Even more than in Los Angeles, the problem with LEO space is, "There is no there, there."

You have to bring everything there to do something, and then you have to take it all away to sell it. That makes it the realm of communications satellites, spy satellites, weather satellites, and perhaps astronomy satellites looking outward, since photons travel so cheaply. If you want to move atoms to LEO and back, maybe big pharma can afford to do that on a regular basis, but even big pharma is more interested in doing research in LEO, then figuring out to duplicate their findings on the ground.

Think about when you see a boat just sitting in coastal waters. There are about 4-5 possibilities:

1. They are fishing. They are retrieving resources under the surface. Not analogous to LEO.
2. They are having a party. This is analogous to space tourism.
3. They are a research vessel doing research. Science is a rare activity, but it does happen.
4. Vessel in distress. I hope we don't see this in LEO. I'm not sure if _Columbia_ counts.
5. Rendezvous. Could be a factory boat, waiting for a fishing boat, or drug smugglers, or people smugglers, or perhaps a drone ship waiting for a rocket to drop down out of the sky. The LEO analogy to this would be a captured asteroid, or a processing spacecraft waiting for a captured asteroid, or a refueling station for an MCT, or an MCT waiting for a refueling supply flight. Maybe a space hotel for people waiting for a flight to the Moon, or Mars, or some other destination.

In the short term this does not look very encouraging.  To me it looks as if the LEO economy will have to wait until there is an interplanetary economy, or at least a Moon economy, before a "people in LEO" economy becomes significant.