Uptown? (Los Angeles, Long Beach, Pasadena: live, linear, cities)

[CelticViking]

Most have heard the term "uptown" and "downtown"...why doenst l.a have an uptown?

[ebuch]

When I visited a couple weeks ago, it didn't seem like LA had much of a "downtown" feel either. Although the answer to your question is probably because LA is so sprawled out, rather than dense like NYC, etc.

[CelticViking]

yea thats exactly what i figured...guessing a newer city that is spread out like l.a doesnt have an uptown..

and yea, a lot of people dont think the downtown has much of a feel, but at least they do use the term "downtown"...

and the funny thing about l.a is that the downtown is to the "north" of the city...where as watts/compton are the higher numbered streets and that is south...and as far up as harbor city/carson etc...in the 220s...etc...

[King0fthehill]

Originally Posted by ebuch

When I visited a couple weeks ago, it didn't seem like LA had much of a "downtown" feel either. Although the answer to your question is probably because LA is so sprawled out, rather than dense like NYC, etc.

What are you talking about?

While it isn't of the scale and scope of Manhattan, DTLA is as dense and urban of an environment you're gonna find in the US.



Now street life and vibrancy are another thing...

[BRinSM]

the only city i've ever heard of that that has an uptown and downtown is NYC. not many cities are as linear north/south as NYC. LA is somewhat linear (roughly around the 10 freeway) east/west, hence the westside and eastside of LA. the northern part of LA is known as the valley and then there is obviously south LA.

[zenkonami]

Great pic, King.

L.A.'s downtown doesn't live every single day the way, say, New York's or Chicago's does, but when it hums, it hums just fine. You have to be careful because L.A. in general is a very deceptive city. It's not as dense as those other two cities, true, but I think a lot of people from *far* less dense cities then comment about L.A.'s "sprawl" without taking into account how dense Los Angeles in fact is.

L.A. is marked by a different kind of development, and not one I necessarily agree with, but it is how it's grown. There are numerous dense pockets all over the city, including downtown. Plenty of the surrounding cities have plenty of density as well...Santa Monica, Pasadena, Westwood, Long Beach...each of these cities is significant in their own right.

I also have to agree with BR for the most part. Though I have heard "uptown" used for other cities, it can denote very different things. Phoenix has an "Uptown", but other than being less dense than "Downtown", there's not much to distinguish it. Or take the example of Denver, where "Lower Downtown (LoDo)" is north of "Upper Downtown" (a consequence of being further down the South Platte River which flows north through Denver.)

You could conceivably consider Hollywood "uptown", geographically, though there's nothing ritzier or more glamorous about it, by far...in fact, it's often more active (especially in the summer) than downtown.

[SurekRZA]

Yea, there really is no "Uptown" in L.A. but if I had to decide I would consider North Hollywood and the communitites along Ventura Blvd "Uptown" L.A.
Although there are several other communitites north of that but they differ too much from central L.A.