tell me something I don't know

Over dinner the other night, a friend was discussing his recent conversion to LA boosterism and mentioned that he wasn't the only one. Los Angeles placed first in Hub Culture's 2007 Zeitgeist Ranking of Top 10 Cities and the New York Times just can't get enough. Sunday's edition alone had love letters to both Culver City and Gehry's proposed Grand Avenue development. From Hub's rationale:

A controversial choice? Sure it's big, but LA is finally hitting on all cylinders: fashion, tech, entertainment, and overall groove. American Apparel is changing fashion with vertically integrated manufacturing. LA's skull and bones indie rock fashion dominates globally. Myspace culture is taken for granted, everywhere. New walking areas and urban regeneration projects, from downtown to Malibu to Hollywood, make the city much more palatable than before, despite the endless crush of traffic. Entourage and other shows, from the OC to Laguna Beach, have moved the collective consciousness west. All in this and more help make LA the city of the moment: the energy is positive, its power is on the rise, and people everywhere have LA on their mind.

And they barely touch on things that actually make the city great. (LA Voice has the rundown of Hub's has-beens.)