Dreaming

The LA Times' Steve Lopez took some heat from the usual suspects for being skeptical of the value of Los Angeles' new (not really new ) Grand Park which is just latest add-on to Los Angeles' uninteresting Civic Center complex.

The complex now has the Walt Disney Concert Hall, but even that addition has not provided the boost that boosters have sought for almost a hundred years.  People do show up for the music, but most run away after the show.  This is still LA. Venues are scattered and the possibilities for pedestrian exploration are limited.

LA Live, LA's Chinatown and Little Tokyo have their modest attractions, but they do not easily link to Grand Park. The government office buildings which dominate civic center are dead at night and not much better during the day.

Many who live here and enjoy LA seem to have trouble coming to terms with the fact that it is not New York or San Francisco or Seattle or Paris or you name it.  It will never be any of these. 

There are even people who dream of the pathetic LA River as taking on the role of a Danube or Seine or Thames. 

Dreamers are fine, but somehow they often want me to pay for their projects.