The sidewalks of the Fashion District in downtown Los Angeles were bustling. Silver-faced, tuxedoed mannequins tussled with crazy clowns and beaming Hello Kittys. Ball caps, Stetsons and sombreros, baby strollers, toasters and Crock-Pots, lucha libre masks, belts and shoes burst from open storefronts and vendors’ sidewalk card tables.
Steam rose up from food trucks and carts. Matt Haney, a Democratic Assembly member from San Francisco, did a weave and a bob as he navigated the narrow straits. Dressed in denim and a monogrammed windbreaker, cradling a cup of coffee, he was casual and unassuming, perfectly attired for fact-finding on a late fall morning.
“Like all of you, I love downtowns, and I, like all of you, will not accept that we give up on our downtowns,” he‘d told L.A. business leaders earlier in the day.
“They are too important. They impact people’s lives in so many positive ways.” Los Angeles was one of nine stops on his tour of the state’s downtowns.
From Sacramento to San Diego, he’s in search of a prescription for California’s ailing urban cores. In Long Beach, he ate potato wedges at an outdoor event space by the city’s convention center. In San Diego, he wandered a street of empty storefronts.
In San Jose, he visited student housing in a former hotel. In San Francisco, he took in Union Square, where the iconic Macy’s is slated to close. Chair of the Assembly’s Downtown Recovery Select Committee, Haney plans to introduce legislation next.
