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Los Angeles risks becoming the "next Detroit"

2025-04-19 19:46:13Lifestyle SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Los Angeles

Hollywood insiders have warned that Los Angeles is at risk of becoming the next Detroit, amid fears that the city's decades-long status as the capital of television and film could come to a swift end if entertainment productions do not receive immediate tax breaks, realtor.com writes.

Amid a huge increase in the number of celebrities leaving LA for places like Texas and Florida, industry insiders have now raised the alarm about the huge drop in the number of entertainment projects being completed in Hollywood and across California.

Those fears were the focus of a meeting on April 14, where lawmakers and film producers sought changes to the state's entertainment production tax incentives to cover up to 35% of qualified expenses and also expand the range of productions that would receive these subsidies.

"It's not hyperbole to say that if we don't act, the California film and television industry will become the next Detroit machine," said producer Noelle Stehman, a member of the "Stay in LA" campaign who spoke at the event, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Detroit was once seen as the center of America's auto manufacturing, with three major car manufacturers headquartered there: General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler (now known as Stellantis).

However, in the 1960s, those companies began moving their factories to the suburbs, taking with them large numbers of workers and former Detroit residents.

Now, Stehman believes that the Los Angeles entertainment industry could follow suit, having already lost significant ground to its competitors in recent years.

While many entertainment executives live in Los Angeles, state Senator Ben Allen said that will do little to help the city retain the lion's share of production if housing costs in the city are too high for middle-class workers.

"Studios don't care where they do the work. They'll do it anywhere," he said at the event.

"They're still producing shows. What a lot of our colleagues just don't understand is that this is a middle-class problem," he added.

The middle-class problem Allen refers to is the high cost of living in Los Angeles.

The median income in the city is currently $95,625, but the median home sales price in 2025 is almost 10 times higher ($965,300).

This number has increased by almost 50% from 10 years ago, when the median income was $63,000 and the median home sales price was $525,000.

Entertainment workers have long called for California to offer larger, more readily available tax incentives, with the support of Gov. Gavin Newsom, who pledged in October 2024 to increase film incentives from the current cap of $330 million to $750 million.

Los Angeles risks becoming the "next Detroit"

Lawmakers hope they can keep the film and television industry thriving by offering tax breaks.

Newsom's proposed bill, SB630, would also increase the credit to 35% by expanding the category of eligible productions to include animated titles, shorter television shows and certain other projects.

A recent report from the nonprofit FilmLA showed that production in Los Angeles decreased by 22.4% in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024.

These productions included commercials, feature films and television shows – with the report indicating that the drop in numbers had little to do with the recent fires in California, which mainly affected areas rarely used as filming locations.

“The loss of the opportunity to film in no way compares to the cost of the fires in terms of loss of life, displacement of residents, and property damage,” FilmLA Vice President of Integrated Communications Philip Sokoloski said in a statement.

"The fires forced many productions to try to reschedule filming and displaced hundreds of industry workers from their homes. But their impact on local filming levels appears to have been temporary," he stressed.


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