AN INSIDER'S GUIDE TO DOWNTOWN L.A.

Once a no-go zone, Downtown L.A. is now the most happening place in California. Regular visitor Mike MacEacheran takes a tour of the can’t miss, new-look spectacle that is DTLA.

Los Angeles has so much mind-boggling ambition it’s hard to know where to start. The dream-like hotels, malls and stucco hilltop mansions of Beverly Hills and the Hollywood Hills? The seemingly-impossible rides and theme park attractions of Universal City? How about the lip gloss-pink Pacific-coast sunsets of Venice Beach or Santa Monica? Or consider the movie star hangouts of Los Feliz or Silver Lake? These are all worthy places to check out during a visit to the City of Angels, but nowadays, there’s only one game in town that everyone is talking about. It’s Downtown Los Angeles, or DTLA.

In a city that loves a box office remake, DTLA has been given a Hollywood-style reboot over the past few years. From the outside, it looks like a hazy Manhattan of sun-glazed skyscrapers, housing little more than banks and insurance companies — a world apart from the L.A. of palm-lined boulevards and coupes beetling down the Sunset Strip.

But to not delve into Downtown’s streets is to miss a trick. To wander — or Uber, this is still L.A. after all — from Pershing Square to the Fashion District, or from the Staples Center to the Arts District, is to experience somewhere resolutely local. Somewhere fresh and changing. Somewhere veg-centric and concerned with microbreweries and street art. Somewhere to be savoured, rather than rushed. You can almost hear the whumpf and feel the change on the streets yourself.