Is Lancaster / Palmdale as horrible as they say?? (Los Angeles, Victorville: ski resort, hotel)

[myntk12]

Having lived here now for over 3 years, my family resides on the west side of town which would be west of the 14. I believe anything west of Division is considered West, however most people tend to use the 14 freeway as the real split. Many enjoy living in Quartz Hill which is a small part of Palmdale south of Lancaster and West of the 14. Just don’t tell residents there they live in Palmdale. EEEK! They have the nicer schools.

We moved here from the inland empire area which is so densely populated it could take an hour just to get across the freeway at rush hour. Not so here. We can go out to eat, shop, drive around, anytime we want without the major traffic that is the norm down the hill.


SCENERY
The sunsets can be incredible and due to the vastness of the flat land some nice pictures can be taken. Access to the 5 and 14 are easy and there are plenty of roads that will take you north into the mountains. There are also a few nearby lakes which are never crowded.

HOUSING
Real estate now is very affordable. How about a nice 2900sqft newer home for $250K? There were a ton of empty homes last year as well as many up for sale but that has changed dramatically. Blight is not common on the west side.
Section 8 is common though and the mayor is a huge supporter of the program. This could bother a few , not others. The mayor being a stand in position as the obvious qualifications are not very high.
Property taxes are a bit higher-it is LA County-sorry.

CRIME/GANGS
Crime here is much lower vs where we came from and we have not experienced nor witnessed anything (knock on wood) . Sure there are scumbag lowlifes here, but they are also present everywhere. We actually had more crime in Redlands than here, by far.

Someone mentioned white supremacist. If there are then they must hide it very well as I have yet to meet even what some would consider 'white trash in Chevy/Ford trucks'. Not even a hint of this up here.

Gangs-I'm sure there are some the same as Beverly Hills, Poway, etc. but again, does a young black man in a Malibu or Fusion mean he is in a gang? If visions of tagging, people hanging out on the street corner, and other vices of LA come to mind, nope, not here at all.

TRAFFIC
Very little. Pick a place, anytime, and just go there. Simple as that. Now a few of the restaurants can get crowded at times but there are plenty of obscure little hole in the walls that can be found. There is no hi-end eateries up there, just your typical Black Angus, Red Lobster type of place.

WEATHER
Summers can get hot and the winters do get cold. Our first year it got down to 15 degrees but has not come close to that since. Summers have also been mild recently. We even had a freak snow storm last year with real snow. Lasted a week. Very little in the way of rain, but wind is in abundance. Nights are very clear (hey, it is a desert after all).

SHOPPING
Plenty of Targets and Walmarts including the mall which is nice. No Rodeo Drive, but plenty of options for someone on an average salary.

FUN
What is there to do here? Water park, lakes with fishing (no water craft I believe), ton of hiking, minor league baseball stadium which is clean and nice, and the fair which sponsors a wonderful annual fair the kids will love as well as many concerts, they also have off track betting I believe (I’m not a gambler) . There is also a small airport north of town for those that enjoy flying. Magic Mountain is only 45 minutes away off the 5. And of course down the hill is the rest of the world.

PROS
1) Very little traffic
2) Low crime on the west side
3) Easy access to shopping
4) Seasons. Summer is hot, winter is cold (this could be a con for some)
5) Affordable real estate
6) More relaxed atmosphere
7) Summer nights are very nice, clear
8) Prices are reasonable for most things
9) City services are very good-except the mentioned Animal Control
10) Isolated from LA

CONS
1) It's LA County and anything LA County has issues including higher sales and property taxes
2) Animal Control up here is horrible
3) Seasons-see above
4) Wind. Though not as much as prior years, we can experience strong wind for days at a time if not weeks.
5) No real hi end restaurants. Just the typical restaurants you see anywhere else.

BOTTOM LINE
The area pretty is home to hard working people that just want to get away and relax while at home and from time to time go out for some shopping and food. There are some stereotypes as witnessed on this thread, but again, they exist everywhere.
I have no issue with keeping my family here and would recommend the area to anyone.

[Flashbaak]

myntk12, thank you for your realistic assessment! I've lived here for 20+ years and I agree with you completely.

[elousv]

I don't get the 'very little traffic', unless you are comparing it to the Sepulveda Pass on the 405 or something. I and most of my colleagues find it a chore to get across town.

[Reziac]

Originally Posted by elousv

I don't get the 'very little traffic', unless you are comparing it to the Sepulveda Pass on the 405 or something. I and most of my colleagues find it a chore to get across town.

Where exactly are you going? The only area I've found consistently has crappy traffic (so you often wind up sitting through the light more than once) is near the mall, around the corner of Ave.P and 10th St. West.

[elousv]

Oh yea, P and 10th is a real pain. I am just remembering 1983 which had what I consider very light traffic. Fast-forward a couple of hundred thousand people and there is traffic just about everywhere. Sierra Highway is slow in the afternoon and try turning left onto P. Trying to get on the 14 from L coming from the east (Costco area). Going down N from 60th W heading east. Many of the intersections on J and K and L.

[Reziac]

Originally Posted by elousv

Oh yea, P and 10th is a real pain. I am just remembering 1983 which had what I consider very light traffic. Fast-forward a couple of hundred thousand people and there is traffic just about everywhere. Sierra Highway is slow in the afternoon and try turning left onto P. Trying to get on the 14 from L coming from the east (Costco area). Going down N from 60th W heading east. Many of the intersections on J and K and L.

Oh. Yeah, well, compared to the AV of 10 years ago, it's a total rat race today. I remember when no one around here drove as fast as the speed limit, and everyone came to a complete stop and sat there a moment at every stop sign. You could tell the out-of-towners cuz they sped and did "california stops". When I got my place (out west of Antelope Acres) in 2001, there'd be, count them, a max of THREE cars per DAY on my road; now there's usually one or two in sight all the time. And I'm 15 miles out of town.

I guess I've driven down in L.A. during rush hour too much, cuz it still doesn't look like massive traffic to me in downtown Palmdale/Lancaster even at its worst (at least for CA... I grew up in MT, so it's ALL dreadful traffic by my lights!). But compared to what it used to be...... yeah, you just can't dump that many people into an area in such a short timeframe without severely impacting the speed of life.

Another problem is that some of those intersections are just badly designed, like the "natural flow" lane going from N onto northbound Sierra. Maybe it doesn't interrupt traffic on Sierra so much but it makes for a tough turn-and-merge if you're in a truck and can't see well on your passenger side (bad enough that I never go that way). They've also messed up the lights just west of the railroad crossings, so whenever a train goes by, instead of a few people having to wait to turn, EVERYONE winds up in a clog all the way along there. Didn't used to be that bad before they changed how the lights work. (Tho for some reason the light at P and Sierra is out of commission a LOT during rush hour, and that makes a huge mess.)

They also TOOK OUT some of the jump lights (left turn lights) -- frex, there used to be one on the corner of M and Sierra, but it's gone now, and as a result turning left there will take you all day!

Sometimes you gotta wonder where CA hires its engineers. This is also the only place I've ever been where most roads are banked the wrong way, so they tend to throw vehicles OFF the curve rather than helping them FOLLOW the curve (as they will if it's banked right).

[GByeCA4]

Originally Posted by elousv

Oh yea, P and 10th is a real pain. I am just remembering 1983 which had what I consider very light traffic. Fast-forward a couple of hundred thousand people and there is traffic just about everywhere. Sierra Highway is slow in the afternoon and try turning left onto P. Trying to get on the 14 from L coming from the east (Costco area). Going down N from 60th W heading east. Many of the intersections on J and K and L.

Umm.. seriously!? Have you ever driven in 'traffic', real traffic?! As in LA? Traffic is FAR worse in Valencia than it is in the AV. I've NEVER considered there to be 'traffic' in the AV.

[Reziac]

Originally Posted by GByeCA4

Umm.. seriously!? Have you ever driven in 'traffic', real traffic?! As in LA? Traffic is FAR worse in Valencia than it is in the AV. I've NEVER considered there to be 'traffic' in the AV.

Yep... compared to Valencia, which had both explosive growth AND a dreadful main-streets layout, the AV is practically vacant of traffic. And the AV has the advantage that you aren't constrained to a few main drags, as is the case in the SCV; in the AV, almost any street going your direction will work. If 10th West is bogged up, use Sierra or 20th West and wind up in the same place, and so on.

But if you moved here when it was still a little sleepy rural town, the increase in traffic (at the very least, 10x what it used to be) is disconcerting.

[elousv]

I don't feel any different driving in The AV vs. SCV as far as getting through traffic. The only difference I see is more expensive cars in the SCV. I don't consider the AV very light is all.

[melody23]

I also have a home in west Lancaster. My best friend Maria lives in Palmdale. I speak from long and considerable experience. Now, we have a very diverse ethnic mix so if that's a problem, you won't want to live here. But all our neighbors are good, upstanding folk, no matter their racial "profile".

My husband and I have lived here for 26 years. It's a lovely town. We had a sharp spike in violence last year but as the police presence has been beefed up, that has gone down to normal. I feel much safer here than I did in any near LA suburb in which I've ever lived and I'm a native Angeleno.

The people who carp are often people who've never lived here or those who are afraid of anyone with darker than white skin.