MacArthur Park in Los Angeles is an urban park that provides a great service to the city by providing a recreational open space outlet in a dense environment. However, it is also often associated with many of the ills that plague inner-city areas. Therefore, MacArthur Park has often been a conundrum. It plays a valuable and positive role within the city but is often enveloped by the issues of the surrounding area, and they often spill into the park. As a result, the reputation of the park and the area suffers as a whole. Unfortunately, this clouds the fact that MacArthur Park is well-designed and is situated squarely in the middle of an area that is extremely lacking in public open space. The lack of public parks and open space within the city limits of Los Angeles is a long-running and continuing problem. This fact belies the common outsider notion that Los Angeles is full of readily accessible parkland and open space all under nearly perfect weather. This is simply not true, especially in regards to the more inner-city areas of the metropolitan region.
The park is well-known for numerous things, both positive and negative. Among the positive is the park's picturesque namesake lake, MacArthur Lake. The lake dominates the sections of the park that is south of Wilshire Blvd., which bisects the middle of the park. The park is also famous for its view of the downtown skyline, which is the result of the park's close proximity to the downtown core of the city. However, the park has also long been associated with criminal activity. Historically, it has been a well-known and infamous spot for gang activity and violence. This reputation has soured the park's positive qualities for many in the community as they make efforts to avoid, which is unfortunate. Los Angeles has been an epicenter for gang life in the United States and, as a result, many of the inner-city's public areas have been infested with gang activity as the various gangs attempt to claim territory, and seek out usable spaces to carry out business. It is a multi-faceted social problem that no single park can even hope to solve. However, a well-planned and comprehensive effort by people invested in the well-being of the park can at least help in reversing the trend. In the 2000s, that has at least partially been occurring in MacArthur Park through a cooperative effort.
MacArthur Park has all the potential in the world to be a classic city park. It is one of the largest urban parks in the massive sprawl of inner-city Los Angeles, which is does not have adequate amounts of public space for its residents. The park provides a valuable outlet for recreation as well as being a cultural focal point due to its amphitheater and open expanse of lawn. Therefore, it is a popular gathering spots for protests and other similar events. Recent revitalization in the efforts in the 2000s have included the opening of a new recreation center, installation of surveillance cameras, a new Metro mass transit station, a renovation of the fountain, increased businesses and vendors, as well as new festivals in the park. This effort was largely put forth by local community leaders in cooperation with the Los Angeles Police Department. MacArthur Park is now hopefully on the way to fully taking back the space from negative and anti-social activity and becoming the grand public space it should be. A city as large and important as Los Angeles deserves as much.
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