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I actually think that DTLA is as "walkable, dense and vibrant" as the city's population represents (or slightly below its weight) but for decades, the type of walkability and vibrancy that DTLA offered is not the kind that is well-received here on C-D. In fact I have heard from some long-time DTLA residents that the core was actually more bustling during its "nadir".
This is so true, I have always been a fan of downtown LA, I grew up in the 70's and even at it's low point downtown LA was packed with pedestrians and not to even mentioned how bad traffic was. Downtown LA is much better today with more quality restaurants, coffeehouses, and entertainment, yet it's not as vibrant as it used to be. Today Broadway Avenue is dead, compared to even 10 years ago. Not too long ago Broadway was bustling, and noisy and crazy traffic. It was quite common to see wall to wall buses as far as the eye could see clogging up the avenue, and hundreds of passengers unloading and loading onto the commercial street. It may seem like a long time ago to some of you young ones (I'm 50) but not to me. I used to work downtown back in the 80's and it was crazy busy back then and this was when the historic core was in worse shape like many American cities downtown's but yet it never desolate like a lot others I recall when I visited many other cities in my 20's.
Where I have seen improvement in pedestrians activity that wasn't there in the past is in Little Tokyo, and Spring Street (well a totally different crowd) Union Station of course before my time was very vibrant before flying became the norm, and during my childhood I recall it was dead. It has now come back to life, and in a big way. I'm amazed how busting the train station is now, even late into the evening. Recently I took the metrolink commuter train to my sister's home in Rancho Cucamonga taking the last train out on a Saturday around midnight and it was still fairly busy even at this time of night.
I remember DTLA specifically in 1983 & indeed Broadway was busier back then but it was filled with swap meet heaven. Most if not all of the historic buildings were abandoned above the ground floor swap meet shops. Bullocks I believe was on its last leg. No merchandise, with most of the floors closed. As busy as Broadway was that is not the ;ind of busy we need or want, especially with the beautiful historic bldgs decaying by the day. Your right, its less busy today because things are changing for the better. Much better.
I remember DTLA specifically in 1983 & indeed Broadway was busier back then but it was filled with swap meet heaven. Most if not all of the historic buildings were abandoned above the ground floor swap meet shops. Bullocks I believe was on its last leg. No merchandise, with most of the floors closed. As busy as Broadway was that is not the ;ind of busy we need or want, especially with the beautiful historic bldgs decaying by the day. Your right, its less busy today because things are changing for the better. Much better.
The neighborhood is bound to get busier too as more residents move in. Until recently, most of the residential projects were adaptive reuse - mostly 7-12 story buildings. The new wave of projects is all new construction, many of them towers. We'll likely go from 60k residents in the neighborhood to 100-120k over the next decade. That's going to make a huge difference in the amount of foot traffic.
And yes, I agree that things are much better now that we're moving away from the swap meets. Those tenants have been terrible stewards of the buildings. We have the more gorgeous and intact stretch of historic theaters in the country. Filling them with swap meets selling junk is definitely not their highest and best use.
Nice LA vid. Didn't know there was that much historical architecture there. They're very over shadowed by the newer taller towers.
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