High-rise city

It has been thirteen years since a true skyscraper opened in Los Angeles—the last one completed was the 52-story California Plaza II tower on Bunker Hill. But once again, it seems, L.A. developers are in love with height. Twenty towers that qualify as skyscrapers (over 240 feet, or about twenty stories) are coming, with the new twist that they are mostly residential. The doozy, says Cara Mia DiMassa in a Times roundup of the trend, is a 50-story tower planned at Third and Hill streets downtown. There's also a 33-story loft building in the works for 9th and Flower streets. Author and urban observer D.J. Waldie tells her it all represents "an enormous transformation of the city we know to something unknown."

Photo is of the U.S. Bank tower downtown, the city's tallest building.