Downtown LA on life support as new ranking reveals new low for troubled hub

DTLA is DOA.

Downtown Los Angeles has been ranked one of the least vibrant downtowns on a list of 75 worldwide — as the area struggles with rampant homelessness and crime.

Gensler’s 2026 City Pulse report found DTLA to be among the worst for vibrancy, while drawing even lower marks for beauty.

Cities with comparable populations like Madrid, Chicago and Toronto all outclassed LA in vibrancy.

Around 65% of those surveyed found DTLA vibrant, compared to 77% for Madrid, 84% for Chicago and 71% for Toronto.

Downtown San Francisco also had poor marks, earning a 67% score for vibrancy, while San Jose fared even worse with a 61% score.

For beauty, downtown LA ranked the seventh worst in the US, just above cities like Denver and St. Louis.

It has a 743% higher crime rate than the rest of the city of LA, Spectrum News reported.

The area’s notorious Skid Row contains one of the largest homeless populations in the US.

Businesses have fled the area due to crime, homelessness and an increasingly absent customer population.

“LA’s kind of central problem is that businesses have left LA. We need them to bring the offices back in,”  Kelly Farrell, the managing director of Gensler’s LA office, told the Los Angeles Times. “Bring the people back in so they’re staying after work and interacting with those businesses that are in the area.”

The Gensler report noted that downtown areas should be walkable and characterized as cultural and entertainment hubs, with a blend of shops, offices and housing.

A California Post report in August 2025 noted there were more than 100 vacant storefronts in the area’s Historic Core, the heart of the downtown shopping and entertainment district. One business pointed to crime, record-high rents and an ever-shrinking pool of Angelenos visiting as the reason.

“Many historical independent restaurants are struggling under the weight of these issues and have already closed, while those remaining are fighting to survive,” said LA’s oldest restaurants, Cole’s French Dip, when announcing its closure last year.

LA has tried to revitalize the area by transforming abandoned office buildings into housing. City leaders enacted a sweeping overhaul of reuse rules in February, dramatically expanding where and how vacant commercial buildings can be turned into apartments.

Farrell thinks downtown LA needs to draw more residents in to revitalize the area.

“One of the best things we can do for safety is have an abundance of population,” Farrell said. “You will see right now that we have a lot of great ground-floor retail that’s empty. As that gets fuller, we typically see that crime starts to go down with it.”

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