Demise of Entertainment Industry Mirrors Demise of Housing in LA

In a piece in the California Planning & Development Report, Josh Stephens makes the case that the decline of the Los Angeles film industry — “with 31% fewer filming days in 2024 compared to 2020” — is tied up with the city’s housing crisis.

"Fundamentally, entertainment and real estate must predict the future. Projects evolve on the order of years. They are capital-intensive, demanding up-front monies years before revenues come in, depending on the whims of consumers. Some projects appeal to urban aesthetes; others are family-friendly. Ultimately, audiences file into the theater or turn on the TV, inhabiting a fantasy for a little while. Residents and tenants move in, acting out their lives for months, years, or forever."

The loss of filming has significant ripple effects for the local economy. “Craftspeople are out of work. Support services like prop shops are closing. CBS recently sold Television City, its West Coast headquarters, which will be redeveloped. At least one entire studio lot -- the historic 20th Century Fox lot, now owned by Disney -- may be vacated, left to an uncertain fate.”

Meanwhile, housing remains unaffordable for many Angelenos. According to UCLA research, “Though Los Angeles recently adopted a massive housing-oriented rezoning program, called CHIPS, ‘Los Angeles will fall far short of its housing production goal’ and will risk ‘displacement of vulnerable households’ unless it supplements the rezoning with an ‘ambitious single-family upzoning policy.’”

Stephens concludes that “Hollywood needs to wake up. The need for housing -- via apartments, ADU's, transit-oriented development -- needs to go viral. Ideally, Hollywood should promote exactly the type of neighborhoods that it likes to shoot. Movies and TV shows disproportionately portray busy, walkable, attractive urban neighborhoods (see related CP&DR commentary) that are easy to create on a studio lot but almost impossible with conventional zoning, financing, and infrastructure. This is the moment when both of these once-great industries, with help from planners, need to recognize their common interests and flip this script.”