downtown los angeles at night

 Where there's an actual nightlife with bars and restaurants like around the Staples Center is generally fine. The Artwalk that happens once a month is cool. The area around Pershing square is ok for the most part. Wherever the restaurants and bars are, it's ok for the most part. The cops tend to patrol the areas of interest pretty well to maintain enough safety to enjoy your time there. There are street people and homeless walking or hanging around, but that's pretty much every downtown area of every major US City.

Skid Row, or any area that you see a lot of tents and shopping carts on the sidewalk are good areas to avoid.  If the area feels like a ghost town because everything's closed at night, unless you're going to some party in that neighborhood, it's probably a good area to avoid. The area around the Greyhound Bus terminal would be an area that I'd avoid.

As always, common sense is always your friend who should be listened to. If something feels sketchy about an area, then it's a good idea to heighten your awareness while there or possibly avoid it altogether.

While much of Downtown LA has been labeled a dangerous place at night, I feel safer in much of it than just about any uptown neighborhood above the 100's in Manhattan. The Tenderloin District in San Francisco seems sketchier to me too. Same goes for much of Baltimore and Philly. Now those are places that I really feel unsafe in their general downtown areas at night.