“So far, Los Angeles has had a bad 2020s. First, the pandemic. Then the widespread anxiety spurred by a wave of high-profile robberies and the deadly home-invasion of Jacqueline Avant. Homelessness, of course, has been an epic catastrophe, spurred in large part by the housing crisis. Trust in civic leadership to tackle these social problems”, — write: www.hollywoodreporter.com
It’s a time of doom. But this town has been here before, repeatedly, and it’s important to remember that afterward it doesn’t just bloom. It booms.
The previous nadir was three decades ago. Early 1990s L.A. was perhaps even more calamitous. The end of the Cold War and a recession led to the consolidation and relocation of much of the local aerospace industry. The Rodney King verdict triggered violence that killed 63 people and injured 2,383 more. The next year, a major fire ripped through Malibu, destroying hundreds of homes and later, when the El Nino storms arrived, resulted in mudslides that shut off major coastal routes for months. (Another inferno, then one of the most destructive in the state’s history, also tore apart Altadena that same fall.) It was not long afterward that the Northridge earthquake resulted in 57 deaths, hurt an additional 9,000 people and damaged buildings across the region. This was also the beginning of the production exodus, undermining and scattering Hollywood’s working class, as Canada and then other territories began to aggressively chip away at the local economy with their tax breaks.
Yet afterward came a remarkably robust period for the city: The return of professional football, the revival of downtown L.A., the establishment of Silicon Beach. At various points it’s been the much-touted envy of the country, even the world, for the dynamism of its art and culinary scenes.
There’s a history to this. In the 1930s the Great Depression hit the region hard. There was also a prolonged drought, a nasty port strike and constant tensions between locals and Dust Bowl immigrants over impacts on social services. Then, for a stretch beginning in the mid-1960s, as the studio system collapsed, the city experienced the Watts Riots, the Manson Family murders, economic stagnation, and the deadly Sylmar earthquake. These respective dark times were soon followed by go-go L.A. eras in the 1950s and 1980s.
The desert city, oasis or hellhole or both, can’t help but bounce back. “Los Angeles has always been a boom town,” wrote one of California’s preeminent historians, Carey McWilliams, as local postwar prosperity took off in 1946 — even if it’s “chronically unable to consolidate its gains.”
It’s unclear what the immediate future holds for L.A. Perhaps, even likely, more woe — whether in areas we can identify (the housing market, worsened by the wildfires’ aftermath) or those we can’t. Still, the tide will turn, as it inevitably does.
Some things are already in motion. To start: The 2026 FIFA World Cup, and then the 2028 Summer Olympics. Major public transit systems are coming online. The L.A. River and its surroundings are in the process of being vibrantly renewed. All sorts of cultural improvements, expansions, and openings — most notably George Lucas’ massive, billion-dollar, spaceship-like Museum of Narrative Art at Exposition Park — are on their way. Oh, and the state seems to finally be getting serious about a tax credit program to be competitive in luring entertainment production back to town.
So, yes, the city’s current plot needs a rewrite. Maybe some new characters and fresh ideas. But this is the story of L.A. There’s no ending, only another season.