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Edsg25: LA's power center includes Westwood, Pacific Palisades, Brentwood? Why these neighborhoods? I find these places to be nice residential communities to live but powerhouses, I don't think so.
Chicago does not have a Malibu or Beverly Hills. But its SKYLINE, clearly stands on its own. Adding Lake Michigan. Its downtown Parks, Harbors and Beaches .... right there. Is what IMPRESEES.
Beverly Hills doesn't contribute to the scenery of the Los Angeles area in any way.
I did live in LA for two years and will say one thing I did not like was it really never got that hot. What I mean is it would be 74 or so and high 50s/60s in summer.
I missed the hot Chicago summers of 85/70.
That said, obviously did not miss the winters outside of Christmas. Was so weird being warm around the Holidays, Could not get into the season. A midwestern thing.
I did live in LA for two years and will say one thing I did not like was it really never got that hot. What I mean is it would be 74 or so and high 50s/60s in summer.
I missed the hot Chicago summers of 85/70.
That said, obviously did not miss the winters outside of Christmas. Was so weird being warm around the Holidays, Could not get into the season. A midwestern thing.
Where in LA did you live Venice Beach? Coastal hoods will be cooler 75ish. That's a comfortable temp though a lot of people consider that ideal.
In North Hollywood only 1 day of the next 14 will be below 80 degrees.
In San Bernardino 5 days out of the next 14 will be over 100 degrees and only 1 day will be below 90 degrees.
Last edited by WholeNotherLevel; 07-07-2019 at 09:58 PM..
As an Angeleno who has visited Chicago(I have family members living in IL who are only 30min away from Chicago), I vote for LA. Though the skycrappers surrounding Lake Michigan are “currently” way more impressive than downtown LA which in a way I admit Chicago does have more Cosmoplitan feel than LA(but LA is catching up in this department at a very fast pace). Of course, downtown LA will probably never be able to rival the global financial and economic importance, the energy and vibe of Lower and Midtown Manhattan, but it won’t be surprising to me that eventually downtown LA will have enough skycrappers to rival Chicago from an architectural standpoint.
I still believe the overall natural beauty, beaches and mountains, diversity and abundance of lifestyles in LA make it a step above.
Also, people tend to overlook the fact that LA is one of the closest major cities to Asia in the country, especially considering two of the fastest growing economies in Asia: China and India. As the largest city on the west coast, the future of LA will be unbelievable.
At least for me, if I won the lottery, I can’t imagine myself living elsewhere other than LA & NYC.
Last edited by SnobbishDude; 07-14-2019 at 03:30 AM..
As an Angeleno who has visited Chicago(I have family members living in IL who are only 30min away from Chicago), I vote for LA. Though the skycrappers surrounding Lake Michigan are “currently” way more impressive than downtown LA which in a way I admit Chicago does have more Cosmoplitan feel than LA(but LA is catching up in this department at a very fast pace). Of course, downtown LA will probably never be able to rival the global financial and economic importance, the energy and vibe of Lower and Midtown Manhattan, but it won’t be surprising to me that eventually downtown LA will have enough skycrappers to rival Chicago from an architectural standpoint.
I still believe the overall natural beauty, beaches and mountains, diversity and abundance of lifestyles in LA make it a step above.
Also, people tend to overlook the fact that LA is one of the closest major cities to Asia in the country, especially considering two of the fastest growing economies in Asia: China and India. As the largest city on the west coast, the future of LA will be unbelievable.
At least for me, if I won the lottery, I can’t imagine myself living elsewhere other than LA & NYC.
Chicago lost out years ago in the race for height. Thank goodness! Globally New York is out of the race too. If the battle exists, the fight is in Asia. New York, unlike Chicago, woulld be happy to stay in the race.
Chicago is different; it does not strieve to have a global skyline. There is only one model Chicago has for its skyline: the Chicago model.
It is a model built on being on the open water of what is basically a saltless sea. It is about a layer of green, the parks, right after the blue layer of Lake Michigan and the layer before, the skyline that explodes above both the other.
You couldn’t have a downtown Chicago without the blue flat surface in front.Chicago’s skyline requires a river to run through it creating the feel of going through a man made canyon, unparreled by any other global city.
Chicago’s skyline is about numbers. Not height, but in how many tall buildings we have (and, yes, we are more than happy to annoint a 20 storey building with the attribute of height. So hat also means Chicago’s skyline relies on critical mass. To us, Dubai doesn’t have an urban skyline; it has a Hudson Yards on steroids. We would have no use for a mass of hey-look-at-me skyscrapers sticking out of a base of sand. Then again, we wouldn’t want the brutal and banal sterility of a Hudson Yards. Or worsestill, by far, have our Gold Coast morph into some sort of billionaires row with pencil thin towers rising a mile into the sky
If Chicago is rivaled by DTLA with its future skyline equaling ours in height with the best of modern architecture..that would not concern us one bit. Chicago’s skyline works because it is to a huge part legac, built at a time when buildings and architecture were built to be a part of their cities, totally integrated into them (for a visual, think Manhattan. Think Rockefeller Center and Hudson Yards)
Chicago cares about the buildings it builds and puts restrictions on developers who go for the clouds. Chicago bit a bulllet when the Spire deal collapsed. Se want no part of a giant out of scale tower giving kur skyline the finger
Because, as a big part of who we are, our skyline is about silohuette...which asks not of the height of buildings but the contrast between them. We are gladly out of the height race, but I think we have the silohuette race permanantly locked in.
Unlike you, I don’t have jst two cities I could live in (although I admit Chicago and Sa Francisco are at the top of the list.) could I have considered either NY and/or LA. Maybe. Those are two great cities, I like and respect both. (And if I had to write a list of cities I would live in, LA would be very high up on the listBut they are both way to big for me. Chicago and Chicagoland are perfect for me: big enough to avoid the overwhelming qualities of New York and Los Angeles and to avoid the smaller city quality of Boston or San Francisco)
Chicago’s skyline, like Chicago itself works well...because it works for us. I matters far more to us how we see our city than how others see it. And in loving your own town, we are way way up there on the list.
Arogant, I realize, but for us true: chicago doesn’t need competition with other cities because we are Chicago
LA... love Chicago but it only trumps LA in skyline and urban makeup. It's tough to compete in scenery with most of the West coast cities.
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