Twenty-five years after the riots, L.A.’s economy has grown by leaps and bounds as real estate development and investment capital have brought businesses and jobs back to many parts of the region in desperate need of reinvigoration.

Coupled with taxpayers’ willingness to fund a slew of public infrastructure and transportation projects, Los Angeles is becoming the modern, well-connected home many of us have always hoped it could be.

Perhaps no greater microcosm of L.A.’s rebirth exists than the story of Silicon Beach – a once sleepy tech ecosystem that picked up steam after News Corp.’s acquisition of Myspace in 2005 and has established its own distinct identity through the success of companies such as Maker Studios and Snapchat and the numerous local venture capital firms that bankroll the entrepreneurs who form them.

Aerospace, an industry synonymous with Los Angeles since the Second World War, has also begun to again flex its muscle over the last few years through the help of Virgin Galactic and Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, among a number of other upstarts. What’s more, L.A.’s twin ports are among the busiest in the world and have seen a number of upgrades over the last decade.

But what of South Los Angeles?

It remains to be seen how far inland the transformation wrought by the above industries can go, and in a manner that does not gentrify out longtime residents. That, some 25 years after the riots, remains a vexing problem. The eastward push of Silicon Beach and the forthcoming Inglewood stadium complex and two National Football League teams are among the factors contributing to increased land values and higher rents across the region. What’s lacking still is economic opportunity in the communities hardest hit by the unrest – a key factor leading to the violence.

With the tech economy to the west, aerospace industry to the south, and the rapidly expanding real estate market of downtown, Koreatown, and West Adams to the north, it’s long past time for someone to place a bet on South Los Angeles and ensure that the transformation of Los Angeles into a 21st century economy does not have a giant hole in its center.