Forum to Address New-Media Concentration

Are industry-specific regional clusters good or bad for the communities that host them? The Westside Urban Forum takes up that issue Friday at a time when the large concentration of new-media companies west of La Cienega Boulevard faces its fledgling industry’s first major retrenchment. Could the Westside suffer as much from industrywide restructuring in the new-media sector as the South Bay did during the pullback of the aerospace industry in the early 1990s? What lessons can other cities and regions learn from the past as they foster development of their own industry-specific hubs? The session begins at 7 a.m. at the Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades. Call (310) 394-0253 for more information.