Just out of college, renting near Century City

[katenik]

Originally Posted by majoun

The Cadillac-Corning area has had gang problems since the late 70s. (It's recently been renamed "La Cienega Heights", in one of the few examples of community renaming on the West Side.) These problems are NOTHING new and resulted from ethnic changes that happened there in the 70s (fwiw, NOT involving Latinos). That area would be considered part of South Robertson, not Palms. Crime is considerably higher there than in nearby areas like East Culver City, Beverlywood, or the northern part of South Robertson.

Five years ago I would have said the majority of Palms' buildings would have fallen under LARSO, as the majority of Palms consisted of 1950s/60s apartment buildings. That is less true now. While there was some new construction in the 80s, the real changes have happened in this century. There aren't as many teardowns there as in Mar Vista or West LA (where the old cheap buildings are falling to the wrecking ball fast - much of MV resembles a giant construction site) but the number is increasing fast. (Palms has very few SFRs, most of those that survived the great 50s/60s rezoning had apartments built in back. There are a few bungalow courts surviving in Palms - an architectural style unique to L.A., and my personal favorite type of L.A. housing, which sadly was neglected post-WW2 due to builders choosing to build SFRs instead. AFAIK the last ones were built in the early 50s. The number is diminishing city wide.)

that's interesting. i lived in the area off cadillac from 1978-1984, and i don't recall any gangs. i remember some neighborhood boys who wore oversized khakis, and liked to pretend that they were gang-affiliated. they gave themselves gang-style monikers like "OG smurf" or some such silliness, which occasionally appeared on alley walls in the neighborhood, but were more likely found scrawled on the demin-covered notebooks they carried to school. the squabbles they engaged in generally involved competitive break dancing, with the occasional fist-fight over a girl. perhaps strangers to the neighborhood might have found them intimidating, but to me, they were kids who hung out in the streets acting tough/cool right until the moment their mothers came out to call them in for dinner, or someone else's parent complained to theirs about an act of discourtesy. then, they were revealed to be exactly what they were: insecure teenaged boys posturing in the hope that teenaged girls would notice and be impressed. by today's standards, they were hardly gang material.

[katenik]

Originally Posted by WCRob

I already stated I'm not familiar with LA, other than what I've heard from the people who have moved away from there, and their reasons why. I don't know what else to say.

Out of idle curiosity, what costs of living are less there? Groceries? Insurance? Utilities? Gasoline? Clothing? Taxes? I'd seriously be interested in knowing. It might help me a bit if I know more about what life is really like out there, instead of automatically listening to other people complain about how expensive it is out there.

gasoline is higher than most places. 87 octane exceeded $3.50/gallon earlier this year, but is now around $3.10, give or take.

income tax, which varies by county, is probably higher here than in most states, and it does apply to clothing purchases, but not groceries. state income tax maxes out around 9%. there is no city income tax in LA.

most housing here comes with at least one parking space included. when i lived in the northeast, i had to rent a parking space in the building for about $300/mo., or i could have bought it for about 20 grand! i had never heard of paying for parking at one's own residence before leaving LA.

utilities vary according to usage and the size of the place being heated/cooled. my combined gas and electric bills are well below $100/mo., while my relatives back east spend $400-600/mo to heat their homes during the winter.

i have heard people claim that auto insurance was more expensive here, but that was not my personal experience. when i moved east, the amount i had been paying for full coverage here would only cover liability.

i pay less for unpackaged food here, although i shop at alternative grocers which aren't known for their low prices. the quality of the produce in other places tends to be inferior to what is available here, simply because it has less distance to travel from point of harvest. i recall having some really tasteless tomatoes and avocados, in particular, and the latter were ridiculously overpriced. on a purely personal note: i resented the ridiculous mark-up on california wines.

clothing costs are the same if you shop national stores, but you don't need an entire winter wardrobe here. if you buy quality garments, your "winter clothes" will last many seasons, because you will wear them only 2-3 months of the year, instead of nearly six. since the ground is rarely wet, your shoes will fare better as well. for a family with growing children, i would imagine that this represents a significant savings over living someplace with four seasons.

[majoun]

Originally Posted by katenik

that's interesting. i lived in the area off cadillac from 1978-1984, and i don't recall any gangs. i remember some neighborhood boys who wore oversized khakis, and liked to pretend that they were gang-affiliated. they gave themselves gang-style monikers like "OG smurf" or some such silliness, which occasionally appeared on alley walls in the neighborhood, but were more likely found scrawled on the demin-covered notebooks they carried to school. the squabbles they engaged in generally involved competitive break dancing, with the occasional fist-fight over a girl. perhaps strangers to the neighborhood might have found them intimidating, but to me, they were kids who hung out in the streets acting tough/cool right until the moment their mothers came out to call them in for dinner, or someone else's parent complained to theirs about an act of discourtesy. then, they were revealed to be exactly what they were: insecure teenaged boys posturing in the hope that teenaged girls would notice and be impressed. by today's standards, they were hardly gang material.

There weren't too many gang members south of Cadillac or north of Sawyer, nor across Robertson in Beverlywood. Even within Cadillac-Corning there were streets that were worse than others ; of the north-south streets, Bedford, Corning, Garth, and Holt were considered the worst, and to a lesser extent Shenandoah. Preuss Rd. wasn't bad. Also, if you lived there during the period you're referring to, you only caught the beginning of when gangs themselves in LA became more violent, due to crack sales. I'm sure your move from that area in '84 had to do with that occurring?

I had a few friends who lived in that area. One lived south of Cadillac closer to the freeway which was more quiet, another lived on Cadillac, and another lived on Bedford. All of them regarded those few blocks as dangerous. Said area was the first area in LA to get a gang injunction. I regarded it as much more dangerous than almost all other "bad parts" of the west side, like the bad parts of Western Culver City or the area where it borders on Mar Vista, Venice, and MDR ; or Santa Monica's tiny barrio between Pico and the 10. The only one of the bad west side areas which I considered to be more dangerous than that area was Oakwood (which then was much bigger than it is now ; in those days it went as far south as Venice Blvd., as opposed to its current southern boundary of California Ave.) That area had a lot to do with why Hamilton got dangerous before any other LAUSD west side school went to crap. Nothing ever happened to me over there, but I heard some pretty bad stories from people who lived there and from others.

Now, if you're referring to Latino gangs, there were none in Cadillac-Corning at the time. There were very few Latinos around there then, after the big white flight from those blocks in the early 70s that area became virtually all black, only a handful of non-blacks lived in those blocks, and they were a definite poverty pocket (compared to the mixed middle class areas to the north, the mixed working class areas to the south, the mostly black middle class area to the east, and the upper middle class mostly white area to the west). As LA's black population has decreased even more than its non-Latino white population has, Latinos have moved into that area, which undoubtably has introduced racial tension into the pre-existing gang situation. That area along with the shrunken Oakwood (and what's left is as bad as ever, due to the presence of the Breezes del Mar projects in those blocks) are the only "west side" areas that compare to places like Van Nuys.

It's possible that with gentrification starting to reach not only the mixed areas of Mid City West but the black middle class areas as well, and with the heavy gentrification in the nearby part of Culver City, gentrification could hit Cadillac-Corning, but it'll be some time before that happens.It's been considered an undesirable pocket in the midst of better areas for some time.