Elegy for Los Angeles

I was born too many years ago in Hollywood, a Los Angeles neighborhood. Although I haven't lived there for most of my life, I continue to be interested in the fate of the City of Angels, or more formally The City of Our Lady, Queen of the Angels, a very Hispanic and Roman Catholic name.

My favorite demographer, Joel Kotkin, has written a City Journal elegy for Los Angeles, which he sees on a downward slope. I believe my favorite part of the article is the three tables which show, graphically, the decline of L.A.

The first ranks the twenty largest metropolitan areas by the employment change over the period 2001 to 2011. Los Angeles is third from the bottom, with a loss of 7.1% of its jobs. Only San Francisco and Detroit lost more jobs.

The second chart shows the current unemployment rates of those same twenty metropolitan areas. LA is third from the top with an unemployment rate of 11.4%. Only Detroit and Riverside have higher unemployment rates.

Finally, the third chart looks at net migration in or out for those 20 metropolitan areas over the period 2001-2009. Los Angeles is at the bottom of the chart, having had the greatest out-migration: -11.7% net domestic migration, even greater than New York's at 11.4%.