My wife and I visited Los Angeles last year, and it really is a tale of two cities. Yes, there are parts of the city that are overrun with homeless drug addicts with mental issues. But then, on the flip side, there are parts of the city that are just absolutely beautiful!
Things will continue to get much worse. People being evicted from their homes/apartments - many more job losses as companies close - people are broke with nowhere to go. Families (with children) living in parks - people living in their vehicles -- this is America?????
@@sandyrose2398 "Things will continue to get much worse" Nah, Los Angeles is pretty solid. They are a maritime city with a deep water port, and they have Hollywood. They're not going away any time soon. " Families (with children) living in parks - people living in their vehicles" That's every major city in the world. There have been homeless in Rome since the founding of Rome.
"Yes, there are parts of the city that are overrun with homeless drug addicts with mental issues. " According to maga that's the whole city of LA, lol. Of course, those of us who visit regularly or live there know otherwise. I live up in the SF Bay Area, specifically "Silicon Valley" but fly down to LA/SD quite often. The other thing that critics who don't go there often will usually say is that LA doesn't have public transit, but as you saw in this video, passing by a light rail station and four buses in the first five minutes, there's actually an extensive transit system in LA. I don't know how to drive, and I can get around just fine when I'm down there. 🙂
I moved to LA back in 1971 to go to college. For the next 30 years I've worked and lived in Los Angeles, so I've seen the good and the bad. I'm retired now living in Hawaii so I shouldn't complain but occasionally, I still miss LA.
I used to live in Cali; northern and southern; was born there; u do a great job showing it around, gives me flashbacks; luv the technology that we have, Im sitting in my livingroom in Arizona watching u on my 64" TV; keep up the good work ActionKid
I literally just saw that and came to the comments to see if anyone else noticed. How the hell did he miss it? Thank goodness he didn’t cause an accident.
@@wookeybradbury Yep! I'm also not from the US but I can assure you, he was definitely NOT allowed to go through the red. That was way beyond careless...he should face consequences for that.
@@Ich854 some cities have cameras that will snap a picture of the license plate and mail off a ticket to the owner. When there are no cameras and no law enforcement sees it, the car driver does not face any issues.
Be careful out there, bud. You blew through a red light at the 6:13 mark crossing Main Street. Don’t want anything happening to you or anyone else. 🙏🏻 6:13
It’s great to see Los Angeles this way through the winsdield , and its great to see different neighborhoods as well😎Thank you for sharing this enjoyable and relaxing drive A K 🙂👍!!!
Actually Downtown started to become deserted in the 1950s, when the suburban shopping centers were built. In the 1970s only the poor and homeless lived in Downtown Los Angeles. Only recently have areas started to become gentrified.
That's not completely true. And DTLA has been going through a renaissance for the last 15-20 years now. Many historic commercial buildings have been converted into lofts and many new condos and apt towers have been built to the South, East, and West of the historic civic center.
This was a nice driving tour through DTLA. 6:11 I know you didn't mean to do this. I don't know if you overlooked the red light due to the sun glaring through the windshield, but I'm thankful that were no cars on that one way street. 🙏 You an excellent job covering the different parts of Downtown, the depressing and nice looking areas. Another nice area that you didn't cover in this drive is Grand Ave, but you walked through the area during your livestream. I don't hang out in DTLA much nowadays, so it was nice to watch this coverage. Thank you for sharing this drive, AK! 🤗
@@MzCatz To be fair, AK is a good and safe driver. I've been watching his driving videos since he moved to Miami in 2022, and this is the first time I've seen him made this mistake.
I went back and watched it a couple times- i thought maybe it was on an angle on a different street but nope, definitely went through it… we’ve all done it. Glad there wasn’t much traffic.
We do have an issue with homeless people living in tents in Edmonton. They are predominantly in our downtown area, near our Chinatown, and by our LRT (subway) in that part of the city, but they are in other parts of our city too. We have well over 2000 homeless people in Edmonton. When it gets cold in the winter, its hard on them. Shelters can be full. The governments were tasked with removing the homeless from the LRT (subway), but they end up going elsewhere. With the tent encampments, they also also move elsewhere, if the authorities come after them. The homeless issue is not an easy thing to solve, for sure. It's sad to see in this video, or in any city. In addition, it makes you grateful that you have a roof over your head. Cheers!
"We do have an issue with homeless people living in tents in Edmonton." Every major city in the world. There's left wing approaches and right wing approaches, but nobody can completely solve it, there will always be those who fall through the cracks. Unfortunately. 😞
DASH buses don't only run in the downtown area as you said. I have taken a DASH bus from Wilshire Blvd. to the Grove shopping center (which is nowhere near the downtown area). Also normally the DASH fare is 50 cents (25 cents for seniors & the disabled.)
Discover more, achieve more by driving around various parts of LA....it's challenging aplenty to drive with traffic lights every 100 metre to 300 metre....downtown l remembered was the Kodak Centre...simply stunning sights. Thanks AK for showing us around 🎉😂
I'm a Denver resident, but my wife is from Thousand Oaks, 40 minutes west of LA. We go to LA often, but it's been a couple years. I miss it. I love the beaches of Long Beach and Orange County.
Many of the boarded up buildings on Broadway are being renovated. There is a lot of construction going on in DTLA in all areas of it except in the 3-4 block radius of skid row. BTW, the businesses you saw closed on Broadway is because it's after working hours. They are not permanently closed as you were implying. You were probably driving around 7:30pm from the looks of it. The Arts District doesn't mean it's about having art in the area. It's refers to an area that historically had artist lofts. There is a very dynamic scene happening there. Many of the historic warehouses have been converted into restaurants, breweries, new lofts, event spaces, art galleries, and even a movie studio. Opening the new underground Metro stations in both Little Tokyo and Historic Broadway will add to that growing scene in these areas of DTLA. BTW, the homeless situation has noticeably improved based on what I see in this video. Just last year you had huge encampments on those overpass bridges on the freeway next to Olvera Street. And there were encampments around the area of City Hall which are no longer there. You even said in your recent walking tour that you weren't going to walk near City Hall for that reason. Yet you said nothing when you drove by City Hall and no encampments were there.
That was so good I felt like I was in the car. The sun streaming in through the window. I'd like another (DTLA) if you don't mind ActionKid. I'm watching again now. Thanks.
Ak, I spent sometime in Chibatown of L. A. Sinxe 1984. Love the Dim Sum. Herbal shopoes and Tza house and the open Xhibse style Bargain lMart. I admire Bruce Lee Lee Shui Lung Wing Chun Style of Kung Fu 😂
Thanks so much! I lived at Wilshire and Rampart for years... (Now back in Manhattan..) you should do a drive along Wilshire.. to the Ocean. OR Sunset to the Ocean. OR drive along Mullholland Hyway in Malibu.. absolutely stunning. Love your videos! Go have Thai food at Sapp Coffee Shop.. my favorite little spot in Hollywood/Thai Town.. Delish! Also, the farmers Market in Hollywood on Sunday.. I could recommend for hours. You're the best. Have fun.
I forgot to recommend some of my fave spots in downtown LA. Philipe The Original French Dip sandwich, near Chinatown. Clifton's Cafeteria, sorta near the Bradbury blding, Sonoratown amazing authentic carne asada/flour tacos, and of course.. Langer's Pastrami, towards my old neighborhood in Westlake - between downtown and Koreatown (Seriously the best Pastrami ever.. ! New Yorkers don't wish me dead please..!)
It would have been good to drive on 6th street so you could drive through the new beautiful 6th street viaduct that goes over the LA River. If you drive through from the East LA side first you have a great view if the DTLA skyline in rhe background. Maybe your next visit and rhen you can drive around the Arts District since its next to this new bridge
I moved to Los Angeles in 1966 from New York. California was safe, clean, little traffic, inexpenisve restaurants (including the high-end restaurants), gas was 26 cents/gallon in 1968 when I started driving. Paid $2.60 to fill up - plus the attendant cleaned my windows and pumped the gas. I was poor in those days - 1 or 2 bedroom apartments in a nice area were $150/mo to $200/mo. No road rage; people were curteous; everyone had a job; no one breaking into ur vehicle - or stealing ur vehicle. Things started changing early 1990s. Now - this country is a disaster!!!!
@@sandyrose2398 Yes and no. It really depended on where in Los Angeles you lived. In the 70s and 80s you had a worse gang problem than you have today. Some things are worse today but others are better too like the LA Metro rail system that didn't start until 1990. People of color are also doing better today than before 1990. And the air quality is so so very much better today than before 1990. I remember the days of Smog Alerts as a kid in the 60s and 70s. All cities go through good and bad times. The last three years have been especially tough mainly because of Covid, but we are beginning to come out the other side of it. And LA hasn't been alone in having a difficult time over the last three years.
I visited LA for the first time in March of this year. It 🌧 rained for much of my trip so next time I won't visit in March. I was uncomfortable going down to one of the subway stations to purchase another TAP card, although I rode the subway numerous times when I visited NYC. As I was purchasing the card, a guy tried to offer me a TAP card he had found. When I declined, he said he was just trying to help me out. I thought to myself, yeah, right, you're trying to apparently sell me a card with someone else's picture on it. Thanks, but no thanks. I got out of there. I will rent a car next time.
just a couple of points, great video.....looks like you jumped a red light at 06:13, crossing a double yellow line..... and changing lanes at a intersection, on another note not related to you...i didn't see any cops in your video, do they still have cops in LA? or are they all patrolling Beverly Hills....just sayin'
Changing lanes in the middle of the intersection is legal in both New York (where he's from) and California. It's not advised to do but legal. It's not advised to do but is legal, just passing along information.The red light was unfortunate from the sun glare. Lucky timing
23:00 I dunno, looks ok to me. Doesn't really look "run down"? Agree, the SW corner is probably the best part of downtown LA. 🙂 30:05 that's the kind of business -- brick and mortar retail clothing sales -- that's really hard to keep up these days, because you can get all that stuff online and have it delivered....combine that with a significant percentage of white collar workers working from home, and it's tough for them, these days. 🙂 I saw a CNBC video here on RU-vid that said maybe 25% of the malls in each G7 country are actually needed, and the rest are expected to close, unless they attract businesses that are not easily replaced by online shopping. 🙂
Good job about time somebody films a good video of Los Angeles I am not far from Los Angeles Lancaster which is 60 miles north of Lancaster you should film Lancaster to
Oh too bad looks like People’s Market in Skid Row is closed. Cool documentary about it. Community group trying to keep a market open for the residents of that area of LA where unfortunately businesses won’t go/stay.
It will be interesting to see what LA does when the 2028 summer Olympics comes to los angeles. Like most cities they'll quickly try and clean up the city, bus the homeless out of town and when it's all over they'll all come right back. I do love the Topanga and malibu area.
I hate that L.A. has that much homeless people. I wish they got housing or a safe housing treatment facility for them to go to rehabilitate. so sad…. 💔 L.A. is beautiful; but I hate that flaw that’s so widely seen from almost everywhere.
I want to visit Los Angeles. I did in 2009 I believe I was in Disney Land. My dad said Disneyland close to Los Angeles?? My dad said he would take me to get to California again in the future so yeah I'll come visit Los Angeles in the future.
Almost all the businesses in Little Tokyo are Korean owned. The Japanese moved to Sawtelle. The homeless exploded because L.A. doesn't enforce the "No Overnight Camping" ordinance and the did away with Vagrancy Laws. The only ones who enforce the Laws is Beverly Hills.
So how to visit those beautiful tall buildings (I will be in the US for the first time) and at the same time avoid those dirty streets with homeles people that's the question. Is that possible? I will be staying near Pasadena, is it worth to go near Downtown at all??
AK, Finkand has the best amoroach to resokves Los Angeles homeless pribkels.The Finnush Governlent buys out the orivate sectoir of houses. So eceryobe can be House. I am thinking of loving to Carlel Valey near San Diego to aviod the Survival mentality.😮
Los Angeles has several programs to deal with the homeless issue including one that buys motels and hotels to convert them into transitional housing. A bigger long term problem is that about 50% of the homeless in LA are not from LA. They come from other parts of the state and country. So it's not the same homeless people. It keeps changing. They keep coming to LA because they know LA has services they can use. It's a catch-22 cycle.
Could you send me to a more dangerous neighborhood? I'm dreading walking back to the car someone shouldn't crack me over the head and steal my bag, I'll be lying there on the street in this neighborhood and people will spit on me and empty my pockets. I'll lie in the gutter like a bum, like a dog, like a mutt, like an animal! God forbid someone should help me or call an ambulance. No, that's too much trouble to pick up a phone and press a few buttons.
I applaud AK for showing the unpleasant side of LA. That these areas exist should nag all of us into doing something constructive with this country. That means electing the right people.
Wow... at 2:30. Someone dares to wear a Biden AND Hillary bumper sticker!? I thought everyone woke up out of their spell by now. Guess there are still slow learners.
Do you know what's even sadder? The government leaders on all three levels the federal, state and municipal governments are ignoring the plight of the homeless and attempting to lay the blame on each other
There is a long history. "The history of homelessness in LA. The history of homelessness in Los Angeles goes back nearly 150 years, to the late 19th Century. The introduction of rail lines to the now infamous Skid Row neighborhood brought with it seasonal workers looking to capitalize on the industrialization of the area, many of whom were poor..." "Skid Row was established by city officials in 1976 as an unofficial "containment zone", where shelters and services for homeless people would be tolerated. During the 1970s, two Catholic Workers - Catherine Morris, a former nun, and her husband, Jeff Dietrich - founded the "Hippie Kitchen" in the back of a van." There are now several different homeless shelters in the skid row area which is why you see more homeless concentrated in this area of LA