One thing about LA’s freeze on building and attempt to hold “neighborhood character” is that the commercial mix of an area is often like, 15 years behind the neighborhood demographic.
Like, there were parts of Melrose Boulevard that I went to in 2008 that I was like “oh, this makes Melrose Place (1992-1999) make a bit more sense!”
I visited back down to Echo Park in like, summer 2019? after leaving in 2011, and like, the only new construction I saw \u2013 some townhouses up by the terminus of the 2 in this hot neighborhood you heard about on the other coast \u2013 was about equal to the amount of change I would expect on any given Portland eastside block between 13th and 48th over the same period.
But the stores on Sunset, which had been like, cheap/blue collar work clothes, or storefronts that carried all, but only, the stuff you got with WIC vouchers, or these 3 restaurants that were owned in common as basically identical meh Mexican cafeterias, finally matched what I’d’ve expected from the block down from The Echo/Echoplex
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