Urine Urine Everywhere

I like living in downtown Los Angeles, I really do. It is exciting to be in the midst of the transition the core is experiencing these days, all the while making our home amongst the lights of the Staples Center and the US Bank building.

But every once in a while something comes up or happens that makes me think that the city has to make some major changes if they want people and business to not only set up shop downtown but to stay.

Case in point - the smell of urine that exists around every corner. Look, I know there are a lot of homeless in Los Angeles and it is a problem that the local government and residents need to pay more attention too. At the same time if you want people to make their home here it can’t smell like pee on every block.

We walk Carter all around the immediate downtown core and the south park neighborhood and we can’t seem to travel a block without the strong smell of pee. There are some blocks where it is so strong that I have had to speed up the pace to get through it.

This is just one segment of a much larger issue: downtown L.A. is dirty. I lived five years in Chicago and was always amazed at how clean the city is, and so were guests that would visit. I found it interesting that after 3-4 days of my dad being here recently he commented on how dirty it is in the core, unlike Chicago.

I know the downtown improvement district has put a lot of garbage cans on the street and I see people picking up trash all the time. But I feel ‘dirty’ after walking outside some times and not in a good way.

Perhaps it is us being overly critical but I don’t think so - you can’t fake the smell of urine.