Los Angeles#
The largest city in the dataset. Deep participation culture — food trucks, arts scene, maker spaces — spread across a vast metro, far from the convention center.
Facilities#
- Los Angeles Convention Center — South LA / Downtown. ~720,000 sq ft exhibit.
CommonScore: Los Angeles — 32#
CommonScore: 32.
Claims in italics are unverified and may be incorrect.
| # | Dimension | Wt | Avail | Scale | Score | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Food | 11 | 0.9 | 0.5 | 5.0 | 5,000–7,000 licensed food trucks (LA pioneered the gourmet truck movement). Grand Central Market (~50 vendors). Smorgasburg LA (60+ vendors). 80+ weekly farmers markets county-wide (Hollywood, Santa Monica with 150+ vendor slots). |
| 2 | Civic | 11 | 0.8 | 0.5 | 4.4 | LA Public Library (72 branches — largest public library in North America by volume). 100+ city recreation centers. Meeting rooms available at most branches and community centers. |
| 3 | Education | 9 | 0.8 | 0.6 | 4.3 | LACCD (9 community colleges, 200,000+ students — open enrollment). UCLA Extension (thousands of non-credit courses). Art Center College of Design community programs. Massive accessible education pipeline. |
| 4 | Arts | 7 | 0.8 | 0.4 | 2.2 | The Brewery (120+ artist live/work lofts in former Pabst brewery). Downtown Arts District studios, monthly Art Walk. East LA Chicano art scene (Casa 0101). Angels Gate Cultural Center. Production space distributed city-wide. |
| 5 | Music | 7 | 0.7 | 0.3 | 1.5 | The Smell (DIY all-ages, long-running). 100+ venues with open mics. 50–100 commercial rehearsal studios city-wide. Music participation is real but spread across 500 sq mi. |
| 6 | Makers | 7 | 0.5 | 0.3 | 1.1 | Crash Space (hackerspace, downtown). 15–25 active makerspaces/hackerspaces city-wide. Growing community but space costs constrain scale. |
| 7 | Industry | 7 | 0.7 | 0.7 | 3.4 | LA Convention Center (720K sq ft, 60+ events/year). Anime Expo (100K+ attendees, largest in North America). LA Auto Show. Entertainment industry trade events. |
| 8 | Markets | 7 | 0.7 | 0.5 | 2.5 | Rose Bowl Flea Market (2,500 vendor spaces, 2x monthly — one of world’s largest). Melrose Trading Post (150+ vendors, Sundays). Swap meets — SoCal institution (20–30+ regular swap meets). |
| 9 | Kids | 6 | 0.6 | 0.4 | 1.4 | 100+ city recreation centers with youth programs. Parks department offers 1,000+ programs annually. Pop Warner, Little League, soccer associations. Extensive city-run summer camps. |
| 10 | Robotics | 6 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.5 | Caltech, JPL (academic, limited public programs). FIRST Robotics teams (20–40+ high school teams in LA area). More competitive than accessible. |
| 11 | Wellness | 5 | 0.7 | 0.4 | 1.4 | 30+ public pools. 100+ rec centers with fitness classes. Outdoor fitness culture — Runyon Canyon (thousands daily), Griffith Park, Manhattan/Hermosa/Huntington Beach volleyball. |
| 12 | Seniors | 4 | 0.5 | 0.3 | 0.6 | 10+ dedicated senior centers. Senior programs at 40+ recreation centers. Library age-50+ programming. |
| 13 | Gaming | 4 | 0.5 | 0.2 | 0.4 | 30–50 board game shops city-wide. D&D leagues, Pathfinder societies. 10–15 dedicated board game cafes. Esports lounges emerging. |
| 14 | Theater | 4 | 0.8 | 0.5 | 1.6 | 99-seat theater tradition — 100+ small companies under the Equity waiver system. UCB LA, Groundlings, 10+ improv schools. Community theater across all boroughs. Deepest participation theater after NYC. |
| 15 | Sports | 2 | 0.7 | 0.4 | 0.6 | 50+ courts across parks. Established beach volleyball leagues. 100+ city sports leagues. Strong pickup basketball culture. |
| 16 | Mega | 3 | 0.7 | 0.7 | 1.5 | Convention center 60+ events/year. Anime Expo 100K+. Entertainment industry scale. |
Dimension scores = Wt × Avail × Scale. Total: 32 → CommonScore 32.
Scale Without Consolidation#
LA ties Boston and Amsterdam at 32 — but through a different model. Where Boston has institutional depth (universities, MassRobotics) and Amsterdam has intentional policy (broedplaatsen), LA has sheer scale: 72 library branches, 200K community college students, 5,000+ food trucks, 100+ 99-seat theater companies, and the Rose Bowl Flea Market (2,500 vendors).
The gap with NYC (38): density and transit. NYC’s participation infrastructure is subway-accessible. LA’s is spread across 500 square miles, car-dependent, and harder to access without a vehicle.