East Coast bias alert
Can the Disney Hall help give Los Angeles a genuine downtown?
While I rather like the architecture of the new Disney Hall, the New York Times is confused. L.A. doesn’t need a “genuine” downtown”, (an East Coast concept) or, to put it another way, we already have several of them; Santa Monica, Century City, Koreatown, East L.A., Pasadena, Long Beach, etc.
The San Fernando Valley, where I live, is a geographical entity unto itself with 2 million people. Many here hardly ever go downtown because there’s no need to. Plus, the County of Los Angeles is physically larger than the State of Connecticut and public transportation is lacking, which can make travelling to other parts of L.A. a major hassle (this is compounded by our traffic which is officially the worst in the nation!).
New York City is vertical, Los Angeles is horizontal. The geography and layout of L.A. guarantees there will be many centers, not just one big one.