People from the Midwest (home, live in, prices)

[lydunn]

Any people from the midwest that either love or hate southern Calif...especially LA. Or have any suggestions on what to expect besides immigration and illegals.

[merlin70]

Coming from the midwest, expect high prices. That will probably be the biggest factor, the cost of housing.

If you can get past that of course the weather is most frequently cited as a "love".

At least that's what my friend from Ohio says. I've never lived in the midwest personally. Have traveled throuhout it many times. My impressions are the climate is tough but the region is probably more family friendly than s. cal. Depends on what you want.

[Gulo Gulo]

Originally Posted by lydunn

Any people from the midwest that either love or hate southern Calif...especially LA. Or have any suggestions on what to expect besides immigration and illegals.

I love southern California for a variety of reasons. Primarily, I love the outdoors and all the open space. On one hand, southern California is more densely populated than southern Minnesota, where I grew up and lived for almost 40 years. On the other hand, in southern Minnesota almost all the land is privately owned, mostly for agriculture, whereas in southern California the land outside the urban areas tends not to be useful commercially. As such, there are thousands of square miles of mountains and deserts within federal and state land open to the public, some parks and some just empty places, waiting to be explored. Further, the land (for the most part) isn't covered by snow/ice several months out of the year, in contrast to southern Minnesota. I love the exceptional geographic diversity as well.

The weather is a big bonus. Not having to put up with days where the high temperature is double-digits below zero is nice, to put it mildly. And even when the weather isn't very pleasat in one area, it's usually nice somewhere nearby. There are a lot of microclimates in southern California. Whereas in the upper Midwest, if the temperature is 20 below zero, it's pretty much a given that it's extremely unpleasant everywhere else within a 300-mile radius.

In addition, I simply love how exotic it is compared to where I grew up. When you live in one place all your life, that place is home and represents what seems normal and usual to you. To me, deserts and mountains and the ocean, palm trees and cacti and bighorn, vineyards and orange groves, the cultural and ethnic potpourri, all of these remain exotic and fascinating to me.

There are drawbacks, of course. No place is perfect and every place has its positives and negatives. We all weigh them for ourselves and decide what we prefer. And I love southern California.

[lydunn]

Thanks for the responses. I can't wait to visit and yes I hear that it's very expensive but I can't let that hold me back. WISH ME LUCK