Wu Chao (left), Los Angeles general manager of Greenland USA and Winston Yan, chief technical officer of Greenland USA in Los Angeles at the amenity level of Tower I of Metropolis, with Tower III and Tower IV in the background. [Photo by Lia Zhu/China Daily]

"For various reasons, cultural and land restriction reasons, for many years, buildings could not be taller than the city hall, which is about 20-storyies high," he said. "So you never had the inner city growth.

People grew out into the suburbs." That started to change 15 years ago when the Staples Center and Ritz Carlton and JW Marriot hotels came to Los Angeles, and "that's been really accelerated by Chinese developers," said Anderson.

Now those developers, such as Greenland, Oceanwide, Shenzhen Hazens and Lifan, are pumping billions of dollars into the city, adding thousands of new residential units in high-rise towers.

Stephen Cheung, president of World Trade Center Los Angeles, said Los Angeles is going through a renaissance that "we haven't seen in decades". "Looking at the population and the industry growing, you start seeing a new vibe that we haven't experienced before," he added.

In the last 15 years, investment in downtown has exceeded $15 billion, and the weekday population has expanded to more than 500,000.