Why Is Downtown Los Angeles So Small?

Comments · 1.6K

• SH

  @shaunsteele8244 · 3 years ago

  my grandma grew up in LA in the 20s and 30s. She always talked about having a farm and horses, and I never understood why she described LA as sounding so rural. Apparently back then it was!

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• BU

  @buckyhermit · 4 years ago

  For a weird case study, look at Vancouver's metro area. It also had a history like LA, where many surrounding suburbs started as major hubs in their own right back in the day (including the former capital city of New Westminster) before "growing into" each other. The difference between Vancouver and LA is the downtown. Vancouver's is highly densified and has a large residential population. And a lot of that can be attributed to the lack of freeways within city limits and focus on public transit. The suburbs, meanwhile, continue to boast their own downtowns, which connect to downtown Vancouver via transit in a hub-and-spoke format. And each suburb is an independent city, with its own mayor and council, just like the LA area. It kinda makes you wonder what LA could've been like, had a few things turned out differently.

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• VI

  @VinceroAlpha · 4 years ago

  I always wondered why LA didn't have many skyscrapers and why real estate was so expensive, this was a MAJOR piece of information that LITERALLY  no one talks about.

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• DA

  @damienpilon9785 · 4 years ago

  Even though transit in LA is considered to be terrible, about 50% of workers get to downtown LA by transit. With new transit lines getting built there (such as the purple line subway and the regional connector), it should allow the downtown to grow and become a more important hub for the region, rather than just one node among others

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• BA

  @Basta11 · 4 years ago

  Los Angeles also has minimum parking requirements which limits the height of the buildings based on the amount of parking they could provide. <br>The damage by parking requirements is more severe when the space is more valuable as that means the opportunity costs were higher.

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• BL

  @Blaqjaqshellaq · 4 years ago

  Why didn&apos;t Los Angeles built its own Empire State Building in the 1930s? &nbsp;Because it was the time of the Great Depression, and money for big construction projects was tight. &nbsp;Even ESB took twenty years to completely rent out its office space! (For a while it was nicknamed &quot;the Empty State Building&quot;...)

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• FR

  @fromSD-bb · 4 years ago

  One thing you don’t mention is that two of LA’s signature industries—aerospace and Hollywood—were not ones that were given to being headquartered in a downtown. &nbsp;In these industries, corporate management tends to get located close to where the work is being performed. &nbsp;In the the case of aerospace, that was near the factories in Long Beach, the South Bay or the Valley. &nbsp;For the movie studios, management stayed in Hollywood or the Westside. &nbsp;The other signature industry, oil, did have headquarters in Downtown LA high rises (UNOCAL, ARCO), though I’m not sure that those headquarters are still there.

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• BI

  @birdo1180 · 3 years ago

  If LA had a Chicago-like skyline against the San Gabriel mountains, Pacific ocean, and LA basin, it would look truly spectacular.

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• DA

  @Damianoutlaw · 4 years ago (edited)

  I remember in the 1980&apos;s and early 1990&apos;s when downtown Los Angeles was incredibly unimpressive for a city of its size. <br>This was back when the downtown only had about 4 prominent skyscrapers. This was before the US Bank Tower or the Staples Center was built.

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• JO

  @jordiett26 · 4 years ago

  Just wanted to correct one your stats. &nbsp;Downtown LA was estimated in 2019 to actually have 85,000 residents, which gives it a population density around 14.5 thousand people per square mile, which, while still pretty paltry, is more in line with the rest of Central LA. &nbsp;In addition, in 2000 only 28,000 people lived in downtown, which just shows the tremendous growth that’s been occurring recently. &nbsp;That being said there is still a lot that needs to be done to encourage more density and walkability in the neighborhood and the city as a whole

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• CH

  @Chris-gj4ix · 4 years ago

  LA sounds like a huge town more than a huge city

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• FP

  @FPOAK · 4 years ago

  It’s always crazy to me how so many of the most population-dense neighborhoods in California are in and around Los Angeles. It’s a weird mix of parking lots and freeways but also lots of two and three story apartments

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