Hollywood is home.
For me, and for the industry I’ve wantonly thrown my life at.
The region’s importance to entertainment isn't simply that films and TV are made here. It’s that the people who make them still come here to find one another.
It’s impossible to grow up a pop culture fanatic without pulling an excited grin at the thought of a metropolis built around creation and storytelling. For people like me, Hollywood (and by “Hollywood,” I mean the entertainment capital, not the boulevard) was more a fantasy than a city.
When I got my college acceptance letter to USC (obligatory “Fight on!”), I told anyone who’d listen that I was moving to the City of Angels, where the palm trees outnumbered the rainy days by a factor of a trillion*.
(*I’m not a math guy. Someone fact-check that number.)
“Whoa, Hollywood!” they’d say with wide eyes and loaded expectations. L.A. wasn’t just a destination, it seemed.
Makes sense if you think about it. The weather. The beautiful people. A singular industry that’s shaped global culture for more than a century. Who wouldn't romanticize this place?
But beneath the ritz is something much more important. Hollywood has thrived because entertainers are here. Writers, directors, actors, craftspeople, execs, technicians, artists, and entrepreneurs, all living in the same creative community. They bump into each other at the Culver Hotel, eat chicken parm together at Dan Tana’s, and collaborate on weekend passion projects.
And while L.A.'s faced many headwinds in recent years, its role as the entertainment industry's creative epicenter is worth fighting for. Creative capitals generate value that can’t be reproduced with tax incentives alone.
Tinseltown isn't just a place.
It’s a magnet.
Hollywood’s Greatest Illusion
At some point in the mid-to-late ‘90s, I noticed that filmmaking had gotten its passport.
The X-Files clued me in. Washington, DC was really Vancouver. And was that the American Midwest in episode 10, or was it British Columbia? Today’s audiences have grown remarkably comfortable with the notion that one place can stand in for another. New York may be Toronto. A futuristic metropolis? Probably Atlanta. And we all know that most desert planets orbit the Australian outback*.
(*Assuming the project is shot on location at all, and not in a digital box.)
Practically speaking, I’m cool with that. It’s movie magic. The craftiness of a truly bonkers business.
The rise of global production hubs has been a huge boon for entertainment, expanding opportunities for filmmakers and communities around the world. The United Kingdom has become a global production powerhouse, Canada has developed world-class facilities in Toronto and Vancouver, and Georgia transformed itself into one of the largest production destinations in the States. New York, Louisiana, and New Mexico have built up thriving creative pipelines of their own.
These achievements should be celebrated. Great storytelling benefits from a diversity of locations, perspectives, and experiences. But the same forces that expanded media’s global footprint have simultaneously created a challenge for the very place where this industry took root.
For decades now, Hollywood has watched productions leave sunny Cali in search of lower costs, financial incentives, and untapped resources. What first accelerated in the 1940s as a way to take advantage of unique locations and international markets has become a highly competitive marketplace with the entire globe competing for the same productions.
Tax incentives have become a huge part of the conversation, as they should. California’s Film and Television Tax Credit Program is one effort to keep productions closer to home, supporting the workers and businesses that rely on them. As other regions more aggressively compete for attention, continued investment is essential.
But preserving the idea of “Hollywood” requires more than winning back individual projects. It demands that we protect the century-old creative ecosystem that made this place the “Entertainment Capital of the World.”
Because Hollywood’s greatest advantage isn’t that it’s the only place where movies can be made.
It's that this is still the place where us crazies who want to make movies find each other.
Soundstages Doth Not an Industry Make
A stage is a building, but an industry is a web.
It’s a community with shared heritage and infrastructure. It’s the camera operator who learned from a camera operator who shot the movie that made you pick up your first camera.
It’s driving through the San Fernando Valley and spotting the SFX makeup supply houses and creature shops that make you squeal, “That’s where Stan Winston created the T-800!”
It’s sitting in the “Beatles Booth” at Bob’s Big Boy, with the specter of David Lynch over your shoulder as you scribble your next masterpiece on a napkin.
If that sounds sappy and romantic, it’s because it is. This whole industry is built on a bit of romance. We’re a sentimental bunch, after all. That’s what you get when generations of dreamers, artists, and obsessives build something together.
Economists have a term for this: an industry cluster.
The modern concept, popularized by Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter, is simple: when companies, specialized suppliers, educational institutions, and skilled workers gather in the same place, they create advantages that are difficult to replicate from a distance. These clusters don’t just make industries bigger. They make them more connected, adaptive, and innovative.
Decades of subsequent research from organizations like Brookings have reinforced the idea that innovation clusters can generate economic advantages because ideas, talent, and knowledge move more freely.
Silicon Valley did it with tech, Nashville did it with music, Broadway did it with theatre, and Hollywood... well, you get the picture.
There’s inherent value in a creative cluster that can’t be seen on a quarterly balance sheet. It’s the introduction that sparks a collaboration, the mentor passing along decades of experience to an apprentice, or the unexpected conversation that solves some tangential production problem.
Magic happens when talented people are near enough to collide.
Chasing IMDb Credits Alongside Tax Credits
Runaway production isn't a new phenomenon, even if it’s snowballed in the last 25 years.
Hollywood has always looked beyond the 405 in search of lower costs, new markets, and unforgettable locations. What’s changed is the scale. Today, nearly every region with the ambition and infrastructure to compete is fighting for a piece of the entertainment economy.
And they should. The global growth of film and television is good for storytelling. More places telling more stories can make our industry stronger. And I certainly don’t want to watch a James Bond movie shot exclusively in Culver City.
This isn’t a case of “L.A. versus The World.” It’s a question of how Los Angeles remains the place where the next generation of entertainment is built.
The Los Angeles entertainment economy is clearly navigating a difficult transition. According to the Otis College Report on the Creative Economy, employment in California's film, TV, and sound sector remains well below its 2022 peak. Meanwhile, FilmLA found that Greater Los Angeles recorded its second-lowest year of on-location production in three decades in 2024.
So, what do we do about it?
To start, we compete.
Tax incentives matter. California’s expanded Film and Television Tax Credit program is projected to generate $6.6 billion in economic impact and nearly 35,000 cast and crew jobs in its first year. Fingers crossed, more help is on the way. Grassroots groups like Stay In LA LA are fighting hard to keep production in the region, so consider getting involved if you can.
But tax credits are just one piece of the puzzle. Public policy can create the conditions for success, and we need to fight for things like affordability, workforce support, and easier permitting.
A creative cluster also needs people. And people need to be able to live here. They need to want to.
Workforce development groups and global organizations like UNESCO have argued that sustaining creative industries requires continuous investment in training, mentorship, and career pathways, not simply infrastructure. Some of that requires that institutions do their part, but much of it is simply showing up for one another as the creatives we came here to be.
(Hey, creative types: here’s where I become all romantical again...)
Go make your movie. Seriously. Just do it.
Write your script, stage your play, or animate your cartoon. Work with hungry young artists and get it done, however you can. Trade the knowledge you have for the experience they need, and vice versa. Build a community. Make stuff instead of waiting for permission. Fill your downtime with creation rather than panic.
I know, I know. Easier said than done. This probably won’t pay the bills, and it certainly won’t fix the industry’s problems overnight. Still, creative momentum has a funny way of generating opportunities and opening new doors. Returning Hollywood to a place of artistic energy is a huge step in reviving the optimistic spirit that draws hopefuls from around the world.
But when those hopefuls come here, they need to be able to build a life here.
Creative capitals are fueled by ambitious people who are willing to take risks, but ambition needs somewhere to land. If the next generation of writers, designers, editors, technicians, and entrepreneurs can’t imagine a sustainable future in Tinseltown, they won’t get off the bus in the first place.
Los Angeles remains the country’s most established concentration of entertainment pros and businesses, giving the next generation unmatched opportunities to build careers through relationships. People come here because they believe that proximity creates possibility; that somewhere in this sprawling city is someone who’ll help their crazy dream become a reality.
And after "cough cough" years in the game, here’s one thing I know for sure:
If we keep that optimistic fire stoked, there’s hope.
Why I Stayed
Nobody moves here because it’s the easy choice.
I’m an East Coast transplant, and my first few years were buoyed by my college experience, an affection for cinema history, and more ambition than common sense. Eventually, the realities of L.A. life crept up on me. The cost of living, the lack of rain, the legendary traffic (though I’d rather move slowly on the 101 than be stuck in the middle of I-95 any day).
A few years back, I even entertained the thought of moving back home. After all, my family was 3,000 miles away, and that made it much harder to enjoy my mom’s famous Sunday gravy*.
(*Italian Americans will understand the very real struggle.)
But I stayed because I love it here. My people are here. And now I’m raising a family here as well.
Long ago, I found my creative cluster. The friends who became collaborators and mentors who became colleagues. All the wonderful weirdos who remind me why I first made the journey west. They didn’t leave either. Because this company town still represents something you can’t just recreate by building soundstages and edit bays.
Possibility.
Protecting the Magnet
Hollywood doesn’t need to be the only place where movies and TV are produced. It never really was. The future of entertainment should be a global enterprise, with thriving creative communities sharing their work with the world. That’s good for artists, and it’s good for audiences. And it can certainly be good for the entertainment business.
California doesn’t need to win every incentive battle, but it does need to compete on a level playing field with the rest of the market.
Beyond that, the industry needs an epicenter—one place that continues to draw risk-takers from every corner of the map. This isn’t just a whimsical wish. It’s a recipe for a strong economic engine that can sustain the region.
So, here’s the question I keep coming back to.
Ten or twenty years from now, is the kid stepping off the bus from Iowa still catching a glimpse of the Hollywood sign?
I hope the answer is yes.
You can build a studio anywhere, but you can’t manufacture a century of relationships overnight. This town has a gravitational pull that can’t be replicated anywhere else. And I don’t think it should be.
Hollywood should always be the place some kid in the middle of nowhere looks to and thinks, “Hey, maybe me?”
