Gentrification of the Downtown Los Angeles – the chance to revitalize the historic city center and the threat to the existence of local community

Abstract

The main purpose of this article is an introduction to the gentrification process taking place in Downtown Los Angeles. In the last two decades, the city center has become a competing field of interests of several social groups and a public debate topic. Los Angeles from its very beginnings was inhabited by a multi-ethnic and multicultural population, and at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries a large group of homeless people joined them in the neighborhood of the railway station. The intensification of activities of private development companies with the simultaneous lack of consistent planning by the city administration deepens the deficit of affordable housing for the poorest inhabitants. Asian ethnic districts (Little Tokyo and Chinatown) successfully resist this process, which took a particularly destructive character around Skid Row and the quarters occupied by Latino Angelenos and African Americans. The municipality cooperates with investors mainly in the area of the historic buildings in the Downtown LA, on which renovation does not have sufficient funds. However, it is less involved in securing affordable housing in the quarters of cheap accommodation and factory buildings slated for demolition. As a result, an outflow of the original population can be observed and its replacement by wealthy investors and tenants. The local character of entire quarters is also lost. This work is a descriptive study, based on data from state and federation sources, monographs, scientific articles, and local press coverage.