I like using high playback speed & fast forwarding through vids like this because I can get quick glimpses of ongoing changes to dtla, what still hasn't been improved or areas that are still waiting for start of proposed devlpt....
https://youtu.be/ebBhz16yGsI
Fig around the convention ctr used to be a big joke to the city, as rundown and lifeless as any area for tourists or conventioneers could be...now the addition of new apt bldgs & the replacement of the old hooters bldg is bringing it closer to where it should have always been....but the oceanwide proj remains a big gap.
The new apt tower going up on the corner of fig & 8th St is also filling in a parking lot that was there for way too many decades.
More work remains, however, such as the completion of the transit projs & other new devlpt.....but dtla is slowly but surely finally becoming a part of the city....no longer LA's hole in the doughnut.
however, I watched a new vid showing the century city shopping ctr and there were quite a few ppl out & about. by contrast, when I see certain vids of the macy's ctr in dtla, way fewer visitors or shoppers are visible....the macys itself in a vid shot this wk had almost no customers in it. So dt still needs to add to its population base.
EDIT: This has aerial views of dt & other areas in LA, including the playa vista proj on the land formerly owned by howard hughes....it shows how dt has filled in various gaps, but that many parking lots & small warehouse type bldgs still remain. That's very apparent in dt's eastern side.
It also makes me realize if more of central la had been nicely put together over 60 yrs ago, not as many ppl would have wanted to escape to the burbs starting in the 1940s & 1950s.
It wasn't just fwys or the arrival of cars that hurt dtla....it was because too much of dt wasn't developed more along the lines of where it is is today or that areas south of dt weren't more like newer devlpts similar to playa vista or older hoods like pasadena.
the fact that various supposed experts in urban planning have missed that key point has always puzzled me. Also a person who told me over 15 yrs ago that because dtla wasn't next to the ocean, it lost its edge overlooked the fact that pasadena, which is even further inland than dtla is, has done fairly well over the past 70 yrs.
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