Los Angeles (San Diego, San Francisco, Orange: home, condo, rent)

[fastfilm]

Ever since our troll that claimed one could purchase houses in Santa Barbara for $300K got banned for perpetrating gross falsehoods, many of us have indeed been backing up our observations with statistics and facts. Just read through the entirety of this thread and you'll find plenty.

[markablue]

The person mentioned has been banned for breaking the forum rules. Please, do not give the impression that people are banned here because of what they feel. Using facts in your discussions is always helpful, though.

[jlfinchum]

Originally Posted by fastfilm

Ever since our troll that claimed one could purchase houses in Santa Barbara for $300K got banned for perpetrating gross falsehoods, many of us have indeed been backing up our observations with statistics and facts. Just read through the entirety of this thread and you'll find plenty.

If I had signed on and said something like, "You guys are crazy, Los Angeles is the safest town west of the Mississippi" I would expect to be rated poorly, because that's just a ridiculously untrue statement.

I guess what I'd like to say is that if I offended anyone or made anyone mad, I apologize, but I don't understand how. :-)

[fastfilm]

My apologies, moderator Markablue. Thanks for keeping the spam away, by the by. I made the assumption the poster giving completely false information was involved.

I still suggest everyone go the lapd.org site for crime stats/maps on specific areas. You'll see why we reiterate that the gang/crime problem is so widespread here. It's not confined to "bad pockets" like most cities.

[Ms.Phitt]

Originally Posted by jlfinchum

hearing how LA is such a horrible area, when other large urban areas all over the country are just as bad, just not as notorious.

I suspect this is the part people had trouble with.

Nothing personal, and no offense meant... but I for one don't believe this for a minute, and would need some serious facts and figures to convince me otherwise.

[Ms.Phitt]

Originally Posted by fastfilm

I still suggest everyone go the lapd.org site for crime stats/maps on specific areas. You'll see why we reiterate that the gang/crime problem is so widespread here. It's not confined to "bad pockets" like most cities.

I couldn't agree more. As a matter of fact, if anything it is so widespread and universal that we have the reverse here. Instead of an overall "good city" with "bad pockets," we have an overall "bad city" with a few "good pockets" (translation: "rich pockets") out in the suburbs.

Take FastFilm's suggestion and check the LAPD site if you need confirmation of this. I also challenge anyone to name one street corner anywhere in Los Angeles where you would let your mother, sister, or wife wait for you after dark by herself for say, an hour, before you could get over there to pick her up. If I'm exaggerating, you should have no trouble coming up with at least one example.

[newportbeachsmostwanted]

I will testify for fastfilm here.. As a "temporary" resident there for five years. I have had enough! I am now moving to Marin County in the Bay area, to escape this 'daily border-hopping culture.' There are some of the most immoral people in all of the world here in Los Angeles and they make up a good percentage. A percentage thats more concerned with "tagging" every possible object with a flat surface with grafitti before getting jobs. The illegal immigration issue to me is the biggest downfall of this -geographically beautiful city. I can't go to Home Depot without seeing a swarm of illegals in a mass of 30 to 40 crowd the nearby sidewalk all day waiting for work. They are so disrespectful to American culture, and laws. It makes me sick. I am in now way racist. But I think I can speak better about illegal immigration as a minority white living in LA: I having been robbed in a TJ hotel room, my best friend was almost shot in the face by an illegal.. I have had more trauma brought by illegals in five years, than in my whole life in Orange County. There are terrible quality of life issues in LA, and as the more illegal immigrant come in- they continue to bring it down.

[GitterDone]

I've driven through some pretty decent looking places in LA but I can't afford to live in any of them. They're definitely for the rich. I'm not poor but I feel like I am since moving here. I live in a trailer park that looks like a ghetto (and it's over-priced). Make-shift fences, overflowing dumpsters, grocery carts left in the street, unsupervised children getting into mischief.

I have to sleep with earplugs and a fan. Every weekend I pick up the beer cans that my lovely considerate neighbors toss over the fence to me. I made the mistake of asking them to turn down their music when I first moved in. It was 1:00 in the morning and I had to go to work at my new job that day. For people who claimed they didn't understand English, they sure were mad. Since then, they, and now their friends, have done everything they can to make my life hell.

I'm looking for a job anywhere outside of L.A. county. I'll take the first one that responds to my resume'. I'm not trying to offend anyone here, but I find LA depressing. If you can afford to live in an area that takes pride in their community, you might love it here. If nothing else, I can honestly say the weather is fantastic.

[Ms.Phitt]

GitterDone's experience is very typical. So-called "middle-class" living here is what most people in other areas would call "slums." But one look at the areas called "slums" here, and at the amount of your mortgage/rent, will quickly assure you that this is indeed L.A.'s idea of a "middle-class" neighborhood.

Originally Posted by GitterDone

If nothing else, I can honestly say the weather is fantastic.

That depends. Winters are great, but unless you live within around 20 minutes of the beach, you'd better like HOT (notice I didn't say warm) weather because the summers get brutal. People die here every year from the heat, which gets much more intense the further inland you get. Those perfect temperatures you see in all the climate reports and travel books are from measurements taken in Santa Monica at the extreme western end of L.A., where the ocean moderates the climate. That's cheating! Once you actually get to the city center (where they ought to be measuring if they were to be honest) it's usually a good 10-15 degrees hotter. That means daily temps in the mid to upper 90's, with frequent heat waves over 100 degrees for several days at a time. And the climate appears to be getting hotter.

Every year it's the same cycle. Winter = rain, vegetation growth, and huge mudslides. Summer -> drought, dried-out vegetation, and huge wildfires. The wildfires add to the already thickly polluted air, releasing tons of carbon dioxide which just intensifies the heat by trapping it at ground level. The more intense heat kills off even more vegetation, providing tinder for MORE fires. As the fires burn off vegetation, which anchors the soil on the hillsides, they ensure that the next winter's mudslides will be worse.

So it just depends on your location and your opinion, whether the weather here is fantastic to you or not.

[fastfilm]

For those unfamiliar with Ms. Phitt's facts, the entire Los Angeles basin is subject to a unique set of microclimates, due to its topography and the wind patterns. Yes, there's the influence of the Pacific Ocean, cooling the coasts and about 5 - 10 miles inland. But there are mountain ranges and valleys throughout (our earthquake heritage) that So. Cal. basin, not to mention the desert winds influence competing. I live less than 10 miles from my parents who, on the Westside, have those 80 to 90 degree summers, yet my average summer temperature are usually 20 to occasionally 30 degrees hotter here in the Valley. As a result, all weather prognostication for "L.A." is useless unless it is a site that zeros in on specific areas, like weather.com which easily verifies Ms. Phitt's assertions.

Technically, smog isn't weather, but it's a byproduct of our sunshine, valley, mountains, inversion layers and all those cars stuck in our interminable traffic. The same goes for smog: it's everpresent in all locales except the immediate coast and parts of the West side.

We are all different, and I suppose a snowbird from the tundra would factor in non-snowy winters alongside uncomfortably hot summers, and living in slum conditions for the price of what would be well-off, safe and comfortable elsewhere as part of the trade-offs. But those of us who live here still maintain unless you're rich, illegal, violent or have a huge paying job awaiting you, its reality is so far away from "the promised land" of its image 40 years from movies and tv, that it borders upon the absurd.