Los Angeles is about to get a major new Gehry – the Disney Hall. “For 50 years it’s been the world’s archetypical sprawling, privatised, centreless city of gated suburbs, fast food, fast, flashy architecture, malls and freeways; a city in which you need never sully your toes by touching a sidewalk. But now that Beijing, Shenzhen and the North Circular are out-LA-ing LA, LA has decided to become Paris. It’s been quietly turning its downtown into a proper city centre, like it used to be 80 years ago, before the car screwed it up. It’s introduced old-fashioned public space without security guards, lofts, pedestrian (gasp) boulevards, and posh, properly public buildings such as Rafael Moneo’s masterly Roman Catholic cathedral, and, the linchpin, the Disney Concert Hall.”