Blade Runner is a joke in retrospect! (Bell: real estate, crime rates)

[Tex?Il?]

Originally Posted by munchitup

Nothing says a city in decline like record-low crime rates and rapidly improving infrastructure.

Hopefully LA never achieves a built-up nature like that! I do see how some Asian cities look similar to the dystopia.

Agreed on both points!

I really have no desire to go to those crowded Asian cities: (Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Beijing, Bangkok, Manila, etc.) Besides here in California we can experience those cultures in a cleaner urban environment. (Except Singapore which is clean to the point of being downright creepy).

Not to mentioned much improved air quality. Even the most cynical seem to agree that the air quality is much better than in the 80s.

And seriously, LA has ALWAYS been super culturally diverse.

[Wing Feathers]

Originally Posted by munchitup

rapidly improving infrastructure

I've heard that from other City Data posters, too, but I just haven't seen it. Here is your chance to educate me on how the core is any more improved than it was in the late 70's when the script was penned. I am all ears Smog-wise yes perhaps, thanks to improvements in federal emissions standards. But other than that I don't see it. Nor the diversity.

I was there earlier this year, and still found myself in a sea of 98% Hispanics. Not sure how that is considered "diverse". The buildings mostly had Spanish vinyl banners covering up the history of the town, and flea markets with Chinese knock-offs for sale in Spanish. Below the grime were still traces of a once fabulous store where innovators proudly displayed their wares, much like in Blade Runner where the bones of the building have had random cheap stuff tacked onto them with no respect for history.

The streets were still just as dirty and broken up as I remembered. The buildings just as dirty and abandoned (when not being squatted by trinket stands). Perhaps there is a street that has improved, or a few feet near where you guys live/work, but the rest is no more improved than 40 years ago. Definitely not the antithesis of Blade Runner. If the heyday of the 20's 30's returned then I would agree, but it has not.

On a positive note, I will say that I didn't feel like I was going to get stabbed, so that is an improvement!!! The last time I had been downtown, about 2006, I was filming at the Rossyln hotel. Just outside a few "gentlemen" took quite an interest in me - in a very violent way.

[jaypee]

Originally Posted by Tex?Il?

Los Angeles, 2019. Being only seven years away I find the movie actually comedic. So when are those pyramids going to be built. How come we don't have flying cars yet?

I don't know, but I have met many replicants when I was living there.

[Tex?Il?]

Originally Posted by Wing Feathers

I've heard that from other City Data posters, too, but I just haven't seen it. Here is your chance to educate me on how the core is any more improved than it was in the late 70's when the script was penned. I am all ears Smog-wise yes perhaps, thanks to improvements in federal emissions standards. But other than that I don't see it. Nor the diversity.

I was there earlier this year, and still found myself in a sea of 98% Hispanics. Not sure how that is considered "diverse". The buildings mostly had Spanish vinyl banners covering up the history of the town, and flea markets with Chinese knock-offs for sale in Spanish. Below the grime were still traces of a once fabulous store where innovators proudly displayed their wares, much like in Blade Runner where the bones of the building have had random cheap stuff tacked onto them with no respect for history.

The streets were still just as dirty and broken up as I remembered. The buildings just as dirty and abandoned (when not being squatted by trinket stands). Perhaps there is a street that has improved, or a few feet near where you guys live/work, but the rest is no more improved than 40 years ago. Definitely not the antithesis of Blade Runner. If the heyday of the 20's 30's returned then I would agree, but it has not.

On a positive note, I will say that I didn't feel like I was going to get stabbed, so that is an improvement!!! The last time I had been downtown, about 2006, I was filming at the Rossyln hotel. Just outside a few "gentlemen" took quite an interest in me - in a very violent way.

I think what he meant by rapidly improving infrastructure, might be that LA is catching up in terms of public transportation with other US cities. Whereas when Blade Runner was made there was none at all.

I understand what you are saying no doubt, but this can describe really any major city to an extent.

I think New York for example actually much more resembles the physical landscape of Blade Runner much more.

[LuckyGem]

Blade Runner = Motion Picture = Fiction

Los Angeles + 2019 = Reality

[munchitup]

Originally Posted by Wing Feathers

I've heard that from other City Data posters, too, but I just haven't seen it. Here is your chance to educate me on how the core is any more improved than it was in the late 70's when the script was penned. I am all ears Smog-wise yes perhaps, thanks to improvements in federal emissions standards. But other than that I don't see it. Nor the diversity.

I was there earlier this year, and still found myself in a sea of 98% Hispanics. Not sure how that is considered "diverse". The buildings mostly had Spanish vinyl banners covering up the history of the town, and flea markets with Chinese knock-offs for sale in Spanish. Below the grime were still traces of a once fabulous store where innovators proudly displayed their wares, much like in Blade Runner where the bones of the building have had random cheap stuff tacked onto them with no respect for history.

The streets were still just as dirty and broken up as I remembered. The buildings just as dirty and abandoned (when not being squatted by trinket stands). Perhaps there is a street that has improved, or a few feet near where you guys live/work, but the rest is no more improved than 40 years ago. Definitely not the antithesis of Blade Runner. If the heyday of the 20's 30's returned then I would agree, but it has not.

On a positive note, I will say that I didn't feel like I was going to get stabbed, so that is an improvement!!! The last time I had been downtown, about 2006, I was filming at the Rossyln hotel. Just outside a few "gentlemen" took quite an interest in me - in a very violent way.

Yeah I am referring to the growing public transportation system, as well as what is a 'rebirth' of Downtown, Mid-Wilshire and Hollywood...

Just one example, the building in Hollywood that I live in was at one time a grand hotel - then, around the time Blade Runner was filmed, it was a sh*t hole slum apartment (a murder, gambling ring run out of the laundry room!) - now it has been restored to an attractive but reasonably priced apartment building. This is the story of so many neighborhoods and buildings in LA.

In fact it seems like the one place that is declining in Los Angeles is the San Fernando Valley - once considered the escape from the ills of urban life!

You obviously don't like being around a large amount of Hispanics so yeah, LA is not the place for you. There definitely is a Latino majority (Being from Santa Maria, CA I couldn't care less about lots of Hispanics - doesn't bother me one bit).

But there is no denying that Los Angeles is very diverse, the census and countless other studies show that.

EDIT: I'll give you that the streets and sidewalks in LA are pretty beat up. Sounds like you went to Broadway, which is in fairly bad shape still but (literally) every day it seems like a new retailer has decided to open up shop on Broadway.

[CA4Now]

Originally Posted by Tex?Il?

Being only seven years away I find the movie actually comedic. So when are those pyramids going to be built. How come we don't have flying cars yet?

Couldn't we say the same about Orwell's 1984? Or Prince's song "1999"? Or the film "2001, A Space Odyssey"? Or Bradbury's Farenheit 451? Prediction of a scenario in the distant future is never going to be exact, nor, in most cases, is it intended to be.

[readymade]

You guys forgot "Soylent Green!" We're apparently going to be EATING each other in 10 years!

(might still happen)

"Bladerunner" is one of my all-time favorite movies.

[Tex?Il?]

Originally Posted by CA4Now

Couldn't we say the same about Orwell's 1984? Or Prince's song "1999"? Or the film "2001, A Space Odyssey"? Or Bradbury's Farenheit 451? Prediction of a scenario in the distant future is never going to be exact, nor, in most cases, is it intended to be.

Oh, I know. You are spot on. I just brought up Blade Runner because it was specific to Los Angeles. I know the makers of the movie didn't seriously think LA was really going to look like that.

(Although in all honest, the way LA was growing by leaps and bounds in the 70s and 80s) it might have almost seemed by some that it was heading in that direction!

[SalParadise]

Originally Posted by Tex?Il?

I think New York for example actually much more resembles the physical landscape of Blade Runner much more.

They made a movie for that too: "Escape From New York"

......Snake Pliskens can't be far behind.