Always on the Clock

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There is a profoundly radical idea that could change the way we organize our daily lives and manage our time here in Los Angeles: a 24 Hour Street – a place where any Angeleno can go to access basic business and municipal services any time of the day, any day of the week.

This new street would completely transform the way we interact with public and private services, create more jobs and add desperately needed tax revenue to our anemic economy.

It would also fundamentally alter our approach to time management and give us dramatically more personal freedom and flexibility, something we all desire.

With our new creation, we wouldn’t feel as rushed, as stressed, as victim to the lack of time in our lives. Our current alternative to 24 Hour Street, however, is a status quo that forces us to cram our chores, business hours and social activities into a conventionally narrow and limited time frame. As a result, our health, relationships and well-being severely suffer, creating more chaos and less control in our lives.

But we can change all of this. 

We have already successfully proved we can build new and innovative types of mixed-use mega-attractions – the Grove, L.A. Live and Hollywood & Highland come to mind – and we can re-create this magic again. A new, breathtaking 24 Hour Street strategically located near one of these beautiful enclaves – or perhaps even at one of them – would re-energize our region and give us a stunning amount of control over our time. No amount of multitasking or strict scheduling would ever come close to creating more hours in the day that we all desperately seek like this could.

Pride and growth

24 Hour Street would symbolize fun, innovation and vitality, and be both a great source of pride and financial growth (with the caveat being, of course, that we wait until the economy and tax revenues recover). It would enhance and amplify our already beautiful artistic, cultural, technological and economic ecosystem. And it would represent everything Los Angeles believes itself to be and is – a dynamic and forward-thinking region willing to be boldly avant-garde.

Creating a space where we would have almost complete control over our nonwork time, schedule and life would be one of the most creative and positively disruptive leaps in our rich history. And it would open up a vast amount of new opportunities, too: dry cleaning at midnight; banking after 6 p.m.; 1 a.m. haircuts and pedicures; DMV errands after work.

In other words, 24 Hour Street would allow us to do things we would normally have to take time off for or rush to squeeze in – thereby increasing our stress levels and proclivities to accidents. Even further, 24 Hour Street would dramatically alter our perception of time, how we organize our daily lives, and how we interact with businesses and targeted municipal services.

Whether we wear a white collar, blue collar, green collar or no collar, our new innovation would really shake things up in our lives and region. And it would affect each of us personally, too: We would all either individually (occasionally) use it or probably know someone who would use it – a nocturnal friend, a family member with insomnia or an overworked colleague.

On the retail and consumer side, 24 Hour Street would:

House big-box supermarkets; professional dry-cleaning services; dental, eye, and health clinics for non-emergency checkups and appointments; retail shopping that mixes chains, high-end stores and novelty outlets; fitness facilities; hair and beauty salons; commercial banks for when you need more than an ATM or online money transfer; real restaurants; pet care stores; currency exchanges; and a host of diverse shops.

In terms of municipal services, 24 Hour street would:

Offer a DMV for when you can’t spend two hours in line because you have a day job; provide post office support; have a substance abuse facility and recycling center; a job placement unit; disability and mental health support offices; small business assistance; and a score of other essential municipal services that you can’t currently access after working hours.

Now, don’t be fooled, though: 24 Hour Street won’t be for everyone. But there is enough of a market now – our abundant freelance artists and independent contractors, busy young and working professionals, and others – to incentivize and justify creating an exciting new opportunity for all of us to break free of our old and conventional time constraints.

If we pull this off, we can give ourselves more choice and control over our lives, better balance our schedules, create yet another blockbuster attraction and start an exciting new trend that many other world-class cities will soon follow.

Making this profoundly radical idea a reality would be a seismic leap into the future. 24 Hour Street would open up a whole new world of possibilities.

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