Correction appended
To many, downtown is about the freeways and side streets, so
congested that commuters have little left to do but collapse into a
meditative state, contemplating the color of smog that day.
To some it’s the smell of sugar condensing to form the
opaque skulls known as calaveras, a predominant feature in downtown
Los Angeles’
Olvera Street every October.
Still others find downtown synonymous with the din of fans and
glossy palm trees bathed in the red light of the sign for the
Staples Center, home to the Los Angeles Lakers.
While downtown may offer a myriad of sights and sounds, many in
Southern California ““ particularly students at UCLA ““
say they often think of the area more in terms of points of
interest on a map than a cohesive whole.
In fact, for the duration of their collegiate careers many
students at UCLA rarely venture outside of their regular Westwood
haunts, limiting their travels to specific experiences such as
spending Chinese New Year’s on the streets and alleyways of
Chinatown.
Yet with broad strokes, major development projects are
integrally changing downtown Los Angeles and, what’s more,
the transformation isn’t happening in a vacuum.
Developers say they hope to affect the way students on the West
Side view the heart of the city, which gives UCLA faculty more than
one reason to be concerned.
Only a few miles from the city center, there are dozens of
professors at UCLA who actively work with the downtown community.
They head nonprofit housing coalitions and consult community
leaders on economic development, among other things.
As more and more cranes litter the downtown skyscape and grand
revitalization projects begin site work, professors conducting
research in the area, as well as their community activist
counterparts, are learning firsthand the far-reaching
ramifications. And they’re worried.
Broadly defined as an area of roughly 20 square miles bound by
the Los Angeles River on the east and south, the I-10 Santa Monica
Freeway on the west and extending just north of the I-110 Harbor
Freeway, downtown Los Angeles harbors and employs a multitude of
communities.
From corporate lawyers to the immigrant community, from
avant-garde artists to peddlers of knock-off Gucci bags, these
different communities are finding that their interests are coming
into conflict with more frequency as the city grows.
With the majority of development projects planning to
fundamentally change the face of downtown, the various populations
of the city are wondering what their role will be in the new Los
Angeles.
Building a “mature” metropolis
Two of the largest multi-use development projects are being
marketed as refreshingly new with planners saying they hope the
projects will add a heart and soul to the urban core.
Led in part by the renowned architect and designer Eli Broad,
the Grand Avenue Project hopes to channel the atmosphere of the
Parisian promenade the Champs-Elysee, with open walkways lining the
streets surrounding the Walt Disney Concert Hall, a boutique-hotel,
and a bucolic 16-acre civic park.
“With the success of Disney Hall, you have the
city’s cultural core, and our project will fill the gap in
the smile of teeth, if you will,” said Bill Witte, president
of Related Cos. of California, the group developing the Grand
Avenue Project.
At the opposite end of the city, adjacent to the Staples Center,
the L.A. Live Project is in part inspired by Times Square in New
York. Developers plan on building a large entertainment complex
featuring sport bars, multiple cinematic venues and a plethora of
restaurants such as P.F. Chang’s and Gladstone’s.
“It’s been referred to as the Times Square of the
West. … It’ll be something that exciting, useful,
respectful and hip,” said Michael Roth, a spokesman for
Anschutz Entertainment Group, the development firm working on the
L.A. Live Project.
Whether patrons are interested in listening to a Mozart Concerto
outdoors or watching a Lakers away game from a sports bar,
developers say their projects should attract a wide audience,
including students.
In addition, a spate of housing developments ““ whether in
the form of rehabilitated residential hotels, revamped lofts or
affordable housing units ““ are creating a new residential
dimension to downtown.
“You’re beginning to have a downtown emerge that
includes housing as well as commercial activities. That is a
totally new phenomenon for Los Angeles, but consistent with a
mature urban environment,” said former UCLA Professor Eugene
Grigsby.
However, the shift to a more “mature” downtown has
some UCLA professors worried about a certain type of gentrification
that is particular to downtown Los Angeles.
“The fact is, as downtown gets developed, one of the
questions is who is it getting developed for,” said UCLA
Professor Jackie Leavitt.
Gentrification, in the general sense, applies to wholesale
displacement as low-income residential communities are forced out
of an area when housing is improved and they can no longer compete
with the higher market prices of housing, Grigsby said.
In the past, the concern among many lower-income groups ““
particularly those of South Los Angeles and immigrant communities
““ has been that development projects have facilitated
relocation, gentrification and displacement.
Like many urban cores across the country, downtown Los Angeles
is already an area plagued with complex socioeconomic and
demographic issues concerning poverty, homelessness and
disenfranchisement.
An analysis made at face value projects that high-end
development projects will exacerbate already critical problems the
city faces.
But layers of complexity are periodically added to the
situation. With developers making efforts to integrate and build
for all of Los Angeles, community organizers are also learning how
to get their concerns heard and UCLA students and faculty are
playing an integral role in helping the disenfranchised.
Unifying L.A.’s diverse downtown
Thirty years ago, one could almost have imagined a tumbleweed
blowing across a vacant lot in downtown Los Angeles.
Desolate and neglected, the urban center was struggling to
define itself as immigrants from across the globe poured in.
Decades later, the city center has grown and is now understood by
many urban planners in paradoxical terms: dense sprawl.
The use of the counter-intuitive term is the product of a
population of over 420,000 people living in the city’s urban
core, but still very separated by geographical, architectural and
socio-economic boundaries.
“You have two very different downtowns. The old,
neglected, immigrant downtown, east of Broadway Street and the
flashy, corporate, affluent downtown, west of Broadway and Hill
streets,” said Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, chairwoman of the
UCLA Urban Planning Department.
Just driving through downtown, disparities between the two
populations are visible as sunlight gleams off the corporate towers
on Bunker Hill, while tent cities made from blue plastic wrap line
the streets of Skid Row.
But what is not initially observed is that these different
communities are also differentiated via elements of urban design
““ everything from transportation to architecture.
“There are these segregated different living environments
that are not well-integrated or connected. … Plazas are designed
inward and only for the people working there. They don’t
connect with the outside environment of the streets,”
Loukaitou-Sideris said, who also co-wrote a book about downtown Los
Angeles.
The idea of linkages and connections is a critical element
missing in the design of downtown Los Angeles, urban planners
say.
Design-wise, the ideal urban environment would include
promenades, open spaces, straight-forward thoroughfares and an
atmosphere in which a hot dog vendor could co-exist with a
five-star steak house.
In recent years, developers have increasingly been drawn to the
downtown area and have begun to fill the holes in the city’s
design. How exactly they do that will be critical to gaining
acceptance from the city’s resident population.
“I think there have been a number of things that are
drawing attention to downtown. They’ve developed some civic
spaces like the L.A. Cathedral and the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
… Those are civic institutions that breathe life into the
city’s civic core,” said Kevin Keller, a Los Angeles
city planner working in the sports and entertainment district.
But while building concert halls and art galleries is necessary,
the extent to which future development projects integrate the
demographics of downtown are what UCLA’s urban planners and
the city residents are most concerned about.
Victor Narro, staff director at the UCLA Downtown Labor Center,
said some of his concerns regard garment factories that are being
turned into residential lofts and displacing employees.
One of the main ways to make sure that integration occurs is the
institution of a master specific plan.
A specific plan is legally binding document city planners will
draw up in an effort to regulate the way a community can be
developed. Most specific plans outline regulations regarding
everything from land use to parking spaces per visitor to
internally illuminated awnings.
The plans for the L.A. Live Project entertainment complex, for
example, take specific steps to create open spaces, public walkways
that flow into the street and an inviting atmosphere.
Keller, who works with the L.A. Live Project, emphasized the
city’s desire to create a space that was full of activity and
energy.
The Grand Avenue Project is also no exception to planning that
is inclusive and integrated. In fact, the 16-acre civic park is
already being planned to hold a farmer’s market, outdoor
concerts and a number of cultural festivals.
The result is that the most recent development projects have an
opportunity to fill the holes and connect the various spaces and
districts of downtown.
“I personally have been quite critical that there is this
big divide and no effort to integrate the spaces of downtown. …
I’m really interested in how this will evolve. It’s
much more street-oriented, but the judgement is still out,”
Loukaitou-Sideris said.
Nightlife
As small pools of light shine from lampposts and muted music
filters through from a handful of clubs, the typical conception of
downtown nightlife is one of desolation ““ and maybe an unsafe
alley here and there.
It is this uphill battle that developers will have to face if
they are going to entice Westside residents to visit the downtown
area.
The effort to make downtown more of a 24-hour city, or at least
one that could be visited at night, is something that developers
have attempted to address over the last 10 years.
The result of their efforts is only now coming to fruition as
civic and entertainment fixtures such as the Staples Center and new
glitzy bars, such as the one on the roof of The Standard Hotel,
have engendered a slowly thriving nightlife.
Living in the downtown area since 1979, Qathryn Brehm has seen
the many changes the region has gone through and says she is
excited about the new life unfolding within the city.
“The development is a good thing, it’s utilizing an
under-used area. … It’s very exciting when it becomes more
cultural and when there is more to do,” Brehm said.
Brehm works for the Central City East Association, a business
improvement group working with the Toy and Industrial
Districts.
She said she feels safe walking at night and often visits the
many restaurants in nearby Little Tokyo. The Central and Newton
Division of the L.A. Police Department even have the lowest crime
rate in the city, she added.
Developers and city planners say they have plans to alleviate
concerns about crime.
“The projects are being designed in a way that facilitates
security and safety, but not at the expense of open spaces,”
Keller said.
One way of fostering a safer night environment is addressing the
issue of alleys. Long thought to be a source of crime, alleys can
also create uneasiness for pedestrians.
Previous attempts at the revitalization of alleys in other
regions outside of downtown have met with some success,
Loukaitou-Sideris said.
Citing Old Town Pasadena, the urban planning professor said city
officials worked to open up the alleys by having storefronts and
cafes face the streets. The same practice has yet to be applied to
the downtown area, she said.
“You could have a pedestrian downtown, instead of having
the catalytic projects that are a bit like fortresses,”
Loukaitou-Sideris said.
Balancing the ideal with reality
With any major development, criticism is bound to arise. When a
whole city is being essentially revitalized and redefined,
criticism can be fierce.
The concerns are widespread and deal with everything from the
amount of affordable housing to the stability of the job
market.
For years, Leavitt, a professor in UCLA’s Urban Planning
Department, has maintained close relationships with the downtown
community.
One of the major issues she sees with development projects
throughout the urban core concerns the issue of low-income housing
and relocation.
“Housing is a really a serious issue and we live in a
society where we are judged largely by whether we can own a
home,” Leavitt said.
This past summer, Leavitt worked with a U.N. Task Force in Rome,
where she and others lobbied for a moratorium on housing
development after large sectors of the population were being
displaced.
She said fears of similar displacement run deep in communities
she has worked with in Chinatown and Little Tokyo.
“There are people who would like to have a 24-hour city
atmosphere, but with this gentrification you’re getting
increased homelessness and are finding the supply of low-income
housing decreasing,” Leavitt said.
Both the L.A. Live Project and the Grand Avenue Project are
slated to designate 20 percent of the housing units they build as
affordable so that those earning less than 50 percent of the median
income for Los Angeles can afford them.
Such agreements detailing affordable housing allowances are a
relatively new concept, the success of which was exemplified during
the construction of the Staples Center.
Known as a community benefits agreement, the contract allows
development to occur if residents can garner certain allowances,
such as union wages for construction workers
“(The Staples Center CBA) is a very important benefits
agreement. It allows for community groups to get certain benefits.
… It was a multi-benefit agreement that tackled many different
issues,” Leavitt said.
The housing situation can be quite complex, as there are various
degrees of low-income designations and questions can arise whether
enough is being done.
“There needs to be a balance in urban planning. The
question is, how do you bring in investment? Typically the idea is
to do it gradually so that everyone has time to adapt so that there
is economic development,” said UCLA urban planning professor
Vinit Mukhija.
Historic L.A. meets the future
Walking into the downtown landmark, intense bikers wearing long,
broken-in leather jackets and a family of five sit back to
back.
Home of the French Dip Sandwich, Philippe the Original is also a
place where sawdust litters the floor and coffee is still 9 cents a
cup.
Built in 1908, the restaurant located on Alameda Street, just a
little ways down from Olvera Street, is one of few places in
downtown Los Angeles that has escaped the fate of development and
rehabilitation.
With customers lining up day in and day out for close to a
century, the restaurant is also a postcard for the variety of
people who interact in downtown Los Angeles every day.
Soon, Philippe the Original may be serving coffee to
construction workers taking a break from the Grand Avenue Project
only a few blocks away.