here's a decent article on the dtla revitalization, the article is from 3 years ago, things have ramped up even more. urban sprawl left the downtown area for dead decades and decades ago, the rebirth of dtla actually began way back in 1999 with the adaptive reuse initiative- gutting old buildings instead of tearing them down. my building is the oldest commercial medium rise structure in los angeles, it's over 10o years old. my neighborhood, and the one the cecil is in, is called the historic core of los angeles.
if you think any of this comes at a discount, you have not been to los angeles.
Quote:
THE sprawl, the scale, all that freeway time ? for many, Los Angeles is an acquired taste. But not downtown. New York-like in its density and mishmash, the long-blighted center has become an accessible, pedestrian-friendly destination in recent years; Angelenos walk around en masse, using their actual legs. The immense L.A. Live entertainment complex is largely responsible for this comeback, but the studiously vintage bars and imaginative restaurants that seem to open every other day are also part of the revival. Skid Row and the drifts of homeless camps haven?t vanished altogether, and the grittiness still varies by block. But this part of town is alive again, in ways that make sense even to an outsider.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/20/tr...eles.html?_r=0