LA’s Tale of Two Cities

My latest post is online at New Geography and is called “LA’s Tale of Two Cities.” I was prompted to write it when I saw two articles within a month of each other, one declaring LA a paradise for creatives priced out of New York, the other about how creatives can’t afford to live in LA anymore. Here’s an excerpt:

It’s the best of times and the worst of times in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles is now attracting notice as a so-called “global city,” one of the world’s elite metropolises. It is ranked #6 in the world by AT Kearney and tied for 10th in a report by the Singapore Civil Service College that I contributed to.  Yet it also has among the highest big city poverty rates in the nation, and was found to be one of the worst places in America for upward mobility among the poor. Newspaper columns are starting to refer to LA as a “third world city.”
…
Yet LA’s glitz factor remains potent. The fashion industry has gained considerable recognition.  Tom Ford set up shop and brought his runway show to the city. Locally grown brands like Rodarte have a major following.   LA also is increasingly a global center of gravity in the art world.

Yet behind the glitz, in the city of Los Angeles, aging water mains regularly erupt and the streets and sidewalks decay, with the city’s own report estimating it has an $8.1 billion infrastructure repair backlog.

One report chronicles the flight of cash-strapped New York creatives fleeing to sunny, liberating, and less expensive LA.  Another how high prices and the Southern California grind are sending those same creatives packing.

Click through to read the whole thing.

from The Urbanophile
http://www.urbanophile.com/2015/07/20/las-tale-of-two-cities/