[Cidan]

> Let's make towns have downtowns, with beautiful brick roads, scenic ponds with some ducks, perhaps a waterfall, some nice cafes, a lawn with benches, some parks, some nature, trees, live music, a library and museums.

You would think! I live in Santa Monica, California, and we have exactly that in our downtown area. The retail shop turnover is insane -- a large amount of shops come and go from the area, despite the massive amount of foot traffic the area sees every weekend (and most weekdays during the summer).

[unabst]

No... SM is a bit wack. The prices are so high, only big businesses can afford to be there. So most stores are big franchises. And it's too touristy for any culture. Main St is better, and towards Venice.

I would also nominate DTLA. Downtown is lit. Parking is wack though.

Consumers are no longer interested in old retail chains. They follow influencers and their original brands, but they're mostly direct to consumer, and everything arrives in two days anyway.

[Balgair]

SM is loud and very touristy. Buskers are allowed amps for their guitars and I can't count the number of languages spoken. It's more of an airport terminal than anything approaching 'local'. God have mercy on you at the pier. I'd go Culver City, as a better 'local' kinda thing, but even then you need to get up to SB to really stand a chance of a quiet coffee on the street.

> Parking is wack though.

Literally all of LA is like this. Pro-tip, in SM, park at the library. Cheaper and easier to get in/out.

[unabst]

Even Beverly Hills has great parking. The major bottleneck downtown is parking right now and has been for a while. SM moved fast to build multiple parking structures... and that's where all the foot traffic comes from. Not sure why DTLA is so nonchalant about this. Don't see any construction whatsoever.

[tomjakubowski]

You don’t see any construction in DTLA? Are we both living in 2017?

It seems like every other day a new 40+ story mixed-use tower, with requisite parking structure, is breaking ground around here.

The thing that baffled me about downtown’s parking situation was how so many otherwise undeveloped parking lots managed to stick around given the opportunity cost of land downtown. That was until I realized a production crew can’t set up base camp in a parking garage.

[unabst]

Sorry, of parking structures is what I meant. I work in DTLA.

I am always marveled when I go to SM. Huge modern parking structures on every block.

[Spooky23]

Parking lots are speculators.

[wutbrodo]

> Not sure why DTLA is so nonchalant about this. Don't see any construction whatsoever.

Presumably because LA finally managed to make a section of the city livable and they don't want to hasten its demise. Parking has pretty massive costs for quality of life and the livability of a city.

LA is just in a weird transition point right now, where even a furious pace of transit building isn't going to remake the car-centric infrastructure overnight.

[Gargoyle]

Downtown LA has a fantastic parking situation compared to almost any other major city. Tons and tons of cheap parking.

Parking is not DTLA's problem.

[unabst]

Sure, compared to Tokyo and Manhattan. But everyone commutes using the train there.

DTLA is different. It is still within the driving circuit, and all other LA shopping destinations have decent free or cheap parking.

Paying 11 dollars just to park might be okay for work, but not okay if you're just looking to walk around or shop.

That's why BH and SM and all major malls have free or cheap parking. DTLA can't compete with these destinations in retail, until they fix this.

Joe's parking is not going to cut it.

[sologoub]

Third street promenade is a disaster area from the perspective you describe. It's a classical tourist funnel designed to extract the most from them.

As noted in another comment, Main St. is a bit better with some ok food, bars and coffee shops, but the retail side doesn't offer much. Most likely out of sheer need for survival due to super expensive lease rates, most retail is oriented towards tourists, with a little bit reserved for ultra wealthy of the area.

[majormajor]

It's a tourist trap mall that looks like a downtown complete with a fair bit of mixed use residential+retail+commercial dense-ish developments.

The point that people overlook there is that the aesthetics—indoor mall vs outdoor pedestrian-friendly throughway through a central part of a town—don't actually matter nearly as much as thought, since if you went at 10AM on a Thursday you'd think it was just a nice little downtown with a surprisingly high amount of retail in a small town next to LA.

And there are definitely good cafes, parks, and a library, yet all you're seeing here is still just a lot of people complaining about it. So maybe those aren't the critical components the OP seems to think they are.

There's no reason you couldn't turn the space and structure of a stereotypical 80s mall into a different sort of organizing space, without a whole "we need traditional looking downtowns" push.

[mc32]

I concur. High foot traffic does not result in steady state retail om the local streets. I've lived in the far east and despite heavy mom and pop representation, the turnover is insane _and_ due to lack of aircon in the mom and pops, people flock to malls due to free aircon.