Is LA really under siege with all these riots? This article and map shows it really is not.
Los Angeles is a sprawling metropolitan area that’s home to nearly 13 million people. Unlike a lot of big cities, it doesn’t have one main population center. Angelenos are much more spread out than New Yorkers or Chicagoans. Most of the protests this week have taken place in a radius of just a few blocks of downtown L.A., where City Hall, LAPD headquarters and a federal detention center are clustered together.
SoCalGIS.org 
Should change the name to ‘protest map’ as the figure is identifying protests. Language matters in the narrative we create.
Ryan Thomas
Map titles and legends are important for sure.
Remember that this is sourced from Yahoo! News which isn’t the best… Regardless, I know you’re correct. Greater Los Angeles has a population of ~ 13 million people, but the city itself is 4 million and even that is spread over a large area. I suspect the real problem is that the protestors have been deliberately obstructing roads and freeways, which is highly disruptive to the population of the greater LA area, i.e. the 13+ million. People can’t get to and from work, including city employees.
P.S. I’m appreciative you shared the Yahoo! News article, because it starts with a huge photo of a very angry man shouting into a bullhorn, white women wearing keffiyehs, and someone holding a sign with “All Pigs Are Class Traitors”. Combined, it made me lol 🙂
Ha!
I’m disgusted that you call this a riot map. There is a big difference between a peaceful protest and a riot. Even the bad actors – miles away from last week’s protest – who were breaking into Apple, CVS, and other stores were not what you would call a riot. We call those smash and grab burglaries. Those criminals were taking advantage of there being a protest going on at the same time and calling LAPD’s attention away from them. Let’s be clear. Peaceful protests are legal and our right! But those bad actors that want to create chaos are the ones trying to undermine our democracy the most. But don’t confuse the two.
Just the messenger here, not my article or map. Found the article and map and thought I would share because there was a map and this forum is all about spatial data and maps.