Gabriel Kahn

Writer at Freelance

Writer and Editor at Crosstown LA

Articles

This Los Angeles Economic Warning Sign Is Flashing Red

2 weeks ago | citywatchla.com | Gabriel Kahn

BUSINESS - Fewer new businesses are opening in Los Angeles than during any period in at least the past 20 years, raising the specter of dwindling tax receipts at the very moment the city is confronting a yawning budget gap. In 2024, the city’s Department of Finance issued 30,452 new business licenses, according to publicly available data. That marks a 7.4% drop from the previous year and a nearly 50% decline from a decade ago.
This Los Angeles economic warning sign is flashing red

2 weeks ago | xtown.la | Gabriel Kahn

(A row of empty storefronts on Fairfax Ave.)Fewer new businesses are opening in Los Angeles than during any period in at least the past 20 years, raising the specter of dwindling tax receipts at the very moment the city is confronting a yawning budget gap. In 2024, the city’s Department of Finance issued 30,452 new business licenses, according to publicly available data. That marks a 7.4% drop from the previous year and a nearly 50% decline from a decade ago.
ADUs lift Los Angeles’s otherwise dismal housing market

1 month ago | xtown.la | Gabriel Kahn

(Image generated with MidJourney)Amidst Los Angeles’s otherwise out-of-control housing market, one bright spot is emerging: Accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, are popping up all over the place. ADUs are smallish apartments made from either converted garages or new structures erected on lots next to existing houses. They were made possible by a state law that went into effect in 2017 that stripped away bureaucratic hurdles.
Walking in L.A. - sidewalks are increasingly unsafe for pedestrians

2 months ago | xtown.la | Gabriel Kahn

Through April 12 of this year, 39 pedestrians in the city of Los Angeles were killed in traffic collisions, according to LAPD Traffic Division Compstat data. During the same period a decade earlier, there were 26 deaths. In the intervening years, Los Angeles launched a program called Vision Zero, spearheaded by then-Mayor Eric Garcetti. Its goal: Eliminate all traffic deaths in the city by 2025. For pedestrians walking in a famously unwalkable city, the opposite has happened.
Deadliest year yet for animals on the streets of Los Angeles

2 months ago | xtown.la | Gabriel Kahn

Last year, Los Angeles notched the highest number of animals being run over on record. This year isn’t looking any better. During 2024, the city received 32,398 requests to remove dead animals from the streets, according to records from the MyLA311 service data. That’s a 10% increase from the previous year and a 30% jump from five years prior. As any resident in the city has witnessed, the tally includes cats, possums, raccoons, squirrels and sometimes dogs or even coyotes.
How USC is transforming local journalists into data storytelling powerhouses - Editor and Publisher

Feb 26, 2025 | editorandpublisher.com | Gabriel Kahn |Bob Miller

... because we can tell stories about every neighborhood, not just every city … the question is, how do we actually get [the stories] that last mile, right?
Pandemic hangover: DUI crashes remain stubbornly high

Sep 19, 2024 | xtown.la | Gabriel Kahn

One hangover of the pandemic has been the stubbornly high number of collisions resulting from driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. It has contributed to the rising fatalities on Los Angeles roads, which last year outnumbered homicides in the city. This recent trend broke years of steady progress in reducing DUIs. In 2019, the U.S. recorded one of its lowest counts ever for DUI-related roadway fatalities since record-keeping began. That all ended with COVID.
Building slowdown could further tighten housing market

Jul 24, 2024 | xtown.la | Gabriel Kahn

(Created with Mid-Journey) The pace of new construction in Los Angeles is slowing, raising the specter of rising rents and a diminished ability to address the region’s chronic housing shortage. New building permits in the city of Los Angeles for the first half of 2024 totaled 1,831, a 10% drop from the same period a year earlier and down 60% from five years ago. Other indicators are also pointing toward a slowdown in construction.
Los Angeles’s homelessness crisis visualized

Jun 28, 2024 | xtown.la | Gabriel Kahn

For the first time in six years, Los Angeles was able to notch a small improvement in homelessness, as an array of county and city programs to move people off the streets and indoors began to make an impact. Homelessness remains the region’s most glaring humanitarian crisis. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority reported a drop of 0.3% countywide in its annual count (which takes place each January). The 2024 total of 75,312 is roughly the entire population of Upland.
Number of parking tickets issued in Los Angeles climbs slightly

Jun 26, 2024 | xtown.la | Jon Regardie |Gabriel Kahn

In the first five months of 2024, approximately 784,000 parking tickets were handed out in the city of Los Angeles. That is 6.4% more than in the same period last year. As always, failing to feed the meter or clearly read (sometimes confusing) signs packs a punch: More than 90% of the tickets this year carried fines of $50 or more. Yet there is a silver lining for drivers: Citation numbers remain below what they were before COVID-19. From Jan.