I just returned from another business trip to L.A. and, for the 500th time it seems, an associate implored me to move out to California because “life is so laid back out here.”
Huh? Laid back? From what I’ve seen, Californians as a group are about as uptight and cutthroat and driven as in any other geographical region in the U.S.
Heck, I’ve driven with southern Californians on the (Interstate) 5 dozens of times–it’s like a pack of crazed people trying to escape an impending nuclear explosion–swerving, flipping you off, tailgaiting, the works.
California a few decades ago may have been laid back and ultra chilled, but not anymore–especially in the LA and San Diego region.
I’m a native Californian. (Please don’t blame me for the accident of my birthplace.) From my perspective, Californians are not “laid back”. The driving force here is money. In Los Hideous (where I live) there are a lot of superficial people. This superficiality requires that people must own the trendiest car, live in the trendiest place, etc. To keep up with the trends, people need money. To get money, people work hard and are often “cutthroat”.
Sure people lay out on the beach and say things like “Whoa!” and “Dude!” But these “laid back” people are the same ones who the OPer saw on the 5. In L.A. people have a “big city mentality” (not surprising since L.A. County has 10,000,000 people in it – a county with a higher population than some states!). Maybe that’s why people think we’re weird? Because they’re the ones who are laid back? Compare Rodger and Jerri from Survivor. Which one was more “laid back”?
Of course, not everyone here is superficial or has money to burn. Salaries are high, but the cost of living is also high. There are millions of people who don’t keep up with the trends, either because they don’t care about them or because they can’t afford them. From what I can see, the poorer communities tend to be more laid back than the richer ones.
California is a diverse state. If you compare the southernmost counties (San Diego and Imperial) to the northernmost (Modoc, Siskiyou, and Del Norte), you would find nothing in common.
You might find some stereotypical “laid back” Californians in parts of San Diego, but you will also find a lot of middle class and lower middle class people in the rest of San Diego County. In Imperial County, most people are employed in agriculture.
Up north, you have a lot of unemployed loggers. They are not “laid back”. They tend to be disgruntled.
The “laid back” Californian image is based on the image of a very small percentage of indolent people who live along the Coast.
I remember someone actually did a study verifying that California urbanites walk slower than their counterparts in the Northeast. This squares with my own experience (and I’m from San Francisco, where there are actually pedestrians). I don’t know what that says, but it might at least foster the impression of mellowness.
Also, you gotta compare apples to apples. SF is pretty laid-back as cities go, IMO, but any big city is going to be more frantic than the countryside.
Another native checking in. I grew up in Venice (in LA county) and the above quote is the reason why I will never live in LA again. Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot to love about life in LA, but the negatives, IMO, far over shadow the positives. I am glad I escaped and never want to return. I still have nightmares about the traffic ( :: shudders at the memory of the 405 at 5pm on a Friday :
Oh, I dunno – I’ve lived in Los Angeles for over twenty years, and I’d say that Californians (or at least southern Californians) are fairly laid back. After all, if two leather-clad purple-haired lesbian punk rockers rollerbladed down the street holding hands, nobody in California would give them a second glance. Anywhere else in the nation and it’d be “Shut yer eyes, Martha, the weirdos are out today!”
[SUB](Heck, there are still huge chunks of the United States where you can get the hairy eyeball just by walking into McDonalds while not a Caucasian. How uptight is that?)[/SUB]
I live about an hour’s drive east of L.A. and I don’t go there much at all, for reasons others have already posted.
But I do notice that things seem to be a bit slower when I go to San Diego for a getaway. Or maybe it’s just because the area is different from my inland domain.
I did notice a definite slowing-down in San Clemente (passed through on my way to SD), though this could also have been due to the heat and humidity. There were lots of laidback surfer dudes coming into a little restaurant for carrot juice/wheat grass concoctions. And nobody in town was in any particular hurry, as far as I could see.
I wouldn’t say not noticing something like that is “laid back”. It’s just not paying attention to normal things.
Okay, I guess San Diego is laid back. I lived there until I was 15. IME there are two major groups in San Diego: The golf shirt and loafers set, and the pot-heads. Both groups are pretty laid back. And I suppose being able to have fires on the beach encourages kicking back. Of course there’s the military contingent. While the military is strict, it’s made up of a lot of 20-somethings who like to have a good time.
But I still think that in general people take things too seriously here.
I’m from San Diego originally, now San Jose. Spent plenty of time in LA and other places California. I have never considered CA “laid back”, and I’m surprised to hear the accusation. In fact, most Californians I know consider CA the heavy-duty center of enterprise and innovation, in the most heavy-duty center of enterprise and innovation country in the world. The only potential competitor is New York.
And I spent many a happy year surfing, and I still call everyone “dude”, but that’s quite different from being laid-back.
I’ve lived in the San Fernando Valley my whole life (Hopefully we’ll be able to secede from LA so we won’t be involved in their horrible political messes downtown), and I’ve never thought it to be “laid back”.
I agree mostly with Bill H. I think the whole concept of “laid back” Californians comes from the 70’s and 80’s. However, today California is land of the lawyer, the bureaucrat, and the businessman. Sure, some people have laid back past times and hobbies, but their whole life is a cluttered mess.
I think Johnny is pretty accurate as well (although I’m not sure if his attitude towards LA includes all of LA County. I hate LA, but I enjoy living in Woodland Hills. I also think West Hills and Agoura are very nice places as well.)
Los Angelinos don’t walk anywhere. The people walking are the tourists. If the natives do walk more slowly it’s because they’re not accustomed to using their legs for that purpose.
As a former East Coaster and present Bay Area resident, I’d have to say I’ve noticed it’s more laid back here. Can’t speak for the rest of CA, as I’ve never been south of like Santa Cruz or north of Davis. That whole Central Valley area is foreign to me too.
I mean, imagine if traffic lights on the East Coast were as long as they are here. There’d be riots and road rage all over the place! Not to even mention the traffic itself…
Really, Johnny nailed it about how L.A. works. It really is not a laid-back place, but there are parts of California that are. Part of the culture here is the strong media/entertainment influence–which is a competitive and cutthroat business, and a very strong part of our economy. Some people outside of L.A. probably didn’t know just how many people were holding their breath when the WGA (Writer’s Guild of America) threatened to strike.
I’ve always found Huntington Beach to be pretty laid back, but it’s mostly because you have a bunch of twenty-somethings and surfers living out there. Laguna Beach also holds that particular laid-back feeling also, mostly because of its artistic community and how it’s practically divided from the rest of (über-conservative)Orange County by Laguna Canyon.
I’m quite familiar with the drive that the OP described. My recent job had me driving the 5 from Lakewood to Burbank; even though I was driving off hours, I was all too familiar with the insane drivers that flipped you off for doing 80 in the fast lane (because I was too slow).
I was living in Salt Lake City in cheap student apartments. The apartment next to mne was occupied by a new intern. From California. So I tell him about my plastic surgery. I managed to run into a telephone pole face-first while bicycling and literally fractured my skull. (Kids: Don’t try this at home.)
“What happened?” he asked.
“I fractured my Malar bone,” I replied. (Accidents are, if nothing else, educational. The Malar bone, I learned, is the Cheek Bone.)
“Oh, Wow!” he replied, in vintage Californian. After a beat, he went on,“Where’s that?”
This was not meant as a joke.
This, to me, is evidence of severe laid-back-ness.
I direct you to my next sentence: “And I’m from San Francisco, where there are actually pedestrians.” San Franciscans walk everywhere (it is not a good driving city) but IME they walk slower than New Yorkers and Bostonians. The not-walking thing is purely an L.A. phenomenon.
I was born and raised in San Diego, and I always thought we were pretty relaxed, until I went to Florida. Those people walk slow, talk slow, eat slow, drive slow . . . I’m going to Germany at the end of the month. Then I’ll have something really different to compare us to!
