Los Angeles is a Real City

Downtown Los Angeles and Hollywood, from Runyon Canyon.

According to a mismatch of sources cited on Wikipedia, the city of Los Angeles is one of the wealthiest and most influential cities in the world. Despite this fact, its more cosmopolitan Mid-Atlantic counterpart (AKA New York City) laughs at its name, some people call it LALA land, and some people don’t even consider it a city. If you've absolutely nothing better to do, which I suppose is the case if you are reading this blog, search the phrase "Los Angeles is not a real city" on Google. You get actual and relevant results, and if you can find it on Google, then it must be authentic.

But in its defense, there are completely rational facts which prove that Los Angeles is undeniably a real city:

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People live there.

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Wikipedia calls it a city.

These first two reasons should be convincing enough, but if you are still skeptical, then read on.

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It has all the conveniences of a city, including a post office, a department of motor vehicles, and a real international airport, although these conveniences are never conveniently located.

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It has a city council and a mayor who meet inside a building called "city hall" and are sometimes involved in the work of governance.

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It has a bus, light rail, subway, and train system – a network of vehicles that closely resembles a version of metropolitan mass transit.

The evidence for LA's cityhood is overwhelming. Yet even as the most populous city in the great state of California and the second most in the nation, besides having nearly perfect weather, Los Angeles is remarkably unremarkable. Los Angeles is not dreadfully significant, historically. It's not quite new, not quite safe, not quite clean. It’s not a financial and international powerhouse or a political capital. Much of its most dreary architecture still wreaks of the 1960s. None of the city’s lush flora are indigenous to the area. Traffic is horrendous. Air pollution is among the worst in the country. It has no football team. And, its urban sprawl reflects what some might consider a product of the worst urban planning of a major first-world metropolis in modern history.

How is it possible then, that Los Angeles, with all it lacks, still nestles itself among the most renowned and sought after cities in the world, if not for youth, culture, history? Well, there are plenty more reasons which make Los Angeles not only a real city, but also a great one, and here are ten:

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It is home to UCLA – my alma mater and, without a doubt, the best university in the nation and the world.

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It is home to six of Yelp’s 10 most popular restaurants of 2010.

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It is where Giada De Laurentiis, from the Food Network, calls home.

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It is driving distance from Disneyland – the happiest place on earth.

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It is the featured city in two of my favorite movies from 2009 and 2010, (500) Days of Summer and Inception.

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It is home to six of Yelp’s 10 most popular restaurants of 2010.

-7-
It is home to six of Yelp’s 10 most popular restaurants of 2010.

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It is home to six of Yelp’s 10 most popular restaurants of 2010.

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It is home to six of Yelp’s 10 most popular restaurants of 2010.

-10-
It is home to six of Yelp’s 10 most popular restaurants of 2010.

Convinced? Maybe not. Luckily for Los Angeles, there exist enough people in this world who don’t care – who are so intoxicated with these things called "dreams" that they move here anyway. Dreams to become the next big name in Hollywood, dreams to raise a family in a quiet house near the beach, dreams to come to America and live in a city whose wandering clouds rarely shed a tear of rain – dreams of all shapes and sizes attract people from all over the world to come set their feet in this land of no humidity and perpetual sunshine. Youth grows old, history fades, and culture changes with the seasons, but dreams, you see – dreams outlast them all, resisting poverty and failure, distance and disappointment, reason and common sense. So who cares if Los Angeles isn’t the best in anything and can’t boast the accomplishments of a “real,” conventional city? People like me are foolish enough to find it, with all its potential, an adequately lovable and fine place to be.

Or maybe we just like the weather.

The Grand, New Wilshire Grand

Wilshire Grand Redevelopment renderings (not my own).

Something about me: I like downtown Los Angeles. For most people, downtown LA is just one of those places you pass by on the way to work; to others, it's just one of those places that you vaguely know exists somewhere within 50 miles of where you live. But many people would be surprised to know that beyond existing, there is actually life in that area to the near east of the 101 freeway. For those who are unfamiliar, here’s the quick and easy about downtown:

Other than having a few freshly renovated and theoretically exciting residential and commercial zones, downtown LA is largely wrought with abandoned warehouses, condemned apartment buildings, and empty theatres. Fortunately, gentrification – one of those things which, apparently, white people like – has sparked what is now considered the second era of active redevelopment since the city's short-lived attempt in the 1980s.

So here’s the big news: A couple weeks ago, plans were approved for redevelopment of the Wilshire Grand Hotel on Figueroa and Wilshire Boulevard. The project – whose profile resonates with those of New York’s Bank of America building and yet-to-be Freedom Towers (following the newest, coolest trend of shiny glass skyscrapers in modern architecture) – is one of many current, billion-dollar, years-in-the-making proposals to revamp a ghostly downtown. The new hotel and office building will splatter the skyline with repulsively bright digital lights smeared across its facades, depicting either over-sized advertisements or dynamic images of nature.

Suggestions for the LED light display (again, not mine).

City councilmen call these lights, for no understandable reason, "art" and "culture." The optimistic might call them "lively" and "unique." The rational mind would call them, at best, gaudy eyesores that pose no semblance to art whatsoever. No matter your disposition, in the end, everything in Los Angeles ends up running over-budget and over-due, so I can promise you that by the time these buildings become realities, no one will really care what the lights look like as long as construction is complete.

Of all about which I could have written, why did I choose to feature a currently non-existent, shiny hotel for this inaugural post? Because I wanted to make a potentially relevant, absolutely cliché metaphor about the Wilshire Grand becoming something new, symbolizing what Los Angeles is all about – hope. Hope is that nebulous stuff which thrust our current president into the White House. Hope is that foolishness which emboldens the mediocre to attempt something extraordinary, even if they are destined to fail. But, hope is also that force which causes us to believe in the possibility and the beauty of renewal. To spare you the trouble of reading endless, inspirational rhetoric, and because it is my bedtime, I’ll just end with this: Hope for a better city is what keeps Los Angeles alive and changing every day.

Just kidding. Los Angeles is a mess. But I love it, anyhow.

Here’s the other big news: I’m finally starting this blog.