Why did Downtown LA begin to revitalize so much later than other major US cities?

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by bilbao58

My first thought is that Downtown San Diego is on the waterfront, which is arguably the best part of the city. Downtown Los Angeles is not exactly in LA’s most scenic corner.

that's a really interesting point.

on the surface, downtown LA does seem to be somewhat randomly located within the greater LA metro area.

most other major cities seem to have their downtowns located at key geographical places within their regions, like manhattan island sitting in one of the greatest deep water harbors in the nation, or chicago's loop located where the chicago river meets lake michigan, or any number of interior cities with their downtowns situated upon high ground along a major river.

as a general rule, downtowns with something like a harbor, or major river, or bay, or lakefront, or some other major waterfront feature do seem to make for more natural meeting places.

is there a geographical basis for why downtown LA ended up where it did?

[sopas ej]

Who says downtown LA wasn't happenin' in the 1970s? This is the downtown LA I remember from my very early childhood. Quite vibrant.

Cole's facebook page

There's even a Thrifty drugstore on the corner. And fewer homeless, and they were all east of Main Street, and around the Midnight Mission.

Oh, I see, maybe because during that decade, no había gringos en downtown. *ROLLSEYES*

[bossabreezes]

*Rollseyes* at the small mindedness of that last comment!

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

is there a geographical basis for why downtown LA ended up where it did?

Yes. The Los Angeles River. El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciúncula was founded west of it. And of course native villages were all over the LA Basin, which was a very fertile flood plain.

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by destroycreate

I feel like while downtowns such as Seattle, Portland, and San Diego (beginning with the Gaslamp District restoration in the late 80s and Horton Plaza), began to start seeing a first wave boom during the late 90s, downtown LA really only seemingly began to become a thing again perhaps around '06. This brief burst of excitement was quickly halted by the recession, only to see a boom again beginning around 2011 or so.

My question is, given Downtown LA has always had some epic urban bones and that it is part of the second largest metro in the country, why did the idea of "urban renewal" arrive here comparatively so late? You would've thought DTLA would've had a much better head start than say, San Diego (with its smaller economy etc.). I have to be honest, every visit I take to Downtown SD lately I'm stunned as a native by how solid all around it is now--extremely livable, clean, safe, and vibrant. Probably one of the best examples of a downtown comeback in the country for a city its size.

Looking at DTLA, while I love going there and there's definitely a buzz going right now, it still feels like there's a long way to go. What's making it take so long, and made it lag far behind in the first place?

Short answer:


Santa Monica by Pedro Szekely, on Flickr

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

Yes. The Los Angeles River. El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciúncula was founded west of it.

i was looking for a more fine-grained answer.

the LA river is dozens of miles long. is there a geographic reason why the specific spot along the LA river where downtown LA now sits became the central node for the entire city?

the lack of a strong geographical basis for downtown LA's location could possibly help explain why it became one of the most polycentric cities in the nation.

[Chisouthside]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

Who says downtown LA wasn't happenin' in the 1970s? This is the downtown LA I remember from my very early childhood. Quite vibrant.

Cole's facebook page

There's even a Thrifty drugstore on the corner. And fewer homeless, and they were all east of Main Street, and around the Midnight Mission.

Oh, I see, maybe because during that decade, no había gringos en downtown. *ROLLSEYES*

Downtown LA currently reminds me of Chicago's Loop from the early 90s before most of the mom and pop shops and restaurants all closed down. The Loop now is probably cleaner and has more tourists now but lacking that character that downtown LA still has.

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by bossabreezes

*Rollseyes* at the small mindedness of that last comment!

I was being facetious.

Downtown LA was always vibrant, just the demographics changed. As others have mentioned, LA decentralized early on, and didn't really depend on its downtown like in other big cities. Most new investment was being made in other areas of LA.

Urban renewal of downtown actually started in the 1960s with the eventual clearing of Bunker Hill (displacing many people) to build office towers, shifting the financial district west from Spring Street, which was the center of finance in the old days. Bunker Hill had the "advantage" of being near the 110 freeway, so it was expected that office workers would pour into downtown from the freeway, directly into parking garages, and into their offices, and possibly using some of the elevated walkways that were built in that area, and then getting into their cars, and going directly to the freeway to get home.

The traditional downtown was then "taken over" by other businesses, owned by and many catering to the Latino population who lived east of the LA River. The movie palaces on Broadway were still showing movies, some Spanish-language films, and some Hollywood mainstream films but with Spanish subtitles. Walking down Broadway on a Sunday afternoon in the 1980s, it was filled with people. This is why sometimes I want to roll my eyes when people say that downtown is really packed now, when in my lifetime, it always was.

What HAS changed, though, in my lifetime, is that more people live downtown than back in the 1970s and 1980s. It's made it more of an actual neighborhood with residents, with businesses and restaurants that are open past 6pm. I feel like a lot of downtowns were like this anyway, where a lot of businesses closed up shop after 6pm, because they were really catering to the office workers that worked traditional work hours.

But going back to the way downtown LA was, I really think many people avoided it because they felt there was nothing for them (because of the demographics that were there at the time), even though it had (and still has) amazing Beaux Arts architecture, Art Deco buildings, etc. In my teens, my friend and I would even hang out at Olvera Street and Union Station, just because Union Station has such great architecture. And it would be pretty empty! It's like, why aren't tourists looking at this? Probably because they were SCARED. Haha!

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

https://www.globest.com/2020/02/21/n...20200121110408

The new normal in downtown LA... 4500 units delivered last quarter. Last I recall, about 35,000 more in the pipeline. We've also had several new towers break ground over the last couple months

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

i was looking for a more fine-grained answer.

the LA river is dozens of miles long. is there a reason why the specific spot along the LA river where downtown LA now sits became the central node for the entire city?

the lack of a strong geographical basis for downotwn's LA's location could possibly help explain why it became one of the most polycentric cities in the nation.

It's the lowest point in the river that is geographically fixed in place. Below that point, the river meanders in a huge flood plain, sometimes meeting the sea down south by Long Beach, sometimes heading west toward Playa del Rey, destroying everything in its path. Look at where Cairo is located within the Nile river delta, it's the same idea. The people who founded the city knew the lay of the land and picked the best spot for their needs.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by badrunner

It's the lowest point in the river that is geographically fixed in place. Below that point, the river meanders in a huge flood plain, sometimes meeting the sea down south by Long Beach, sometimes heading west toward Playa del Rey, destroying everything in its path. Look at where Cairo is located within the Nile river delta, it's the same idea. The people who founded the city knew the lay of the land and picked the best spot for their needs.

cool. thanks for the knowledge.

it's still interesting to me that the CBD of downtown LA (where all the skyscrapers are) is still set-back ~1.5 miles from the river though. i wonder why that is?

it's also a shame what's been done to the LA river over the years with the concrete trench it runs through, turning it into little more than an over-sized drainage channel. it's not exactly a scenic waterfront to revitalize a downtown around, as so many other cities have done with their waterfronts.

[park123]

Yeah if downtown LA was where Santa Monica or Venice are, there would have been a lot more revitalization by now. Far from the ocean, far from the Westside hills.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

cool. thanks for the knowledge.

it's still interesting to me that the CBD of downtown LA (where all the skyscrapers are) is still set-back ~1.5 miles from the river though. i wonder why that is?

it's also a shame what's been done to the LA river over the years with the concrete trench it runs through, turning it into little more than an over-sized drainage channel. it's not exactly a scenic waterfront to revitalize a downtown around, as so many other cities have down with their waterfronts.

The location of DTLA is somewhat arbitrary... it's always been the brightest star in a constellation. Other cities like Santa Monica or Long Beach were self-sufficient, regional rivals before they were conjoined into a giant megalopolis. Also, it's odd that the downtown did not concentrate around the San Gabriel mission the same way other California cities grew around missions.

I think you can really attribute the success of downtown Los Angeles, just like Chicago, to railroads and the city's success at luring them. DTLA really took off after city boosters persuaded the Southern Pacific to make downtown LA the interchange point between the east-west line across the continent and the north-south line up California, plus a spur down to the big port at San Pedro/Wilmington. This gave LA a link to the East Coast, to San Francisco, and to international trade, whereas other settlements in the area had to content themselves with merely being linked to LA via streetcars and interurbans.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

cool. thanks for the knowledge.

it's still interesting to me that the CBD of downtown LA (where all the skyscrapers are) is still set-back ~1.5 miles from the river though. i wonder why that is?

it's also a shame what's been done to the LA river over the years with the concrete trench it runs through, turning it into little more than an over-sized drainage channel. it's not exactly a scenic waterfront to revitalize a downtown around, as so many other cities have done with their waterfronts.

Because most of the rivers in the west especially in California are small and seasonal. They were not used for transportation via barge so there was no drive to build anything fronting the water. In fact until about 30 years ago they would do crazy shit like FILL IN THE RIVER WITH CONCRETE and place industrial buildings around it.

San Antonio was the same way until a major effort was put in to build the river-walk, Phoenix is the same way with the city 2 miles north of its river and the river being surrounded by gross industrial uses. A few miles to the east Tempe, which had its downtown centered on the river do to a flour mill and ferry crossing back in the day revitalized their portion of the river and have seen massive development in the years since doing so etc. etc.

Phoenix the Rio Solado: https://goo.gl/maps/XV1oHxQLaCoizUpT8 This is is likely how the LA river looked back in the day, before being engineered over. The flows for both were once higher but the rivers are damned up for water/agriculture. The flow is still seasonal and actually in Phoenix the area was susceptible to annual flooding due to snow melt much like Iraq.

And the same river 3 miles east where Tempe revitalized https://goo.gl/maps/t6HCvKA7xRN42vEt6

Most of the LA river looks like this today https://goo.gl/maps/Dmxti1CF9j1LYyG98

[woodrow]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

it's also a shame what's been done to the LA river over the years with the concrete trench it runs through, turning it into little more than an over-sized drainage channel. it's not exactly a scenic waterfront to revitalize a downtown around, as so many other cities have done with their waterfronts.

If you want to go down a internet rabbit hole about what they are planning for the river, start here - http://lariver.org/

It's like what Chicago is doing to bring back the river, except on a MUCH larger scale. And waaaaaaay more fighting.

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by badrunner

Short answer:

Not totally. look at inland Pasadena and other key portions of the san gabriel valley. they're even more miles away from the coastline, yet many of its communities never went as far downhill from after WWII as dtla did.

if downtown had been built nicely from the beginning, it wouldn't have fallen so hard to begin with.

as lasportsfan notes, dtla today is a far cry from where it was certainly 20-40 yrs ago, even a few yrs ago...

notice the contrast between dtla's seedy past and its better condition today....homelessness, litter, piss smells & graffiti notwithstanding.


• Video Link

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by woodrow

If you want to go down a internet rabbit hole about what they are planning for the river, start here - http://lariver.org/

It's like what Chicago is doing to bring back the river, except on a MUCH larger scale. And waaaaaaay more fighting.

Of all the many many absurd things America used to do to its rivers before recent times I will never understand why they destroyed them so much.

I am not really a big conservationist personally, I just dont really care but what was done with so many rivers just boggles my mind. The revitalization efforts in our time are really nice to see.

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by LosAngelesSportsFan

Last I recall, about 35,000 more in the pipeline. We've also had several new towers break ground over the last couple months

that includes upcoming apt towers on the ne corner of 8th & Fig and the ne corner of 4th & Hill St.

The first is in a very visible part of the fig-business district corridor, the other is a key neighbor to the grand central mkt, clark hotel and even the bradbury bldg a block away. Those two locations have instead been lifeless parking lots for over 40, 50 or more yrs.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by ardecila

I think you can really attribute the success of downtown Los Angeles, just like Chicago, to railroads and the city's success at luring them. DTLA really took off after city boosters persuaded the Southern Pacific to make downtown LA the interchange point between the east-west line across the continent and the north-south line up California, plus a spur down to the big port at San Pedro/Wilmington.

oh, i didn't know about the RR history, that makes sense.

the fact that the RR junction was set up in a location without a strong geographic/water feature makes downtown LA's location within the basin feel somewhat arbitrary.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

oh, i didn't know about the RR history, that makes sense.

the fact that the RR junction was set up in a location without a strong geographic/water feature makes downtown LA's location within the basin feel somewhat arbitrary.

As I said above the rivers in California are not large, they are small, seasonal, prone to flooding, the only rivers that are navigable and only due to heavy engineering are out of the central valley flowing into San Francisco bay to both Stockton and Sacramento.

The only reason to be close to the LA river at all was water access for literal drinking and growing plants. So the downtown is close enough to the river for that but far enough to avoid seasonal flooding.

Here is like a 110 year old pic of the LA river before the concreted it over for "flood control"



This is how would be most of the time until a heavy snow or rain would turn it into a tiny raging torrent knocking out bridges and power lines.