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Well, Hollywood is not the end all be all of Los Angeles (though that is the image Hollywood projects out onto the world). It’s not even Los Angeles’ biggest industry. Everything from China enters through the Port of Los Angeles, which is the biggest in the United States. In fact, the top two busiest ports in the USA are both Los Angeles and Long Beach (which directly borders Los Angeles). This is just one example, but Los Angeles, despite its own external projections and self-mythology to the contrary, is much more than just a one industry town. Aside from shipping and logistics, it’s also a center for auto+aerospace manufacturing, and a major healthcare hub. Downtown Los Angeles, which actually serves as a glorified rail freight hub, is still far and away the nation’s capital of garment manufacturing, with over 80%(!) of the nation’s made-in-USA clothing produced here (this is downstream of being the biggest port in the US). Los Angeles has always existed as a center of industry and agriculture before Hollywood, and while the decline of Hollywood certainly hurts the city, it will not kill it. SF, ironically, is actually moreso a factory town: if one day its tech champions decided to up and leave, there wouldn’t be much left relative to its current GDP. But one thing that may protect both SF and Los Angeles from ever becoming Detroit are their beautiful weather and geography. People will always want to live here, despite the costs. See Santa Barbara, a real city with no major industry to claim as its own, yet it still boasts some of the highest real estate prices in the world. |
I meant Hollywood as the collection of all of the film/TV people and industry that are geographically located in that area.
This was never about the city itself. Nor was it in comparison to, or competition with, San Francisco, but I guess projectors are inexpensive on Amazon these days.
Sorry that I touched a nerve there.