Los Angeles Times

Commentary: LA and other cities are recovering, but not their downtowns. Why?

A mail truck passes Avenue 50 in Highland Park, California on June 2, 2023.

A fiscal “doom loop.” A transit “death spiral.” The “office apocalypse.” Since the traumatic disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, these pessimistic terms have been applied repeatedly to the state of our cities. Analysis of Census data from my Brookings Institution colleague William Frey found that from 2020 to 2021, during the peak of the pandemic, major metropolitan areas including New York and Los Angeles lost a significant number of residents. A net 175,000 people left L.A. for Riverside, the Sun Belt or smaller metros and rural areas.

But new research shows clear signs this trend is reversing. As

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