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True that. All nice places. I might make some modifications to your lists, slight modifications, but totally get the gist. Tough choices.
The only problem with living in Venice/Santa Monica, etc is that you have to work basically west of 405, Brentwood or Culver City at furthest, or you're toast in LA traffic and the Gold Line extension will be of limited help (Olympic is the only road it really serves).
So lucky you if you can find a job over there AND afford to live there and shop/play there. I'd personally take UES off your NYC list. I'd consider Midtown East, but even then I know I'd be finding myself going cross-town way too often, and that's the difficult direction in Manhattan.
You can always park and ride, there is tons of parking in downtown Santa Monica next to the future train station (FYI it's the Expo Line, not Gold Line). Another correction, it will run down Colorado Blvd through Downtown SM, not Olympic. I agree though that if you live north of Wilshire, the Expo Line is not practical to walk to for commuting. But driving a few blocks in Santa Monica to a park-and-ride lot would beat driving all the way to DTLA on the 10.
I think someone living in SM could work in Century City too, so perhaps a little further east than the 405.
^^^Yep, Expo, sorry! I think after living in LA for a while you develop a higher pain threshold for traffic. But if you're not acclimated to it, even a commute from the beach in to Century City is just not worth it (at least for me - I wouldn't mind living near UCLA though!). Most people I know who live in Santa Monica worked their way to that (both financially and career wise - they shuffled over and set themselves up with jobs that would be convenient to them over there). Same goes for Venice. I have some college buddies in that area in engineering, and I think they are commuting to Playa Vista, which is super convenient!
Expo will be going down Olympic to DTLA though. Colorado through Santa Monica is only a couple minutes worth of that commute. Santa Monica is super bike friendly, so really the only point of the Expo is that Park N Ride or if you live along Olympic and work further along Olympic, in DTLA, or in DT Santa Monica.
Overall, I still prefer Manhattan. I'm just not a beach bum. It's also why I prefer SF. City life > SoCal life, for me.
True that. All nice places. I might make some modifications to your lists, slight modifications, but totally get the gist. Tough choices.
The only problem with living in Venice/Santa Monica, etc is that you have to work basically west of 405, Brentwood or Culver City at furthest, or you're toast in LA traffic and the Gold Line extension will be of limited help (Olympic is the only road it really serves).
So lucky you if you can find a job over there AND afford to live there and shop/play there. I'd personally take UES off your NYC list. I'd consider Midtown East, but even then I know I'd be finding myself going cross-town way too often, and that's the difficult direction in Manhattan.
Yeah. I was thinking about the Yorkville sub-neighborhood within UES because it seems to be more demographically mixed and than more blue-blooded old money UES and with somewhat cheaper real estate by Manhattan standards.
Honestly though, I'd much rather live in Brooklyn or Queens over Manhattan. I love Manhattan but those two outer boroughs seem to be better COL alternatives and I love the sheer diversity (ethnically, linguistically, and architecturally), township-lite neighborhoods, schizophrenic road system of Queens and the city of neighborhoods vibe, tree-lined brownstone streets, stubborn borough pride, fashion, cultural festivals of Brooklyn. Both boroughs seem more laid-back and chill than Manhattan.
Expo will be going down Olympic to DTLA though. Colorado through Santa Monica is only a couple minutes worth of that commute. Santa Monica is super bike friendly, so really the only point of the Expo is that Park N Ride or if you live along Olympic and work further along Olympic, in DTLA, or in DT Santa Monica.
Overall, I still prefer Manhattan. I'm just not a beach bum. It's also why I prefer SF. City life > SoCal life, for me.
The Expo Line will run along Olympic through the West LA area, but around the 10 freeway it veers southerly to Exposition Blvd (which has even less jobs than the Olympic corridor) as it makes its way towards DTLA. The big job centers the Expo Line hits are DT Santa Monica, the Mid-City area of Santa Monica, West LA around Sepulveda / Bundy / Olympic, Culver City the USC area and DTLA. Pretty much only residential areas in between Culver City and USC.
Good point about bicycling in Santa Monica, I would much rather ride a mile or so to the train than deal with parking at a Park-and-Ride structure. Santa Monica is one of the most bike friendly areas in LA - combine that with the heinous traffic and I would definitely avoid driving as much as possible, though maybe not go totally car-free (the type of car-light set-up I have here in Pasadena on the east side).
The two cities really do offer a big difference in lifestyle, and these two areas in particular really represent the differences (on the Westside the car/beach lifestyle, in Manhattan the subway/city-living lifestyle) more than any other parts of their city.
True that. All nice places. I might make some modifications to your lists, slight modifications, but totally get the gist. Tough choices.
The only problem with living in Venice/Santa Monica, etc is that you have to work basically west of 405, Brentwood or Culver City at furthest, or you're toast in LA traffic and the Gold Line extension will be of limited help (Olympic is the only road it really serves).
So lucky you if you can find a job over there AND afford to live there and shop/play there. I'd personally take UES off your NYC list. I'd consider Midtown East, but even then I know I'd be finding myself going cross-town way too often, and that's the difficult direction in Manhattan.
Dude you don't know anything about LA. Tons of people who live in Venice/Santa Monica do commute downtown. I live right next to Santa Monica and my morning commute downtown takes 25 minutes from door to door - it's the other direction that's the problem. In the afternoon, same thing - 20-25 minutes and traffic's bad in the other direction. And not that many people who live here commute to Culver City - you mean Century City.
It also isn't the Gold Line extension. The Gold line goes east of LA, the Expo line that's being extended to Santa Monica right now opens in a little over a year.
We've already established the naming convention. Also, maybe you're right about traffic and it's the reverse (that hasn't been what I've seen when I've been down there, but I'm only a visitor - seems like both directions are bad). So the Expo Line is meant to get people from closer in to DTLA to the major employment center that is Santa Monica? That doesn't seem all that logical on paper, and it's not how it's being billed.
I did mean Culver City because a lot of people who live west of 405 are in production and entertainment related businesses (take all the production space on Olympic in eastern Santa Monica for instance - the Media District where the Expo extension is cutting through). It stands to reason that Culver City is already connected to DTLA via the Expo, and Santa Monica is merely an extension, so it will continue to be a major employment center for residents of the northern beach communities. Playa Vista is another major local employment center (not connected to the Expo) and Century City isn't too far away as the crow flies, but it would be too much traffic for me if I lived in Santa Monica or Venice (or heck, in the middle class part of Malibu). If I worked in CC, then I'd rather live east of 405 in Westwood (which I tend to confuse with Brentwood) or somewhere right around CC. But I don't even own a car, and am not used to it. I get a panic attack whenever I'm stuck in a cab in NYC or Boston or SF and traffic isn't moving, so LA is a beast that I can't wrap my head around and I'd choose to live as close to job as possible for that reason.
Dude you don't know anything about LA. Tons of people who live in Venice/Santa Monica do commute downtown.
I would not say "tons". Some people commute downtown, but it doesn't make much sense to live in SM and drive all the way through that traffic hell to work downtown.
Most people on the Westside work on the Westside. Generally speaking, the best jobs are on the Westside, and the most desirable residential areas are on the Westside.
And all this talk about transit is a non-issue. No one lives on the Westside because of the transit. LA has ****-poor transit relative to other world cities, and few non-poor consider it a viable option. Why would they? Your house will have a driveway, your office will have parking.
"We've already established the naming convention. Also, maybe you're right about traffic and it's the reverse (that hasn't been what I've seen when I've been down there, but I'm only a visitor - seems like both directions are bad). So the Expo Line is meant to get people from closer in to DTLA to the major employment center that is Santa Monica? That doesn't seem all that logical on paper, and it's not how it's being billed."
Considering I live here and commute from the Palisades to downtown every day, I think you can take my word for it regardless of what your impression is.
"Most people on the Westside work on the Westside. Generally speaking, the best jobs are on the Westside, and the most desirable residential areas are on the Westside."
Yeah, I live on the westside. Lots of people I know work in Santa Monica, Brentwood and Century City. A lot of people also commute downtown and like living on the westside. I guess you read my other post about my daily commute. I leave anywhere from 7:30 to 9:00am and it takes me 30 minutes at most. In the last six months, the longest that morning commute ever took was 35 minutes. So no, the "traffic hell" you envision doesn't exist, it usually moves around 60mph, and traffic flows as high as 80mph for some stretches. I do this every day.
Yeah, I live on the westside. Lots of people I know work in Santa Monica, Brentwood and Century City. A lot of people also commute downtown and like living on the westside. I guess you read my other post about my daily commute. I leave anywhere from 7:30 to 9:00am and it takes me 30 minutes at most. In the last six months, the longest that morning commute ever took was 35 minutes. So no, the "traffic hell" you envision doesn't exist, it usually moves around 60mph, and traffic flows as high as 80mph for some stretches. I do this every day.
Sorry, not buying it. I have family on the Westside (Pacific Palisades area), and it isn't 30 minutes to downtown LA at 10 PM on a Sunday night. No way in hell at rush hour.
The SM freeway is bad at almost all times 7 days a week. Only light traffic in the middle of the night. And if you're taking an arterial like Sunset or Wilshire it takes forever.
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