Can Lebron James Make Los Angeles Great Again?

Excerpted from an article that first appeared at The Orange County Register.

With his decision to move to Los Angeles, LeBron James has given our metropolis another reason to feel good about itself. When it comes to sports, and celebrity, Los Angeles’ lead is only growing, as evidenced by the recent movement of two football teams to the area, the proposed construction of a new basketball facility for the Clippers and the winning of the 2028 Olympics games.

Los Angeles is clearly winning the battle for sports screen time. In choosing Southern California, James effectively dissed Cleveland, no great rival, but also wannabe Houston, which he apparently has no fondness for, as well as Philadelphia and Boston, two attractive traditional basketball junkie centers. The fact that New York, America’s other megacity, was not even in the discussion might constitute the sweetest message of all.

Read the entire piece at The Orange County Register.

Joel Kotkin is the Roger Hobbs Distinguished Fellow in Urban Studies at Chapman University and executive director of the Houston-based Center for Opportunity Urbanism. His newest book, The Human City: Urbanism for the rest of us, was published in April by Agate. He is also author of The New Class Conflict, The City: A Global History, and The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050. He is executive director of NewGeography.com and lives in Orange County, CA.

Homepage photo credit: Keith Allison, via Flickr, using CC License.