There's a lot of ignorance going around about southern California. It's actually replete with open space and close to actual wilderness of various kinds. There are some very large parks in LA. It's also in the throes of an ecological makeover -- ever since they lost the Mono Lake case and they've had to cut way back on water consumption, the city has embraced it and is making great progress. And every palm tree that dies is being replaced by a more sensible city tree (that is, one that is unthirsty and provides shade -- and I think they're taking bird-friendliness into account).
Culturally, anything you want, you can find, with some effort. You don't _have_ to live the stereotypical LA life. If you can take the time to choose your workplace and home appropriately, you won't even need a car, believe it or not. There's a decent transit system for getting relatively long distances, but it's not well-tuned for getting short distances, so for carlessness you would want to have a bicycle. Distances are kind of long to get much done on foot, though, except in certain areas -- Santa Monica and Venice come to mind, though I think Venice is expensive these days. Santa Monica has had some fairly progressive city politicians in the last couple-few decades (I don't live down there and I can't swear to the current state of politics).
I think if you're wanting to get away from cold winters, and you're willing to put in the effort to find what's good in LA, and the opportunity arises to move there, you could do a lot worse.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2010-10-05 12:02 am (UTC)Culturally, anything you want, you can find, with some effort. You don't _have_ to live the stereotypical LA life. If you can take the time to choose your workplace and home appropriately, you won't even need a car, believe it or not. There's a decent transit system for getting relatively long distances, but it's not well-tuned for getting short distances, so for carlessness you would want to have a bicycle. Distances are kind of long to get much done on foot, though, except in certain areas -- Santa Monica and Venice come to mind, though I think Venice is expensive these days. Santa Monica has had some fairly progressive city politicians in the last couple-few decades (I don't live down there and I can't swear to the current state of politics).
I think if you're wanting to get away from cold winters, and you're willing to put in the effort to find what's good in LA, and the opportunity arises to move there, you could do a lot worse.