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Los Angeles' status as a major global player is quite manifest nowadays with the steadily ongoing population growth; rapidly growing rail transit system; burgeoning arts scene; mega-developments like LA Live, Grand Avenue project, Hollywood & Vine, NBC Universal West Coast Headquarters project, etc.; green initiatives; more urban-oriented zoning laws; and waves of foreign investment. It has "matured" into a bona fide urban center, no longer known as just simply "Hollywood".
Yet Los Angeles has become increasingly global over the past several decades, arguably at its highest point today. It was not an overnight success story like Dubai. In your opinion, at what juncture did Los Angeles secure its future of promise? Was it in the 1910's when the Los Angeles Aqueduct was completed, which subsequently led to heavy growth and annexation? Did it occur in the 1920's when the motion pictures and aviation industries flocked to Los Angeles, the Pacific Electric Railway was the world's largest, the Port of Los Angeles became the West Coast's busiest shipping port, and a fourth of the world's oil-petroleum stock was being produced there? Who can forget the 1930's when Los Angeles hosted the Summer Olympic Games for the first time and surpassed the one million population mark? Or the World War II era when the aerospace industry created thousands of jobs, thus providing economic growth to the region? What about the post-war era when Los Angeles built its labyrinth of a freeway system, became one of the birthplaces of the internet, and established several cultural institutions (LACMA, Norton Simon, MOCA, Getty Villa, etc.)? Maybe it was in the 1980's when Los Angeles hosted the Summer Olympic Games for the second time, which went down in history as the most profitable? Could it be as recent as the late 1990's and early 2000's when Los Angeles' cultural scene really took off with the opening of the Getty Center and Walt Disney Concert Hall?
The venerable (sarcasm) GaWC study suggests that Los Angeles had already reached alpha world city status when it conducted its survey in 1999. But that is open to debate, which is why I created this thread.
What are your thoughts?
Yet Los Angeles has become increasingly global over the past several decades, arguably at its highest point today. It was not an overnight success story like Dubai. In your opinion, at what juncture did Los Angeles secure its future of promise? Was it in the 1910's when the Los Angeles Aqueduct was completed, which subsequently led to heavy growth and annexation? Did it occur in the 1920's when the motion pictures and aviation industries flocked to Los Angeles, the Pacific Electric Railway was the world's largest, the Port of Los Angeles became the West Coast's busiest shipping port, and a fourth of the world's oil-petroleum stock was being produced there? Who can forget the 1930's when Los Angeles hosted the Summer Olympic Games for the first time and surpassed the one million population mark? Or the World War II era when the aerospace industry created thousands of jobs, thus providing economic growth to the region? What about the post-war era when Los Angeles built its labyrinth of a freeway system, became one of the birthplaces of the internet, and established several cultural institutions (LACMA, Norton Simon, MOCA, Getty Villa, etc.)? Maybe it was in the 1980's when Los Angeles hosted the Summer Olympic Games for the second time, which went down in history as the most profitable? Could it be as recent as the late 1990's and early 2000's when Los Angeles' cultural scene really took off with the opening of the Getty Center and Walt Disney Concert Hall?
The venerable (sarcasm) GaWC study suggests that Los Angeles had already reached alpha world city status when it conducted its survey in 1999. But that is open to debate, which is why I created this thread.
What are your thoughts?
