Listening to all the posters that live around LA gives the impression that downtown LA is horrible, for various reasons (dangerous, dull, boring, dirty, empty ... take your pick). Certainly there is some truth behind this, but the LA of today is greatly improved from a few years ago -- and as a tourist, who is very familiar with LA, there are lots of great things in downtown and it is not a bad place to stay. But you do have to know your way around and what you are doing -- and that takes too long to explain in a post on FT. Five years ago I might have agreed with all the nay-sayers about downtown, but now downtown LA can be one of the best things about LA (though you really have to dig to find that!). Of course the whole LA basin is peppered with hidden gems (great cheap neighbourhood restaurants, stores and things you don't find in most cities), but downtown is starting to be reborn, in a great way.