As an Northeasterner, I am amused at the poor condition of single-story commercial buildings in California, particularly Los Angeles.
You don't see many buildings of that type built before 1970,
particularly in New England, because they are poorly built and the roof starts to leak at some point. In the Northeast that is reason to rebuild, in LA you can probably manage a leaky roof with a bucket for much longer.
I love LA, was born there.. have moved in and out of the place a dozen times in my life. I don't live there now, but I visit often, and I am drawn tor return again, permanently.
I've always said that LA is beautiful at night, and pretty ugly during the day. That can be more or less true depending where in LA you're looking, but some of my favorite places in LA are absolutely hideous by the light of the day. But after dusk, same places can be magical.
Some of those old houses are built really beautifully, but there were a lot of shanty buildings that have been patched and patched. But some of the trees between those shanties are old and gorgeous. Somehow it works, but it's not a model for anything else.
Please give some examples of your favourite/magical places in LA! (As a foreigner I've gotten the impression that LA is a huge superficial city without a soul. Would like to balance that with something else.)
I've lived in LA for many years. The impression of superficiality might come from people expecting LA to be one city, when it is actually many cities with their own downtown and culture centers. Also, visitors tend to drive too much, which isolates them to touristy areas.
Some of my favorites:
1. Old Town Pasadena
2. Baldwin hill Overlook
3. Little Tokyo and Sawtelle
4. San Gabriel / Alhambra (Chinese food)
5. Signal Hill / Downtown Long Beach
6. Melrose and the area near Laurel Canyon
I could go on, but really there's gems everywhere. I've found that LA is more so a place you live than a place you visit, despite it's reputation otherwise. It's packed to to the brim with artists, developers, and good food, and there's space to stretch.
Not really hacking news, but file this under lifestyle.
I’m moving out of LA and this post highlights why. Yep those places are great. In a typical Angelenos year they’ll see maybe one of them. None of those things are near each other. The ones that are sort of close are in reality an hour+ apart because of traffic.
I have friends scattered throughout the city and we never see each other. Even the ones who live just a few miles away don’t want to leave their neighborhoods ever because.... traffic.
My dream job is in LA. I love the idea of LA, just don’t like living here. That’s just me tho, lots of people do really love it :)
Werner Herzog describes LA as “the city with the most substance anywhere on earth”. The thing with LA is that it can be anything. It’s so huge, and so diverse that you can find absolutely anything your heart desires there if you seek it out. There is the superficial glamour of Hollywood, but also the high tech cutting edge manufacturing of aerospace, endless immigrant communities from every corner of the world, every food imaginable, even family friendly enclaves of community. LA requires that you know what you are doing and what you want; it wont drop anything in your lap. But the heights of experience to be had there are like nowhere else.
Don’t forget that to experience all this wonderful stuff you have to contend with one of the worlds worst traffic problems.
I called LA home for two decades and the transportation hell largely kept me in my general community. Going to Pasadena from the Westside is a full day commitment, unless you leave at sunrise on a Sunday.
- Majority of city (outside old towns) built after WWII with an emphasis on brutalist 60s suburbia.
- Prop 13 and the NIMBY revolution that cemented it in for the long haul.
It's only in the last five years or so that extreme economic pressure has enabled new buildings over two stories (gasp) to be built outside downtown, while NIMBYs scream bloody murder.
As an Northeasterner, I am amused at the poor condition of single-story commercial buildings in California, particularly Los Angeles.
You don't see many buildings of that type built before 1970, particularly in New England, because they are poorly built and the roof starts to leak at some point. In the Northeast that is reason to rebuild, in LA you can probably manage a leaky roof with a bucket for much longer.