“It used to be that you couldn’t figure out where the center of the L.A. art scene was,” the New York–based art dealer R. Peter Miller said recently. “There wasn’t a core, there wasn’t an identity.”

But around 2001, Mr. Miller, who lived periodically in Los Angeles between 1994 and 2003, noticed that things began to change. “You’ve seen a bunch of gallerists grow up there,” he said.

An art scene that for many years boasted few galleries of international prominence now has several important clusters scattered throughout the sprawling city — in Chinatown, at 6150 Wilshire Boulevard, in Beverly Hills, Venice, and Culver City. What unites the new galleries, and the burgeoning art scene that has risen around them, is that they have found a way to use L.A.’s relative lack of tradition to their advantage.

“In New York, you can almost create a family tree of galleries. People were directors of one place before opening their own. People pay their dues along the way.” But, Mr. Miller said, “There’s enough space and economic power out there that people can gain momentum that’s not possible out here.”

Citing important newer galleries such as Blum & Poe and Peres Projects, as well as the fantastic rise of mega-dealer Larry Gagosian — whose empire now includes three branches in New York, two in London, and one in development in Rome, in addition to the original L.A. site — Mr. Miller mused: “My theory about L.A. is that you have interesting destabilizing galleries. The cultural norms of the New York art world are well established. In L.A., you have people coming as outsiders into the international art world.”

Mr. Miller’s theory is a variation on the major theme that emerged from several conversations with gallery owners, critics, and artists about the difference between the New York and L.A. gallery scenes. Everyone seemed to agree on the basic points: New York remains the nation’s (if not the world’s) undisputed art capital; Los Angeles is in the midst of a period of unusual cultural vitality, and driving from gallery to gallery in L.A. is hardly the same experience as an afternoon of gallery-hopping in pedestrian-friendly Chelsea. But the primary point of comparison — the characteristic that most clearly separates the two cultures — is youthfulness. The Los Angeles art world has come of age, paradoxically, by embracing its inexperience.

The contemporary gallery L.A. Louver recently celebrated its 31st anniversary, making it one of the few elder statesmen of the city’s art scene. For the gallery’s founding director, Peter Goulds, the rise of Los Angeles art cannot be separated from the growth of the city’s cultural life more broadly. Several significant developments, from the expansion of LA MoCA in 1979 and 1980, to the founding of the Getty Research Institute in 1983, to the development of a world-class philharmonic and major opera company, created a “cultural sense of urgency” that still animates the local fine arts.

But despite this growth, Mr. Goulds said, “L.A. in 2007 is still a culturally young city.”

Rebecca Campbell, an L.A.-based painter who has exhibited at L.A. Louver and at Ameringer & Yohe Fine Art in New York, said the vitality of West Coast art comes from its freedom from weighty tradition. “The scene in L.A. is more isolated and idiosyncratic,” she explained. “It’s like a game of telephone that mutates when it’s away from the source.”

Artist Peter Greene, who lived in New York for much of his life before moving to Los Angeles eight years ago, said the predominance of young L.A. is particularly evident at exhibition openings. He noted that while New York openings attract guests of all ages, in L.A., with the exception of a few collectors, everyone is young. As a result, the atmosphere is much more raucous.

This party atmosphere contrasts with the more intellectual feel of certain emerging New York galleries. An L.A. correspondent for Artforum, Rachel Kushner, said that L.A.’s newer galleries often try to emulate the blue-chip model of Chelsea stalwarts, whereas New York’s Lower East Side scene contains alternative spaces such as Reena Spaulings, Orchard, and Participant Inc. that have rebelled against the booming Chelsea art market with a renewed focus on political awareness and critique.

The presence of so many young artists in the Los Angeles area is a direct result of two factors: relatively inexpensive real estate and the region’s several dynamic graduate art programs, including those at UCLA, Art Center, Cal Arts, and Otis College.

The programs are not without their critics. Ms. Kushner described local MFA programs as an “endlessly generating feeder system,” with “certain teachers at certain schools giving the word — ‘come see so-and-so’s final show’ — to certain galleries. Everyone says this is frowned upon, but it’s structured into the system at this point.”

But Mr. Goulds said he believes that Los Angeles art programs have not only caught up with New York, but have surpassed it. “There are numerous vital art schools in L.A.,” he said. “I don’t believe that this is the case in New York.”

The painter Keith Mayerson, who got an MFA at Cal-Irvine and began his career in L.A. before moving to New York in the mid-1990s, disagreed. “There’s a freshness and vitality to L.A. art that you can’t deny. But in the past 10 years New York is starting to compete,” he said.

Where do young artists prefer to exhibit their work? If East and West Coast art schools are now seen as equally prestigious, there still exists a clear hierarchy between the two cities’ galleries. “It’s exciting to show in L.A., but it’s more exciting to show in New York,” explained Mark Grotjahn, a Los Angeles artist who briefly ran a gallery in that city in the late-1990s. His next show opens at Chelsea’s Anton Kern Gallery tomorrow.

“Young artists who start showing at a good gallery in L.A. can’t wait to start showing in New York,” he said. “I’m not sure it works the other way around.”