are affected by the ppl who work in all the govt bldgs in dtla compared with SF. I've read that dtla has the largest concentration of that type of space outside of DC. Regardless, if dtla actually draws more ppl who work in the hood, I won't argue with that.

The US census says that the hood in 2010 had 39,000 residents, with non-Hispanic white residents at 26%, Asians at 23%, Latinos at 25% & African Americans at 22%. I did a very rough readjustment of that 39,000 based on an assumption that the breakdown includes ppl living in low income housing throughout dt. Or ppl who tend to be different in where & how they spend their money. But again, if the figures from the dtla improvement group are more correct, I won't argue with them.

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by Illithid Dude

I feel like you guys talking about retail ignore what is right in front of you. Don't forget, but there is already retail in downtown, and it's high end, too!

I'm talking about the numbers of that type of store. Yes, there are some nice shops----TG!----but they still represent only a small portion of the total number of spaces throughout the hood where stores exist or can be created. A small store can survive without a large volume of customers pouring through each day. But big dept stores, esp the nicer ones that some forumers (inc me) would like to see in dtla, cannot. I remember some analyst saying yrs ago that the hood would need around 50,000 residents before it could support the type of stores that depend on serious, full time shoppers.

[pesto]

Originally Posted by alki

I haven't seen a large number of his postings but the ones I have seen don't seem trollish to me. However they are brutally frank......maybe too frank. Clearly, Luva is not a cheerleader.



Pics of American cities from 70 years years ago tend not to look good for a number of reasons. First they usually are in black and white, not color. Urban aesthetics back down are not what they are now.......we have higher expectations. And as I mentioned in an earlier post, cities back then were not great places to live and work.

Have you seen photos of DT Pittsburgh circa 1940s? The first photo I saw of DT Pittsburgh, I thought it was one taken at nite. Turns out the photo was taken at noon. It was pitch black......so much so the street lites were on. It was due to pollution from its factories. Here's a similar photo taken at 10:55 AM in 1940.......its not the one I saw originally:




I know this portion of your post is directed at another poster but from what I can tell, your numbers are way off. In this study:

http://www.downtownla.com/survey-2011-results.asp

They claim that DT LA has 45K residents who have a median income of $83K. They also claim there are over 400K people working in DT LA. Another report, albeit older, makes a similar claim:

http://www.downtownla.com/pdfs/econ_demo/DTLA_DemoSurvey022007.pdf

By comparison, this SF report states there are 280K employees in DT SF:

http://www.sf-planning.org/ftp/general_plan/downtown.htm

It would seem DT LA has more employees.

The downtownla survey strikes me as being of low validity, especially when compared to the inconsistent results from other sources. In any event, it seems to hit more of the people who work DT rather than live DT. Remember that about the time that poll was taken the first real supermarket was showing up DT and the new arrivals are Target and Ross.

For sure there are plenty of upscale restaurants. And I'm always glad to hear that new retail is coming in. But, like citywatch says, this is still a very small part of DT.

The SF comparisons are interesting. SF has been turning more and more service oriented (hotels, restaurants, tourism, nightlife, government) over the years as large HQ's move to cheaper areas. In fact only a small percentage of the HQ's in the Bay Area are in SF, with Silicon Valley claiming the lion's share. I wouldn't be surprised if DT LA had more employees but I imagine they are comparable and it depends on how you draw the lines.