Joel Kotkin Can't Resist Stabs at Downtown

“Somebody should start keeping a scrapbook of all his digs and predictions about Downtown.”

Why bother? Certain experts seem to get quoted repeatedly, and it often seems to be more because they have ascended into exalted expertdom conferred upon them by being in everyone’s roldex not because they are all that knowledgeable. Being wrong or biased seems irrelevant.

So, Kotkin is stubbornly refusing to jump on the Downtown bandwagon. In my opinion, he’s an idiot. He is one of those stubborn human-shaped obstacles to turning downtown around. In his view, any money invested in downtown is wasted because L.A. “doesn’t have a downtown” or “we don’t live in downtown here” or whatever tired, washed-up worldview he’d care to invoke. All I can say is, the more construction towers that sprout downtown, the more he looks like an idiot. Let him hang himself.

Joel has turned into a gadfly instead of a thoughtful assessor of the urban or suburban condition.

I think with age comes senility.

I think to some extent Kotkin is trapped. To pierce the din of media chatter one stretegy is to settle on one or two key soundbits and relentlessly retail them. Eventually you become the go-to person when journalists want a certain kind of opinion. Want a negative response to MTA? Contact Tom Rubin or the Bus Riders’ Union.

Which becomes a trap when reality shifts. An example: Zev Yaroslavsky some years ago converted some excess campaign funds into a ballot measure to ban local funding of subways (i.e. underground rapid transit lines). It was meaningless grandstanding because there was no prospect of any such project going forward for decades, but it gave Zev a platform to do his usual pontificating. While passing with a large margain, no one thought it meant anything. Zev never got the bounce he expected from it. Instead it was only mentioned in the context of why the Red Line hasn’t been extended (which isn’t fully fair since until recently the prospects of obtain the multi-billions for it were dim for many other reasons). Now frustration at westside traffic gridlock and the championing of the Wilshire extension by a new Mayor has shifted the discussion. While Zev always left himself wiggle room to be able to switch in re the Wilshire extension he so far has been reluctant to disown his ballot measure, evidently lacking a way of explaining if it makes sense now why didn’t it x numbers of years ago. The ground moved under him and what once looked like a winning issue is now a dead-end…