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There’s no longer any question that Los Angeles has arrived as a global city—if Hollywood’s reach doesn’t make the case then the Asian money behind its new skyline and preparations for a record-setting third Olympiad should.

The more apt question these days is which Los Angeles excites the world?

The Los Angeles of Rodeo Drive? Or the Huntington Gardens? Or Disneyland?

And there’s the rub—because none of those places is in the City of Los Angeles.

Rodeo Drive and the Huntington Gardens are both in the larger territory known as Los Angeles County. The former is famous as the high street of Beverly Hills, the latter a staid cultural preserve in San Marino.

Those two toney and independent towns are on opposite sides of LA County, which covers 4,000 square miles and includes 88 municipalities altogether.

You have to expand to the larger concept of Southern California to get to Disneyland, which is in Orange County, directly south of LA.

LA gets a lot of credit for its neighbors’ achievements, as well as its own—but the outsized image is a two-edged sword.

The latest report from the World Trade Center of Los Angeles provides some insights, giving data on foreign-owned businesses with operations in Southern California.

You might expect LA County to punch above its weight on foreign investment as the undisputed center of the sun-dappled landscape, with its population of 10 million approaching half of the region’s total. Among the assets likely to appeal to foreign investors at the practical and executive levels are the biggest airport in Southern California, twin seaports that are the busiest in the U.S., three research universities, 76 hospitals, numerous renowned museum and performance venues, nine professional sports teams, and 66 Consulates General.

Yet LA County looks to be just another option for foreign investment on Southern California’s expansive landscape.

There are nearly 12,000 foreign-owned firms in Southern California, and LA County is home to fewer than half of them.

The same goes for the 461,447 jobs at foreign-owned enterprises throughout the region–and for the $18.1 billion in annual wages they generate.

The numbers get worse for LA County when you consider investments coming from key overseas markets, including the UK, a leading trade partner of Southern California.

UK businesses combine to account for 76,000 jobs and $6.1 billion in annual payroll in Southern California, with about two-thirds of each total landing outside of City of Los Angeles or LA County.

A number of other top 10 sources of foreign investment in Southern California also index low for LA.

Los Angeles is a global magnet when viewed from afar.

But consider LA within its regional setting of Southern California and it’s about on par with a lot of other places that are miles away from Hollywood or the ports or a courtside seat to watch LeBron James perform for the world-famous Lakers basketball franchise.

The data on foreign-owned businesses and where they locate in Southern California serve to concentrate the mind on LA’s problem, which range from a federal corruption probe of City Hall to rampant encampments of rough sleepers and a municipal budget devastated by Covid-19 while feckless politicians fiddle.

Meanwhile, some of the best public schools are down in Orange County, there is world-class golf out in the Riverside County burg of Palm Springs, and you’ll find world-class resorts up in Santa Barbara County.

And you can check just about anywhere for better roads.

LA’s image is big.

But it seems foreign investors have learned that hype doesn’t fill potholes.

Jerry Sullivan is founder and chief columnist for SullivanSaysSoCal.com.

Over 200 attendees joined our panelist for a webinar hosted by Urban Reform Institute on December 4. If you missed the event, you can watch the video below:

Related:

Read the 2020 Report on Ownership and Opportunity.

On today's episode of Feudal Future hosts Joel Kotkin and Marshall Toplansky are joined by Pete Saunders. Pete Saunders is a writer and researcher whose work focuses on urbanism and public policy. He has been the editor and publisher of the Corner Side Yard, an urbanist blog, since 2012. A practicing urban planner, he serves as the community and economic development director for the Chicago suburb of Richton Park, Ill., and is the principal for PDS Consulting, an urban-planning consulting and research firm.

Marshall begins the show asking Pete what he thinks Chicago can expect being under a new Biden administration. Pete began to explain that not everything seems cut and clear and to be wary buying into a new administration so quickly. Pete went into details and programs that Biden could implement in order to unite Chicago and establish them once again as a metropolitan powerhouse.

Joel chimed in and was curious to see if the new administration would be able to help the crime rates in Chicago. Pete stated that the crime is not something an administration can change, but that it is more of a societal change that needs to happen.

Marshall added that not only crime was something to be concerned about, but also the amount of talent Chicago raises in its own states, and exports out to other parts of the US and how that was taking away from Chicago. Joel added that if Chicago wants to make changes, they need to be more welcoming to new business and create an environment that is welcoming to the business owners. Pete agreed without hesitation.

As the episode ends, Joel and Pete look hopeful in seeing Chicago make steps to revive the Midwest and give power again to the middle class.

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More podcast episodes & show notes at JoelKotkin.com

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Related:

Learn more about the Feudal Future podcast.
Learn more about Marshall Toplansky.
Learn more about Joel Kotkin.
Learn about Pete Saunders.

Join the Beyond Feudalism Facebook group.
Read the Beyond Feudalism report.
Leran about Joel's book, The Coming of Neo-Feudalism.

Reason's newest Surface Transportation Newsletter by Bob Poole talks about Harris County's dangerous raid on HCTRA's toll road money, and this is so important I'm reposting it in full here (highlights mine):

Toll Agency Politicized in Houston

"Back in September, the governing body in Harris County, Texas—the Commissioners Court—voted 3-2 to take over the respected Harris County Toll Road Authority (HCTRA). They created a government corporation that will divert toll revenues to things like flood control and help to pay for deepening the Houston Ship Channel. This political move undercuts the widely followed principle of most U.S. tolling: users-pay/users-benefit. Harris County will receive a $300 million lump sum from HCTRA, followed by $90 million a year indefinitely.

Another part of the deal calls for refinancing HCTRA’s $2.7 billion worth of toll revenue bonds to take advantage of today’s historically low-interest rates, with estimated savings of $60 million per year. That’s a move HCTRA could have made on its own, in the interest of delivering better value to its toll-paying customers. And its well-managed counterpart in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metro area—the North Texas Tollway Authority—the same month announced its own debt refinancing, but without any revenue diversions.

The Houston change was decidedly political, with the three Democratic commissioners voting in favor while the two Republicans voting against it. One of the Republicans, Steve Radack, was quoted in the Houston Chronicle saying, “This is a money grab. They are going to use it to pay for things that are normally paid for via property taxes.” Also opposing the takeover was David Hagy, executive director of the American Council of Engineering Companies, who supported the sensible refinancing but not the county’s money grab. And the Transportation Advocacy Group urged the Commissioners to at least use the diverted funds for transportation purposes.

I wonder how the rating agencies will view this politicization. HCTRA’s current bond indenture, as well as state law, limits the use of surplus revenues to non-toll roads, streets, and highways, according to a Q&A provided by the Harris County budget office. If that’s true, there might be grounds for bondholder litigation.

Moreover, while short-term thinking would say this is only a small amount of revenue diversion, the real danger is that it sets a precedent and provides no safeguards against future raids on HCTRA’s toll revenues. Transportation professionals know what has happened to the Pennsylvania Turnpike when that state’s legislature imposed Act 44 mandating that the Turnpike divert $450 million per year to the state DOT for transit subsidies. The Turnpike has had to significantly increase its bonded indebtedness, and enact large annual toll rate increases to meet the new debt service. That same fate could await HCTRA’s toll payers the next time Harris County faces budget shortfalls."

This piece first appeared on Houston Strategies Blogspot.

Tory Gattis is a Founding Senior Fellow with the Urban Reform Institute and co-authored the original study with noted urbanist Joel Kotkin and others, creating a city philosophy around upward social mobility for all citizens as an alternative to the popular smart growth, new urbanism, and creative class movements. He is also an editor of the Houston Strategies blog.

I’m happy to share our new George W. Bush Institute report, “Cities and Opportunity in 21st Century America.” This report is the first in our new Blueprint for Opportunity series, which aims to explore the challenge of expanding opportunity and economic mobility in America, particularly in U.S. cities, and to lay out a market-oriented opportunity agenda. We plan on publishing additional reports in the series approximately once a quarter over the next couple years.

This report examines how America is doing in promoting economic mobility, why cities and neighborhoods so strongly influence economic mobility for people who live there, and which metropolitan areas are outperforming as engines of opportunity. Our second report will consider lessons from history on cities and opportunity and recent trends remaking the geography of opportunity in the U.S. cities, and subsequent reports will focus on particular policy areas like metropolitan economic development, new business creation, the future of work, the role of anchor institutions, housing attainability, and more.

Click here to download Cities & Opportunities paper

J.H. Cullum Clark is a Director in the George W. Bush Institute-SMU Economic Growth Initiative and an Adjunct Professor of Economics at SMU in Dallas. His work focuses on policies to expand opportunity and economic mobility in America’s cities. He worked for 25 years in the investment industry, at two Wall Street firms in New York then as CEO of his own small investment company for 18 years. He is co-author of a forthcoming book on the metropolitan areas of the “Texas Triangle” region that Texas A&M Press will publish in 2021. He serves on the boards of the leading charter school network in North Texas and several arts and civic organizations in Dallas.