There are three reasons why I feel that Los Angeles will come out of the recession stronger than before -- and why I think L.A. will have a leg up on other major American cities going through financial crises of their own.
1)A streamlined, more efficient, reorganized "L.A. Lite" City government infrastructure is now in place.
2)Entertainment production will increase as growing demand for 3-D TV and 3-D movies fuel an important engine of L.A.'s economic growth.
3)Over time, a proposed new citywide initiative, ShopLA, can potentially deliver dramatically more sales tax dollars into the City's treasury.
There's more. But we have to work together in a common goal.
If the City can succeed in putting a cap on public employee pensions, get a handle on frivolous lawsuits, and derive more fees from the thousands of off-site advertising billboards, those would strengthen the City's bottom line and speed up its economic recovery. These are dependent, however, on forging agreements with three of the most powerful influence groups in Los Angeles: organized labor, trial lawyers and national outdoor advertising companies.
Combine these important developments with a general increase in national economic resurgence and a rise in LA home sales, and you have a formula for a significant rebound for Los Angeles later this year and growing in 2011.
If these predictions indeed come to pass, it will be extremely important for the City to squirrel away millions into its Reserve Fund and then monitor its spending carefully going forward, so that gains made are not opportunities lost.