For much of the past century, Los Angeles has been a magnet for migrants seeking a better life and tourists eager to see Hollywood up close. Yet the picture now looks very different. Since the pandemic, record numbers of residents have moved either to elsewhere in California or to the Sun Belt states. By 2060, according to the state’s Department of Finance, LA, whose current population is a little under 4 million, is expected to shed well over a million people.

Now, even the star-gazing tourists are opting out. Long among the nation’s three most-visited cities, according to reporting from this week Los Angeles has suffered an 8% annual fall in international tourism, while overall tourism revenue has dropped from $30 billion to $15 billion. The reasons for this downward trend are clear: repeated incidents of random violence and vandalism, fear of fires in a city ill-equipped to prevent them, and an urban environment that is increasingly shoddy and ill-kept.

The city’s most enviable asset, Hollywood, now appears to be in inexorable decline, with an estimated 42,000 job losses over the past two years. Particularly hard hit are the craft guilds, the largely unionised workers who proliferated in the Valley Village neighbourhood. More work headed overseas and to lower-cost domestic locales such as New Orleans and Atlanta. The spectre of artificial intelligence looms over the crafts, and potentially even the movies, if the example of Tilly Norwood is anything to go by.

In the context of falling tourism, the loss of over 10,000 hospitality jobs in 2024 could be devastating. To make matters even more challenging, the city has passed a $30 minimum wage for hospitality workers, prompting hoteliers to consider offloading their properties.

City leaders, meanwhile, feel they can lure back tourists by investing in projects such as a new $2.6 billion expansion of the Convention Center and an elaborate transit system, yet LA’s yawning budget deficit leaves it ill-equipped for pointless largesse. Downtown areas are littered with homeless encampments, as well as buildings abandoned because of arson. Empty and uncompleted luxury high-rises in the city have become notorious for their extensive graffiti, while tourist boards have failed to harness the potential of vibrant neighbourhoods such as Boyle Heights and Silver Lake

Next year, LA will serve as the location for eight matches at the FIFA World Cup; in 2028, the city will have to host the Olympics. Professional boosters will seek to use these sporting occasions to bring back visitors, and they will have some history on their side. The 1932 Olympics announced Los Angeles when its population was a third its current size, and the 1984 Games, which I covered, coincided with what may well be remembered as the region’s historic peak.

However, LA in 2025 barely resembles the capitalist dynamo of four decades ago. Once a middle-class haven with a broad industrial base, the city now suffers the highest poverty rates in the state, and among the worst in the country. Failing schools and dilapidated parks, in addition to an exodus of residents and businesses, put a bleak slant on the city’s long-term prospects. Even the number of foreign-born residents dropped last decade.

Under Democratic regimes, the city could once count on outside help. Even if Donald Trump, who has feuded with LA leaders, lends a hand for the World Cup and Olympics, this won’t address the long-term trends driving visitors away. For real change to happen there, the city will need to clean up the mess made by its politicians, so that it can restore the LA which so many migrated to, and which so many have yearned to visit.

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Joel Kotkin is a Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and a Senior Research Fellow at the Civitas Institute, the University of Texas at Austin.

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