What Does a World-Class City Look Like?

Los Angeles Will Never Be Like Other Great Cities, but It Can Be True to Itself

Los Angeles is famous for its insecurity. For decades, we measured ourselves by how we competed against our nation’s most populous metropolis, New York, which has long prided itself on being one of the world’s greatest cities. Did we have the wealth, grandeur, and ambition to be a global city? Were our museums filled with enough important art? Did we need a ballet company? Could we be in the big leagues if we didn’t even have our own NFL team?

Today, scorecards and rankings abound for the world’s cities on metrics …