For a generation, Nick Patsaouras was widely seen as a visionary, a man who dreamed of an LA whose downtown would emerge as the center of our vast, sprawling region.
asserted
downtown → see → region
The Greek engineer, who emigrated here in 1961, exercised great influence with mayors like Tom Bradley, Richard Riordan and Antonio Villaraigosa, all of whom shared something of this vision.
asserted
all → emigrate → vision
Now over lunch at a half-empty Jonathan Club last week, it’s clear Nick’s hopes for downtown are fading away.
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hopes → ’ → downtown
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asserted
Report → start → news
“It’s different today, you see it on the streets,” he suggested over, naturally, a Greek salad.
uncertain
he → ’ → salad
“City Hall was buzzing.
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Hall → buzz → ?
It was hard to get a lunch reservation.
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It → get → reservation
Now it’s no problem.”
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it → ’ → ?
The decline of downtown comes despite years of hype from places like the New York Times, which in 2019 compared downtown’s growth to the awakening of “a sleeping giant.”
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which → come → giant
Since then, the core has devolved instead into a dystopia of half-vacant buildings, including luxury high-rises; trash-filled, crime-ridden streets filled with ragged people; and criminal gangs who even strip the copper from street lights.
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who → devolve → lights
These boosters foresaw a city center to rival Manhattan, and instead created one that looks remarkably like Mumbai on a bad day.
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that → foresee → day
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Even once-ballyhooed residential population growth is slowing: Local property values have cratered and deserted apartments offer what have been described as “ghost condos.”
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what → download → condos
Some new ambitious residential projects are in the offing, but it’s hard to see the area’s appeal to anyone outside of youthful, childless and eccentric hipsters.
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it → ’ → hipsters
Even though some journalists still describe the area as “booming,” that is an exercise of wishful thinking.
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that → describe → thinking
After billions spent on transit, a convention center and new entertainment venues, a recent survey suggested that downtown LA remains among the “deadest” of America’s central cores.
uncertain
LA → spend → cores
Roughly 1,000 businesses left the core city in 2024, according to the historically pro-downtown LA Times, which itself left downtown for El Segundo.
uncertain
which → leave → Segundo
Downtowns long stronger than LA — Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Boston and Chicago — all suffer vacancy rates of 20% or higher, and massive reductions in their assessed value.
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Downtowns → suffer → value
AI-powered services seem destined to undercut many of the jobs that have historically gone to downtown areas: generally white-collar clerical, professional, administrative, financial and academic jobs.
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that → power → areas
Instead, the economic opportunities continue, across the country, to move to suburbs and exurbs, most notably to sprawling cities from Arizona to the Carolinas.
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opportunities → continue → Carolinas
Downtown LA also has unique and fundamental problems, starting with transportation.
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LA → have → transportation
On paper, LA should prove an ideal location for transit.
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LA → prove → transit
The LA region is the nation’s densest, and once was home to the Red Cars, which was the world’s most expansive urban trolley system, celebrated in such movies as “Who Killed Roger Rabbit?”
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Who → celebrate → Rabbit
Not surprisingly, restoring LA’s role as a transit mecca has been a priority for city officials, and urban visionaries like Nick Patsouras.
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restoring → restore → Patsouras
Some outside pundits, like Matt Yglesias, even suggested that LA would become “the next great transit city” — epitomized by Villaraigosa’s talk of “a subway to the sea.”
uncertain
LA → suggest → sea
It didn’t work out that way.
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It → work → ?
Indeed, according to the DC-based Eno Foundation for Transportation, LA has spent at least $20 billion on 125 miles of urban rail projects (subways and light rail), while changing commuting patterns very little.
uncertain
LA → accord → patterns
The LA system has failed to increase the share of riders that rode the bus-only system three decades ago.
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that → fail → system
The stoic Patsaouras takes this decline in good-natured stride.
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Patsaouras → take → stride
He sees downtown’s decline not as preordained but largely a product of local politics.
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He → see → politics
And with a choice between a proven incompetent Mayor Karen Bass and her socialist challenger, Nithya Raman, he sees little immediate hope for inspiration from City Hall.
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he → prove → Hall
“There’s no strong leaders anymore,” he says — and their fiscal follies mean that there’s “no money” to fix downtown’s aging infrastructure.
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follies → ’ → infrastructure
Once upon a time, LA had many aggressive, ambitious figures like Patsaouras who could push downtown’s cause.
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who → have → cause
And a turnaround may still be engineered by intelligent leaders, as we are seeing in San Francisco.
uncertain
we → engineer → Francisco
But don’t count on it until LA has relieved itself of its current rulers.
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LA → count → rulers
The Aporia
