I know about LA's geography but not it's history. So I am just wondering, why is downtown LA where it is? Why not on the water? Why not in a more central area?

hmmm.. good question, i have no idea, its probably where the spanish settlers settled, haha

The Spanish built pueblos that generally followed the coast north from San Diego to past San Francisco along El Camino Real. Some had presidos (fort), some missions, some both. LA did not have a mission.

The reason downtown LA is located where it is is that the downtown area was the original city of Los Angeles and that growth to newer areas in the Westside didn't happen until the 20th century (as well as the growth in the San Fernando Valley).

Check outen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_angeles (http://) on wikipedia :)
Wikipedia.org Cool Site

Check out www.wikipedia..org on wikipedia :)

www.Wikipedia.org Cool Site
Type in Los Angeles Or Any Other City, intrest, You Like.....

I know about LA's geography but not it's history. So I am just wondering, why is downtown LA where it is? Why not on the water? Why not in a more central area?

It seems pretty central to me. It's like dead centre of the City.

i'm guessing the history of los angeles' downtown is generally the same as other cities. so i think trends from the last 100 years will help explain it a little.

most central areas of the city have moved inland due to people moving farhter outward. back in the very late 19th century and the first few decades of the 20th century, high-ranking executives bought mansions out in the countryside. these mansions became their country estates and their summer "cottages". they still lived in the city. after a while, the country estate became the primary house, or the only house at all. these people were now living farther away from the downtown area (which was almost always along a body of water back then because manufacturing and shipping were big in all cities). as railroads became the more prominent method of shipping goods, the downtown center was noy constrained to being near water. business owners and the like saw that they didn't have to keep their company by the water anymore if they didn't want to. so most moved their headquarters inland, somewhere along their route from their house to the old workplace.

in many cities you'll find that the central business district is located somewhere along the rute between the historically industrial area along the water, and the wealthy neighborhoods and earliest of the suburbs and exurbs. there are also other factors responsible for where a downtown is located. in my city of wilmington, for instance, the cbd was centered around rodney square after it was made during the city beautiful movement in the early 1900's. the square has always been a nice place, so the cbd stayed relatively stable once rodney square came to be. but by and large, the emergence of railroads as the principle moe of transporting goods, combined with the big-time business owners living outside of the city, moved downtowns away from water.

LA's downtown has always been where is is because of the los angeles river. The mexican settlers stopped there and set up their village.

It was just the most built up area, so all future builders also built there too. And it exapanded west and south.

And look at the beautiful LA River now. Are there any plans to naturalize it a bit? Make it more freeflowing, and less concrete?

Definitley! the plan is to add greenspace along the whole width of the river, which is already started, add more trails and bike paths, and eventually take out most of the concrete if possible and around downtown, the plan is to eventually have high rise housing, parks and urbanity by the river, which at the pace DTLA is growing, will happen sooner rather than later. The main area by the river that is a major eyesore is the rail yadrs, and there are talks of selling the air rights to developers to build out the area. Hopefully in a few years we will see something happen down there.

The reason why it's concentre aquaduct/river is because of the flood control. I don't know if it's a good idea to naturalize it because it could flood when the river overflows the banks, maybe I'm wrong. I hope they will figure out how to avoid that problem.

well, they have a plan for that, obviously. the concrete river right now is first and foremost a defense againts the apocoliptic flooding that use to hit LA. The greenspaces around the river would act as grainage and overflow and i beleive there are other factors that i cant recall right now. i will look for some of the articles and plans i have read, and ill will post them.

Sorry, not from LA but I remember from maps.. It's not against the water right? It's in the middle of the city. Isn't that unusual? Is there any other city like that?

^but it is against the water, its against the LA river. I dont think the settlers had much interest in trade via the ocean or anything. They actually stopped in San Gabriel and then west westward for several hours, and settled by the river.

Not only that, but its a shorter route to travel between where downtown is and where the earlier missionaries set up the mission in San Fernando, just to the north. There are mountains that block San Fernando from the coastal cities, but flatter between downtown and san fernando.