where is the core part of Los Angeles?

[traininthedistance]

Eh, even in the old Northeastern cities the city boundaries don't always have a perfect relationship to what's actually the "city".

For example, the city lines don't reflect where Boston really is, but for the opposite reason.  Boston "really" should include at least Cambridge and Somerville.  In Philly, the far far Northeast is really of a piece with Bucks County instead.  Though Baltimore and NYC's boundaries are just about "right", except that Staten Island probably deserves to be in New Jersey instead.

And, frankly, it's actually better policy to do what cities like Louisville and Indianapolis have done, merging with most of their suburbs to create one big municipal unit that reflects the metro area and cuts down on redundancies.  The cities in the Northeast sensibly were doing this in the late 1800s, but then they got penned in.

[traininthedistance]

Staten Island probably deserves to be in New Jersey instead.

No thank you.

Oh I'm well aware that New Jersey doesn't want any part of Staten Island.  And I don't blame them.

[traininthedistance]

Los Angeles doesn't really have a core part, because it's one of the most poorly designed cities on the planet. The population density is just way too low for a city of its size.

The funny thing is that if you take a look at the metro area as a whole, Los Angeles is more dense than New York.  Really.

http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2012/03/los_angeles_density_urban_new_york_census.php

The area is hemmed in by mountains and climate, so the suburbs are closely-packed by American standards, and you don't really have any quasi-rural exurbia to speak of.