Tinsel Town Sparkles.

Los Angeles is often associated with Hollywood and beach culture. It’s not often heralded for its creative culture, innovation, and tech scene. Yet of late, for business and personal reasons, many are choosing to call LA home for this very reason—for access to creativity, innovation, and culture.

• Los Angeles has become a focus for Chinese business investors, tech entrepreneurs, and real estate moguls, serving as the gateway to the U.S. For example, Alibaba, China’s Amazon, is setting up its U.S. foothold in Pasadena.
• The attention to LA and its tech center hasn’t gone unnoticed in the U.S. either. To continue the northern/southern California rivalry, Los Angeles is giving Silicon Valley some competition as it attracts more tech start-ups in the last few years than in the past.
• Many who favored New York for its creative vibe are now finding inspiration in Los Angeles, as New York’s exorbitant prices squeeze creatives out of the city. New Yorkers used to thumb their noses at LA, but many are now finding that the good weather and creative energy has shifted perceptions. Last year we reported on how prices in cities can shift where creative talent resides, forcing them to land in more affordable locales that blossom from their talents.
• Even the NFL has three teams vying to call Los Angeles home, seeking a better market with a stronger fan base.

Los Angeles is benefiting from other cities becoming over-ripe and thus overly expensive, squeezing creatives out and losing innovative talent, the lifeblood that makes cities the best of what they are.

The Culture Forecast: Help create vibrant, energetic, livable cities.

Sources:

Belson, Ken. “N.F.L. to Weigh Three Teams’ Proposals on Moving to Los Angeles,” The New York Times, August 9, 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/10/sports/football/nfl-to-weigh-three-teams-proposals-on-moving-to-los-angeles.html

Fannin, Rebecca. “Alibaba’s New Pasadena Hub Signals LA As Growing Gateway To China,” Forbes, June 27, 2015.

Friedersdorf, Conor. “Which New Yorkers Should Move to L.A.?,” The Atlantic, May 4, 2015. http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/05/who-should-move-from-new-york-to-los-angeles/392252/

“Move Over, Silicon Valley! Tech Startups Flock To LA,” CBS / Los Angeles, June 4, 2015.

Williams, Alex. “Los Angeles and Its Booming Creative Class Lures New Yorkers,” The New York Times, May 1, 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/style/los-angeles-and-its-booming-creative-class-lures-new-yorkers.html?_r=0