Will downtown LA ever reach the size it should be? (Los Angeles: house, neighborhood)

[Trimac20]

For a city of over 4 million with a greater metropolitan area of almost 20 million, Los Angeles and the greater SoCal megapolis should probably have a downtown approaching that of Manhattan, or at least the size of Chicago. Granted it's history is vastly different to the Windy City, and the way it's structured is also pretty unique (having so many nodes, developing after the automobile boom), do you think with the improvements in transit downtown LA will someday equal or even surpass that of Chicago? Will it be ranked as one of the great skylines/downtowns in America, or do other areas like Hollywood exert too strong a pull?

[Chriscross309]

There are too many business hubs in LA for that to happen.

[nashvols]

If you think LA "should" have the skyline on the same sort of level as Chicago or Manhattan, then no...it won't ever reach that size IMO.

LA is an auto age city...so it's likely to remain spread out.

[Lifeshadower]

Originally Posted by BruceTenmile

Sorry to be a bit troll-y, but LA's count at the 2010 census was only 3,792,621. You may say 'but it must be higher, they never count [insert group here]', but that must be true for every city, so we can only go on the numbers we have, and you can't just assume it's bigger.

And this has to do with the topic because? What does the exact population of a city have to do with the contention that LA should (yeah, as if anything 'should' happen) have a downtown rivaling Chicago or NYC?

To answer OP: Coming from an LA native, no, most likely not. If you've ever been to LA, you'll realize why. There has been more people moving into downtown lately, and there has been construction of more high rises there, but LA is simply not built that way. It's an extremely decentralized place, with many competing business centers that are for the most part, not connected to each other in terms of structural density. A huge chunk of SoCal residents don't WANT a lifestyle like that. The preference is to have a house and expand out (explains places like the Inland Empire and the Antelope Valley very well) rather than people move in. There's a reason why every single neighborhood surrounding downtown Los Angeles is simply replacing population as opposed to adding population (Harvard-Westlake is slowly becoming an annexation of Koreatown, while the Salvadorian/Guatemalans move out to other areas of LA)

In case someone runs out and says "Century City/West LA", yeah, how walkable is that place? I work there. It's not very walkable. Even walking from Century Park East to the mall on Avenue of the Stars on Santa Monica is a pain, and you don't really see that many people out walking at any time of the day given all the high rises there.

[Fred314X]

Will downtown LA ever reach the size it should be?

What is "should?" Downtown LA already is the size it should be. Apparently, though, someone would like it to be larger. The question really is, will downtown LA ever grow?

[emcee squared]

I don't think so. As it stands, much of the business hubs are spread throughout the metro. There would have to be some major incentive for them to all start expanding in downtown L.A.

Also, the metro is so damn big. Imagine everyone commuting from the fringes do the "real" downtown everyday.

[nowincal11]

I was told that the whole purpose of the Woodland Hills highrises in the west corner of the Valley was to draw workers away from downtown LA to ease the traffic.

[foadi]

LA is going to have a big highrise boom once the economic recovery gets rolling imo. gonna be bigger than the miami boom of the last 10 yrs.

[sliverbox]

Ever been to LA? Its like Atlanta times 10. Its basically a HUGE sprawl of a city with a comparatively small downtown and miles and miles of suburban development. I live in the SF Bay Area which at least has a city and downtown, but LA is the epitome of modern American suburban city development.

[nowincal11]

LA is nothing like Atlanta in my opinion. LA is sprawled, but it is an urban sprawl. The population density of LA is 8,600 people a square mile, which also includes all the undeveloped land in the hills separating the basin from the Valley.

Many of LA's suburbs are far more densely populated than the city as well. Santa Monica, West Hollywood, Pico Rivera, Huntingon Park, Bell, etc. etc. It is literally miles and miles of upper middle density residential, commercial, and industrial build.

ATL is far more rural and lower density suburban sprawl than LA.