Loaded question

[urbpan]

Oh, hey, it's the moving issue again! I have a lot to fill you people in on, but not just yet. Either my life is going to totally change in some really unpredictable way very soon, or my life will change in a much less extreme way a little further down the line. Is that vague enough?

So here's my loaded question:

What about Los Angeles?

Comments

[cdozo.livejournal.com]

It's too crowded for me, everything is too far away and the ocean is too cold. But they do have iFly. I could see moving to LA just for that. I would get a membership and fly every week. See http://www.iflyhollywood.com.

[mycologynerd.livejournal.com]

Oh you mean the most disgusting place on earth!

If you love nature in it's NATURAL settings, there is none in LA unless you consider the people new species.

I have more to say but it's all the usual gripes of LA. The smog, the traffic, the trash, the safety issues, the prices

[morgi.livejournal.com]

Nice place to visit but...

[yummykit.livejournal.com]

I've never been there, so my opinion is entirely based on what I've heard/read/etc. And I'm not sure how reliable any of that is.

My ex lived there for 7 years and hated it the entire time. Although he says that once you have Mexican food in LA, you'll never want it anywhere else. So that's a plus.

Traffic is supposed to be horrendous and public transportation is really difficult to use to actually get anywhere, from what I've heard.

I'm sure you could find nature SOMEWHERE within driving distance, so it might not be all bad and the mountains up in CA look gorgeous in certain areas. For a person like me, I think I'd be totally overwhelmed by LA. It is just so big. I feel overwhelmed by Seattle sometimes and it isn't nearly as big as LA.

Good luck with whatever happens! I'm sure there will be good and bad things about any move or any place....either way, it could be an adventure.

[donnad.livejournal.com]

Smog, traffic, crowded, fairly limited public transportation, touristy, even though we stayed with a friend who lives there, it was still touristy.
That was my impression when I was there a few years ago.

Oh and I agree with the above comment, best Mexican food I have ever had.

[nutmeg.livejournal.com]

My Aunt lives in the valley, but within city limits. I have spent a lot of my life visiting them, but never really was in charge of our activities until last winter. Within a mile of their house is access to hundreds/thousands of acres of public open space with trails, rock climbing, mountain biking. I was frankly shocked by that. Now it's not close to downtown and they have to commute to work at UCLA (though they've always only had one car and work in the same place so for them it's not as big a deal a for others). I happen to love the San Gabriel mountains, topanga canyon state park, and the state beaches north of malibu.

I would love to have access to that stuff and be in a different setting than the valley and have the opportunity for more of a city setting closer to the natural areas. But there is a reason a lot of people live in the LA area. It's quite beautiful.

[nutmeg.livejournal.com]

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/HfXT5LcJTgh23meI1WQNoGkERWepgUno2gA_EBH-SWw?feat=directlink

We took a hike here after dinner one night. it took 5 minutes to get there.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Not for me in a millon years, but cottonmanifesto wouldn't have to deal with months and months of winter, at least.

And it would be cool to get a whole new array of flora and fauna.

[zipotle.livejournal.com]

I visited there once after I married Carl. I thought it was kind of gross, you can see the layers of smog when you fly in. BUT it's close to the beach and the weather is awesome. We were in Pasadena pretty quick, and it was pretty there (from Cerritos). I did NOT like the traffic at all, but you already live in a crazy traffic city so you're probably more used to it than I am.
I'm sure it's still outrageously expensive but you'll have access to so much neat STUFF, food and the PCH!

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

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.

bleh

[dragonwrites.livejournal.com]

i've visited quite a few times and almost moved there (for love) despite knowing that i hated the city. the traffic is beyond awful. the place STINKS. the air quality is terrible even when there isn't a forest fire raging out of control. you can't get anywhere without a car, and you can't get out of the car unless you're willing to pay 10-20 bucks to park.

it's a city of facade. even the buildings are mostly false fronts. every housepainter, waitress, bartender, and schoolteacher is really an actor or a musician trying to hit big. friendship has a different meaning there. you can't depend on other people for anything--flaking out is just the southern california way of saying hello--and your friendship will be judged, in most cases, on what you can provide to others.

produce is inexpensive but restaurants are not. if you have a million dollars, you can buy a tiny bungalow on a postage-stamp sized lot. if you don't have a million dollars, you can forget about home ownership in LA.

there are some nice places in and around the city, but i can't imagine why anyone would want to live there unless they were directly involved with the "industry" and even then i still can't imagine. if you think you might want to live there, you should probably take a nice long trip there first to see what you're getting into.

[roaming.livejournal.com]

We drove through once. It looks like one big mall, flat and cheesy.

SF was nicer. And the air smells AWESOME in spring.

I'll ask my friend who moved there last year (her husband got stolen away from MIT to UCLA). She didn't want to go, she loves New England. They live IN the city. She was determined to find a way to like L.A. since they'll be there for at least the next 15 years, and she wants to be happy. So I'll ask her for a New Englander's viewpoint of L.A. and report back. (Though she grew up in Atlanta.)

[cdozo.livejournal.com]

I (just barely) know, via flicker, a herpetologist who lives somewhere around L.A., you might ask him. He may not know who I am, but he's very nice and he's always answered my questions.

See http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_horned_jew_lizard/.

[bill_sheehan.livejournal.com]

One of my recent blogs dealt with a visit to LA almost 20 years ago. I used to go to conferences twice a year, each in a different city, and would always try and arrive a bit early and do a walkabout to get the lay of the land and walk off the jet lag. I started to head out from the Hotel Bonaventure in Los Angeles, and asked the concierge which direction I head. He looked at me as if I had said "I feel like taking a stroll across the mine field to pick a live grenade. Shall I bring one back for you?"

When I did go out - in a car - I was appalled by the poverty in the shadow of great opulence. You quickly understood why the walled estates of Beverly Hills are walled. I remember making a comment about how handy those walls might prove, come the Revolution...

On the other hand, we did get out one night into the hills, and there are some lovely spots up there. LA sprawls a lot further than Boston, so it all depends on the neighborhood.

[wraithfodder.livejournal.com]

I was in L.A. once and I remember it was flat, and that if you don't have a car, it's tough to get around, and I never saw an animal until I got to Venice Beach where I saw dogs. L.A. is sorta sterile when it comes to nature. And oh yeah, the water was awful.

[momomom.livejournal.com]

My recent college grad daughter has lived in the valley for the last 4 years. We are from the east coast. Yes, I miss her but it is her dream come true. She is finally settled in her dream location of Venice Beach. Venice Beach is a very dog happy place. She is big in the fixed gear road bike group rides scene and has friends and more friends. She was carless the first 2 years, had a car for a sort of middle 18 months and is now getting rid of it because she doesn't want to own a car. She seems to manage but she does so with the help of car owning friends. She loves it there. Loves it. She goes on interesting weekend trips that include a lot of nature and she is at the beach tons of time.

[badnoodles.livejournal.com]

Admittedly, I didn't live in LA proper (which I might have liked better), but if I'd had to live in Southern California much longer, I might well have killed myself or someone else.

I hated the unvarying weather, the concentration of people, the fact that it took forever to get from point A to point B, the expense, earthquakes, wildfires, and the Byzantine bureaucracy for Every. Goddamn. Thing. I hated that the $10/ticket movie theater smelled like piss. I found the people to be pretty unfriendly, but coming from Boston, that may not be a problem.

On the upside, there's an ethnic food for every conceivable taste, and there's probably a lot of culture in LA. And if you like looking at mountains, there's a crap ton of them.

[lexica510.livejournal.com]

As a lifelong Northern Californian, I don't have many good things to say about LA, I'm afraid. (My family might disown me if I did.) Nor Cal, however... it's pricey here, but it's nice...

[anais2.livejournal.com]

This.

[urb-banal.livejournal.com]

What about Hell?

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

movies cost $10 for a matinee here.

[badnoodles.livejournal.com]

That wasn't the part that bothered me. $109 movie tickets just mean I didn't go to the movies very often. If was the fact that it cost $10 and still smelled like piss.

[bdot.livejournal.com]

i think you got a pretty good picture by what i read above! i lived east of LA...smoggy and hot. near the beach is nicer... just north of LA there are lots of hill and open spaces. it still gets unbearably hot sometimes though. norcal is the best though.

[bicoastal.livejournal.com]

I live in San Francisco and have only visited the LA metro area. I've heard both good and bad from friends who've lived there. But my impression is that it sucks for some people, but with the right attitude, it's kind of great. "Right attitude" meaning:

- you like outdoor activities and appreciate the phenomenal weather because it means you can do them all year long! You bike and swim and kayak and rock climb! You don't bitch that there aren't "real seasons" because, frankly, the desert is a "real ecosystem" too, and it's better to travel to the snow for skiing than have to shovel it out of your driveway. (yeah, the desert is manicured in LA, I know. It's still pleasant to smell the jasmine and see the bougainvillea. Keep in mind that I think SF is too cold.)

- you are willing to overlook or put up with the urban realities of poverty, crime and traffic in exchange for the humongous benefits of ethnic diversity, fantastic food and wonderful music, art, theater and cinema. Seriously -- so every waiter is an actor? That's not false, that's AMAZING, there's a billion shows to go to all the time, including cinemas showing small independent or vintage films. Most of the serious artists (you know, the kind who want to make a living with their art) I know in SF have moved to LA, including many priced out of SF. LA is way cheaper than SF.

- Killer shopping, including second-hand shops. Seriously, you aren't going to find better vintage, except in New York.

- There are alternate LAs, like there's an alternate anywhere else, so it is possible to find a tribe if that's important to you. You are good at joining activities and finding your own people.

- I hear from a lot of people that California in general is less "real" than the east. That's not my impression. My impression is that that it's harder to make an immediate bonding connection, the way one often does when meeting someone who clearly has a lot in common with you back east. You have to work for the friendship, and people will be friendly with you long before they have any emotional connection to you. The flip side of that is that I find people don't judge permanently based on their first impression, which I find gratifying, as it gives you the opportunity to prove your worth in deed. I can't speak to making friends in LA itself, though, not having lived there.

- Your reaction to spectacle is "NEAT!" not "ugh".

- You give it more than a year. Most people I know who move x-country have a "starter apartment" for a year or 6 months, during which they figure out in which neighborhood they actually want to live. True of both SF and LA. Also, you need to give yourself time to get over the culture shock - I HATED Boulder, the first Western town I moved to, but I think I could handle it a lot better now.

- Other "general California" thing: you have to be okay with being happy and seeing happy people all the time. Not everyone is happy here, obviously, but if your first impression upon seeing a genuinely happy person is that they are delusional, you will not enjoy yourself as much here.

- You like fruit. Seriously. Visiting my friend's dad in Santa Ana, we had fresh mangoes, jujubes, pomegranates and more every day. From the trees in the backyard.

Anyway, I'm biased - I love SF but think LA is cool too. Good luck with your deliberations!

[goldenmoonbear.livejournal.com]

LA is a whole lot of fun.