Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Montclair’s view on things is part and parcel of the cancer that’s overtaking the Bay Area. It’s horrendous that he isn’t just an isolated singular viewpoint.
LOL I hate to break it to you but BART is currently being expanded into SJ, but more importantly, ride sharing is the future of mass transit. LA is super late to the transit party as eell.
I believe LA surpassed SF in terms of rail lines and miles covered a few years ago. Presently there are 4 light rail lines and 2 subway lines. In addition the new Crenshaw line connecting LAX to Downtown LA, via the Expo line, will be completed in 2019 or 2020. The Crenshaw line will also connect with the Green line. Construction also continues on 3 new underground subway station in downtown LA to service the Expo and Blue line trains.
3 new subway station are also under construction along Wilshire Blvd extending the Purple line subway from K-Town to Mid-Wilshire, in phase one of that project which will eventually reach the Westwood/UCLA area.
Construction also continues on the Gold Line light rail line which presently ends at Azusa. When complete, sometime in 2020, it will reach San Dimas.
Here are 2 current examples apart from Salesforce Tower...
Oceanwide Center I in SF, currently under construction, will also be 910 ft tall and will be all office at 1.25 million sq ft.
Park Tower currently under construction will stand 605' and be all office space at 743,000 sq ft.
I don't think the over riding goal in LA is to bring more business downtown. The high rises of Century City and Westwood are the preferred destinations for many of LA's Corporations. Where as downtown LA is becoming a place where people want to live. About 60,000 people live in downtown right now, but in 10 years I imagine that number to grow past 100,000. The city also wants to attract conventions and more tourists downtown. This is evidenced by the large number of high rise hotels under construction.
DTLA is quickly becoming the focal point for the LA region because there's so much to do and see there. And it's only getting better. Case in point, the new Broad Museum. It is so popular reservations are required to view the exhibits. The Broad is located next to the stunningly beautiful Disney Concert Hall. On that same stretch of Grand Ave, you'll also find the LA Music Center and Museum of Contemporary Art.
Haha this is quite possibly the most hilarious post in this thread. Actually for the past 40 years, Los Angeles has been sinking deeper into economic irrelevance while the Bay Area soared to unprecedented levels of economic dominance and prosperity.
This has directly affected the caliber and quality of not only downtown SF but the quality of life in the entire region-likewise the sad state of downtown LA and much of the inner city and vast swaths of South LA, the eventual boom in the subpar Inland Empire(Ugh) etc. The San Fernando Valley, once a jewel has gone to the crapper.
All of this because of the decline of the regional economy.
You're way off base. A city in decline loses population, that's certainly not happening in LA which recently surpassed 4 million in population and growing. Foreign investors are bullish on LA and investing in projects, large and small throughout the city. If anything, the pace of change in LA is almost dizzying and many would like to see it slow down. Downtown is but one of the benefactors of this growth. Just a few miles from DTLA is the Hollywood area where construction cranes dot the landscape.
As a result of all the new construction, especially high rise building, opponents alarmed at the pace of new construction put an initiative on the ballot for voters to decide the cities future. Should we slow things down with a moratorium on new developments or continue on the path we're on. By a large margin city voters decided to continue on our present course. A year earlier voters also voted in favor of increasing sales tax to fund future transit projects.
So when you speak of LA so dismally, I don't know if you're just ill informed or you haven't been here in years. I imagine the latter is true.
I don’t think downtown SF has stopped developing at all, but the reason the gap is narrowing is because of the rate of development. SOMA has done plenty of development—it’s only that downtown LA is developing tall towers on former parking lots so it’s not like it’s going from somewhat less dense building to denser building, but going from parking space to towers with hundreds of unit each and retail underneath where before there was just parking space. It’s also doing so at a rapid rate and apparently so rapidly that it went from you seeing LA Live surrounded by parking lots last Thursday to several several hundred feet high-rises that are opening this year.
Of course, there’s a limit to how many large parking lots downtown LA will have available to build on or historic mid-rise/high-rise structures that sat mostly empty to covert so this isn’t a rate that’s going to be sustained indefintely, but the recent past and near future has been bringing change to downtown LA on a very large scale.
Because of the new construction DTLA parking lots are disappearing rapidly and when you do find parking it's much more expensive than in the past. As a result I see more and more people opting for public transit to get downtown. Especially if your going to a Lakers, Clippers or Kings game or even a concert at LA Live. It's just more convenient to use one of the 5 rail lines that converge on downtown. I never drive there anymore. In the past it could take an hour to drive the 12 miles into downtown. The Red line subway gets me there in 35 minutes.
During the Women's March last year, LA MTA counted over 500,000 passengers using the rail lines to access downtown to partake in the protest. Even with long trains being used for all 5 lines, thousands where stranded at stations unable to get on trains which were already full to capacity.
We get it. Eyeroll emoji ''0_0''
Downtown San Fran is more vibrant, urban, walkable, amenities than Downtown LA. It is universally understood by people in LA and all over. Stop beating a San Fran person who is eating the horse meat burger from a dead horse you were beating many pages on this thread.
Westside office rents are higher than Downtown LA, especially in Santa Monica and Century City/Westwood area.
The westside (Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, is more desirable, with more upscale dining, hotels, bars, housing, shopping, cleaner and greener, etc. But places like Hollywood and Downtown are starting to rival for that some of that prestige. Mainly due to the hipsters who like the gritty urban living and cheaper COL. But growth is happening everywhere in the LA Metro area from Long Beach to Pasadena, Woodland Hills to Santa Monica/Playa Vista and so many other places. They are turning "suburban/semi-urban" areas into thriving more urban walkable, bike-able, transit node areas. This is what makes Greater LA so much better than the Bay area. That you can live in different parts of the Metro and not be so far from so many nice things like museums, urban walkable area, nice range of places to eat, drink, shopping. hiking, beaches, theme parks, etc. Many of these areas will be connected by Metro rail in coming decades. LA is looking to be urban like Seoul, Tokyo, London where it comes to many places where places of interests are spread out in larger distances but still desirable. This is different from San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, Chicago where it tends to focus on a more centralized area (Manhattan, the Loop)
Excellent point !! I also agree with your comparison to London which I visited recently. It's a sprawling mega city that works. I think that's the perfect model for LA.
LA missed out on its coastal location. Imagine downtown right on the beach, just like San Diego to the south. Then you'd have a true Med megacity, one of a kind. Med Europe (Barcelona, Naples, Nice, Valencia, etc) would be proud.
No one said they couldn't--I was saying why it didn't make sense to go arguing about how SF doesn't have this or that since the topic specifically says the Bay Area and that, furthermore, SF residents do have access to those teams.
Besides, all professional sports teams and their facilities should be nationalized with no payment to the owners, the max wages for anyone involved should be that of a public school teacher, and their stadiums reservable for community talent shows. No colleges should have any teams except for the adorable intramural type.
Los Angeles grew from virtually nothing 100 years ago to one of the greatest cities on the planet. The path it took is utterly fascinating! I am a lifelong fan of the City of Angels!
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
