Eve does bring up one of my one big peeves about L.A. – and on more careful reading of the whole thread, I see that Bearflag70 brought it up as well – the fact that L.A. tends to tear down its history. We really need a more active/powerful historical society. A lot of great old buildings are gone forever, sadly.
As far as rent and cost of living – yes, it’s definitely higher than a lot of places, but it’s also nowhere near as bad as places like San Francisco and New York. Personally, I know that I’m currently paying less now for an (admittedly somewhat smaller) apartment here in L.A. than I was paying for one in Boston… eleven years ago!
Asylum - I hear ya; I grew up in Maryland. There are many things about the area I miss terribly; the proximity to the Smithsonian definitely being towards the top. Don’t miss the winters, though! And you’re right; radio out here blows. KROQ is absolutely terrible.
shelbo - I’ll have to check that Korean bbq place out – I’ve actually been spending a fair amount of time in that area, as a good friend just became the manager of the Starbucks right there, across from Bourbon Street Shrimp, and I’ve been there a lot mooching free coffee! I’ll have to pop over for some chicken. Hmmm… maybe I can befriend the manager of the bbq place and make it a day of mooching!
the ocean, while somewhat dirty, is nice to look at
1a) the coastal breeze and fog, both which cool down the damn-hot coastal and basin areas at times
the proximity to Las Vegas (~3 hours)
everything is spaced out instead of enclosed in several tall buildings within a few blocks
What I dislike about L.A.:
traffic
1a) people who don’t know how to drive and end up causing traffic
1b) people who gawk at accidents, slowing down to cause traffic
1c) spoiled brats on the road who drive in Lexus’ or SUVs when they barely got their driver’s license
1d) people who tailgate
rivers made out of cement
how everything is spaced out; forget about attempting to walk anywhere interesting if you live in the suburbs
the ridiculous gas prices compared to the rest of the nation
the quantity of wannabe racers and their supped-up cars that are lowered and have ridiculous rims, oversized spoilers and modified exhaust pipes
Regardless, I wouldn’t want to leave unless it gets too expensive to live here on a cobbler’s salary.
I grew up in New England, toured all over the country for a couple years, and now I’ve been in LA for about 9 months. My newbie’s guide to LA:
Don’t move here.
Ok, just kidding. It’s just that the traffic is bad enough and I don’t want ANOTHER car in front of me.
Cost of living is VERY high. Get a roomate or 5 to keep rent down.
If you smoke, don’t worry about not being able to smoke in bars. With a little hunting, you’ll find many smoke friendly bars.
KCRW (public radio) is the BEST public radio in the country. Incredible music, great programs. They make the boring weather almost bearable.
If you do move out here, can you bring me some cheap gas? Cheapest I could find today was $2.11/gal. Yikes!
The fastest I ever made it from LA to Las Vegas (85 mph average speed) was 4 hours and 15 minutes!
However, that brings up another quirk of LA folks:
No matter where you are, LA residents will tell you the best place to go for [fill in the blank] “is only 15 minutes from here”, when in reality, it is close to 45 minutes- 1 hour, if you are lucky.
(You could make it in 15 minutes, but only if you drive that route at 2:30 AM, in a Viper, on Christmas Eve.)
Hey Coldfire, that’s MY boring beach you’re talking about!
But we have great surfing here, and it’s nicest on foggy winter mornings when no-one else is there.
I like being close enough to LA to get there if I need to, but not too close! I like the beach, and I grew up down here, so this is what I love.
And we don’t ALWAYS tear down our history. My parents live in a beach house originally purchased by my grandparents, and it’s about 100 years old (after that, we couldn’t track it any further back). You have to remember, we don’t have a lot of history out here except for our natives’ history, and the missions went to great lengths to eradicate much of it.
That’s a fun road trip, BTW- follow the missions up the coast. A day’s hard riding was supposed to get you from one mission to the next IIRC. Mission San Luis Rey, San Juan Capistrano (don’t miss Serra Chapel), all the way up the line.
Earthquakes! I love 'em. The big devastating ones are rare, but at least once a year there’s a jolt strong enough to make you notice, but not do any damage. It’s like riding a roller coaster with no lap bar.
High Speed Chases. Not nearly as common as they used to be, but with our vast highway system L.A. does have more police chases per capita than any other city in the nation. When they do happen, FOX will usually show them from beginning to end, commercial-free. (One of them terminated half a mile from my house…it was LOUD!!!) I’m a roadgeek, so I take special pleasure in identifying the streets & freeways they’re driving on. No, seriously!
Not only Disneyland, but Magic Mountain, Knott’s Berry Farm and Universal Studios are great amusement parks to waste your money on.
I don’t get why everyone calls the weather “boring”. It’s so nice not to ever worry about taking an umbrella to work between May and October. Besides, I make a point every winter to log onto the Internet and complain to the East Coasters just how BITTERLY COLD the 50 degree nights are.
Traffic does suck though, and gets worse every year. Smog is nowhere near as bad as it used to be. But the mountains are beautiful, at least on the 10 days of the year when you can actually see them.
Watchootalkinbout, Willis! I’ve been in some bitchin traffic jams on Christmas Eve!
Okay, so it wasn’t 2:30 AM (:D), but I’ve learned that LA “rush hour” has very few boundaries. Traffic is heavy - ALL the time. Especially on certain road/highways.
KGS, you’re very right about one thing: Magic Mountain does rock hard indeed. God, I can’t wait to go back there to do all the cool rides again! Plus the ones I missed because they had 3 hour lines, of course.
This site is pretty cool after a big earthquake because it will give you the size, location and time of each earthquake in one or two minutes after it hits…way before TV and radio newspeople can even get back up from under their newsdesks and tell you that there was an earthquake that hit their studio!
Southern California’s problem with its history stems from a lot of issues. The primary one is that most people have moved here from somewhere else. Even today. And the people are from all over the world now instead of just all over the USA. So more people identify with their birthplaces than their Southern California hometown.
Size is another problem. Southern California is a BIG area. The city of Los Angeles is over 250 square miles. Los Angeles County is enormous. The County has 9 million residents. It has 88 incorporated cities. There’s a lot of history to keep track of.
Lack of scholarship is yet another problem. Southern California’s best history IMO was written in the 1950s (I believe) by Carey McWilliams in his classic “Southern California: An Island on the Land”. Nowadays the books that come out are written by Southern California’s Howard Zinn in Mike Davis (and opinions about him are quite divergent) or a booster-type in Kevin Starr.
The LA Conservancy works hard to preserve much of Los Angeles’ architectural heritage, but it’s a tough battle because there aren’t an overwhelming number of people who will go to the mat to save some old buildings.
If you want to see some cool pictures of Southern California history go to http://www.lapl.org then “Regional History Resources” and then search “Photo Collection”. Some great stuff there.
eep. How much do you guys pay to live in L.a? I mean really I know plenty of families(4+ people) whom get by just fine with a ~20,000/year income. My own included.
Hey! I worked there last summer! What a shitty mall!
Well, I live in Orange County (Mission Viejo at the moment, I’m slumming for a while!) and it’s hella expensive. I am embarassed to tell you what we paid for a 15 year old 4 bedroom house with a nice yard, but it’s a lot. The number might give Dopers in other parts of the US heart attacks.
Let’s just say that my car payment was more than most people’s house payments in other parts of the US, and my house payment is more than the monthly income of someone making $20K a year.
I’m not bragging, it’s gross. That’s why when people move out of CA but take CA dollars with them, they are way ahead. If you could make CA money without having to live here, you could be rich.
Actually it’s “the 20 minute rule” that all Angelinos are bound by. No matter how horrendous the lie, one must claim anywhere is just 20 minutes from anything. Hey, it’s Hollywood. People expect magic.
Traffic? Buy a fun car. Stock it with good music. Drink while you drive.
Expensive? Opportunity ain’t cheap. Ante up, raise, raise, raise, and either fold or cash out to anywhere.
Earthquakes? Just another opportunity to see the neighbors nude.
And of course by “drink while you drive”, I’m sure you mean soda, water, Gatorade and such.
No folks, we’re not a bunch of DUIs waiting to happen. Well, not all of us.
In terms of real estate, I just did an interesting exercise the other day. I grew up in Westchester, which is just north of LAX. I went to a real estate site and searched listings in the neighborhood. I was finding 3 bedroom 2 bath homes that were going for 400-500K. Some were remodeled, but most were just the basic tract homes that were built after WWII. Some of the nicer renovated ones were hitting the 600s. It’s friggin’ insane!
Hence “Cali-Vegas”…I can’t begin to tell you how many Californians sold their nice, but unspectacular, homes in CA for unbelievable $$$$ and came here to LV and bought a mansion with a pool and still have money to retire on.
Sorry to drift from OP…(poor fluffy is probably regretting ever having asked this question and she and her boyfriend are secretly packing up and moving to Manhattan as we speak).
