Living Cities brings Capital + Culture platform to Los Angeles before World Cup and Olympics

Living Cities is launching its Capital + Culture platform in Los Angeles as the city prepares for the FIFA World Cup and Olympic Games. The effort is aimed at answering who benefits when major events drive billions of dollars through a region, and whether local communities gain lasting ownership, contracts and wealth. Why it matters: - Los Angeles is set to host two global mega-events that will bring major spending, contracts, tourism, media attention and infrastructure work. - Living Cities is using that moment to press a bigger question: whether economic gains will reach the businesses, workers and neighborhoods already in the city. - The platform is meant to test whether major events can create shared wealth, not just headline-level growth. What happened: - Living Cities said it is bringing its Capital + Culture platform to Los Angeles ahead of the FIFA World Cup and the Olympic Games. - Joe Scantlebury, president and CEO of Living Cities, said the key issue is not whether money arrives, but whether people have a real chance to participate in the value it creates. - The announcement frames Los Angeles as a high-stakes example of how cities can connect global attention to local prosperity. The details: - Living Cities argues that growth and prosperity are not the same thing. - The group says economic impact reports often track how much money enters a region, but not who gets contracts, expands businesses, hires workers, builds assets, increases ownership or accumulates wealth. - The platform challenges the assumption that growth automatically becomes opportunity. - Living Cities says major events can generate large economic value while leaving host communities no better positioned than before. - The organization describes Los Angeles as a city where culture, capital, visibility and inequality all intersect. - Living Cities says the goal is broad-based prosperity, not prosperity for a few. - The group includes a more information page in its announcement. Between the lines: - The message is a critique of how cities often measure success after major events. - Living Cities is shifting the focus from total dollars spent to who owns, earns and benefits from that spending. - That framing puts pressure on public officials, sponsors and contractors to show concrete local impact, not just economic activity. - The release also signals that Los Angeles will be judged on whether the event legacy includes durable wealth-building for communities that host the events. What’s next: - Los Angeles will continue preparing for the World Cup and Olympic Games, with major public and private spending likely to follow. - Living Cities is positioning Capital + Culture as a lens for tracking whether that activity produces lasting local opportunity. - The longer-term test will be whether more businesses, entrepreneurs, workers and families gain ownership and wealth after the events end. The bottom line: - Living Cities wants Los Angeles to prove that a global spotlight can leave behind more than visibility — it can leave behind ownership and opportunity.