Good morning. It is Saturday, Aug. 31.
Here’s what we’ve been doing in Opinion. Is Los Angeles pretty? As in, are we ready to show off our city in four years to the Olympic hordes, who aren’t just coming to see the beaches and the mountains and Disneyland, but to use the same streets, freeways, buses and trains we do to get to all the venues sprinkled throughout this expansive region? It’s a question that’s come up a lot in the L.A.
Times since the 2024 Olympics in the unquestionably majestic city of Paris closed three weeks ago. How to spruce up Los Angeles ahead of the 2028 Games has been the subject of news articles , letters to the editor and newsletters . I’d argue all this angst over getting ready for 2028 sort of answers the question: No, Los Angeles isn’t very pretty.
I expressed as much in an introduction I wrote for a package of letters with suggestions on addressing L.A.’s problems before we show ourselves off to the world in four years.
That touched off a discussion among readers who begged to differ and made the case for this city’s aesthetic qualities in letters, one of which was published this morning . They said the city’s ability to capture the imagination of visitors, its natural beauty (beaches on one side, 10,000-foot mountains on the other) and the kind of diversity poignantly highlighted in the Jonathan Gold documentary “City of Gold” make our humble metropolis the perfect host for athletes and visitors from around the world. Thos.