Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I guess not, the driving depends though. In L.A. maybe not but in othe cities you might not even need a car.
Overall I meant real is in there's always something happening(good or bad). Not in terms of the person himself keeping it real but the person living in an environment that is beyond any typical suburnite or rural dweller's comfort zone. People everywhere, homeless(it's part of it unfortunately), authentic places, public transit seeing so many different people, different neighborhoods with different feels.
I dont want LA to become new york. But I do admire many aspects of New York that I wish L.A. had. Mainly public transit and overall vibrancy.
The problem with cities where automobile travel is unnecesary is that residents of those cities tend to develop a superiority complex - since they don't get away from their city much they start to think that it is the only place on the planet in which it is worth living and look down at people "outside". They also seem to think that they are somehow better because they are "green" and "earth-conscious". They think that other places are "fake" while their city is "real" - whatever that is is supposed to mean.
People who live in the Los Angeles area on the other hand have more of a humble outlook because we can drive out to the desert or the mountains in an hour or two and experience the grandeur of nature that makes our human efforts of creation seem pathetic. We can easily get to great cities like Phoenix, Las Vegas, San Diego, and even San Francisco(shudder) within a few hours without having to go through the hassle of train or airplane travel. We understand that as great as our home and city is - there are other places out there that are worth experiencing also - and we have the freedom to explore anytime we want.
You can't have that outlook if it is unnecesary for you to drive in order to live efficiently.
I guess not, the driving depends though. In L.A. maybe not but in othe cities you might not even need a car.
Overall I meant real is in there's always something happening(good or bad). Not in terms of the person himself keeping it real but the person living in an environment that is beyond any typical suburnite or rural dweller's comfort zone. People everywhere, homeless(it's part of it unfortunately), authentic places, public transit seeing so many different people, different neighborhoods with different feels.
I dont want LA to become new york. But I do admire many aspects of New York that I wish L.A. had. Mainly public transit and overall vibrancy.
FTR, I've known a lot of people who grew up in NYC, Boston, LA, SF, Chicago, London, etc etc etc, who would absolutely love for you to think that they're gritty, salty, tough, well-rounded, impossible to fool or pull one over on, etc., when they're actually people who grew up in an urban bubble and don't actually know anything more about life than a kid who drove a car to school. There are urbanites whose access to diversity and culture could have made them more worldly, but instead, reinforced their prejudice and paranoia (see: many of the posters on CD ) On the inverse, I've known people from the suburbs who have a skillset ranging from knowing how to show up to work on time, to how to work on an engine, how to use a rifle and reside a house, and move to a city with an open mind and the excitement to encounter new things.
Not every suburb is a white, upper-middle class place - ESPECIALLY around LA. When I go to the SGV to see the girl I'm dating and we go out to get dinner or groceries, I'll go the entire night without seeing a single white person unless I walk by a clean window or step in front of a mirror.
In any case... I don't want LA to become NYC either, though I think it's inevitable that more high-density construction will take place: demand to live in LA is still growing, prices continue to rise, there's no undeveloped land to tap into and people are less and less interested in the notion of living in outlying areas of LA and commuting in - public transit projects are a reaction to this changing reality.
I don't necessarily see a bulk loss of single-family homes, though; most single-family homes are just that, and the owners are aware that if they sell them, it will be extremely difficult to replicate their situation in LA - if someone sells their Koreatown bungalow for $600k, unless the house was mostly-paid off and they have a pile of cash sitting there, they won't be able to trade up to a similar-sized house in a more desirable area without taking on more debt... so... why bother?
I think that in the near future, you'll see more situations where people who have mid-density properties - two or three-story, eight-to-twenty unit buildings in areas like K-town, Rampart, Culver City, specifically areas on current or proposed transit routes - who use their properties for income as opposed to a personal dwelling, will start to look at what options they have to increase their profits via development, whether that means selling to a development company for a more substantial and immediate one-time profit, or partnering with one, or doing it on on their own for a larger, continued profit. I can certainly see a lot of those low-lying midcentury complexes being torn down and replaced with multistory, 40-100 complexes on the same lot, and then also larger-scale, 100-1000 unit projects like Park La Brea here and there.
I can see it as a good thing on the one hand, but as someone who grew up poor and found himself and his family priced-out from areas he loved more than once, I can certainly see the dark side to it: increased costs, increased transit time, decreased family time, and a continually-lower standard of living for the working-class and immigrant communities that live in areas like K-town and Rampart because as of right now, they're peripheral to the areas that they commute to for work (downtown, WLA, etc).
Or do you feel it's wrong? Like a whole section of single family homes destroyed to make way for apartment complexes and mid to highrise buildings?
Would it be inevitable? And I'm talking within the basin.
IMO, I'd care, but also not care. Mainly because my neighborhood has alot of history so it would suck to see it go. But at the same time, I never liked the suburbs, but then again, the LA metro area never truly felt suburban.
Seems like a great idea to me. It's inevitable anyways. You simply cannot spread the city out forever with single-family-homes. At some point it's gotta densify somewhere.
Additionally, L.A. has some amazingly beautiful climate...if it was densified a bit, more people would have more reason to walk around in it.
FTR, I've known a lot of people who grew up in NYC, Boston, LA, SF, Chicago, London, etc etc etc, who would absolutely love for you to think that they're gritty, salty, tough, well-rounded, impossible to fool or pull one over on, etc., when they're actually people who grew up in an urban bubble and don't actually know anything more about life than a kid who drove a car to school. There are urbanites whose access to diversity and culture could have made them more worldly, but instead, reinforced their prejudice and paranoia (see: many of the posters on CD ) On the inverse, I've known people from the suburbs who have a skillset ranging from knowing how to show up to work on time, to how to work on an engine, how to use a rifle and reside a house, and move to a city with an open mind and the excitement to encounter new things.
Not every suburb is a white, upper-middle class place - ESPECIALLY around LA. When I go to the SGV to see the girl I'm dating and we go out to get dinner or groceries, I'll go the entire night without seeing a single white person unless I walk by a clean window or step in front of a mirror.
In any case... I don't want LA to become NYC either, though I think it's inevitable that more high-density construction will take place: demand to live in LA is still growing, prices continue to rise, there's no undeveloped land to tap into and people are less and less interested in the notion of living in outlying areas of LA and commuting in - public transit projects are a reaction to this changing reality.
I don't necessarily see a bulk loss of single-family homes, though; most single-family homes are just that, and the owners are aware that if they sell them, it will be extremely difficult to replicate their situation in LA - if someone sells their Koreatown bungalow for $600k, unless the house was mostly-paid off and they have a pile of cash sitting there, they won't be able to trade up to a similar-sized house in a more desirable area without taking on more debt... so... why bother?
I think that in the near future, you'll see more situations where people who have mid-density properties - two or three-story, eight-to-twenty unit buildings in areas like K-town, Rampart, Culver City, specifically areas on current or proposed transit routes - who use their properties for income as opposed to a personal dwelling, will start to look at what options they have to increase their profits via development, whether that means selling to a development company for a more substantial and immediate one-time profit, or partnering with one, or doing it on on their own for a larger, continued profit. I can certainly see a lot of those low-lying midcentury complexes being torn down and replaced with multistory, 40-100 complexes on the same lot, and then also larger-scale, 100-1000 unit projects like Park La Brea here and there.
I can see it as a good thing on the one hand, but as someone who grew up poor and found himself and his family priced-out from areas he loved more than once, I can certainly see the dark side to it: increased costs, increased transit time, decreased family time, and a continually-lower standard of living for the working-class and immigrant communities that live in areas like K-town and Rampart because as of right now, they're peripheral to the areas that they commute to for work (downtown, WLA, etc).
lol, I just looked up park La Brea. It looks like an alternate Queensbridge..
No, SFH neighborhoods command too much $$ and are in high demand from people with money. Even if it's junky now it will no doubt undergo a "transformation" as many places have already.
What's more likely to happen is older, crappy high density and older, crappy commercial property will give way to newer, modern high density. And that will make nearby SFH neighborhoods even MORE desireable.
I wouldn't mind if LA razed all the small, ugly stucco buildings in the East and South to make way for high-density living. In fact, move southward and redo all of South LA and Compton for high-density, middle-class structures.
As for West LA, much of it is taken up by rather lovely, large homes. We can keep those! Forgive me if that was snobbish of me to say. Would LA not benefit from this sort of project, though? Get rid of the blight, less-appealing, poorly-planned neighborhoods and replace them with better-planned structures. Many currently proposed high-rise to mid-rise buildings ask for planners to reserve units for lower-income families, so it's not like redeveloping South & East LA would eliminate the lower-income families. It would simply give everyone a better place to live.
I just think it's the idea of suburbia being a joke.
Think of it as a kid who grew up in the city vs a kid who grew up in the suburbs. Who's gonna have more mental toughness at the end of the day? More cultural experiences? A more realness in their upbringing? Suburbanites are considered sheltered while city dwellers are in the middle of it all.
Not to mention suburbia has alot to do with white flight and the decline of our downtown areas. So suburbia is a spoiled mentality that killed our cities for decades. Now everyone wants back in. Younger people want out of the dull existence in the suburbs and experience something more real.
Theres phoniness in this "real-ness" you speak of.
The world is not divided between Manhattan and winding streets and cul de sacs
Living in an apartment does not make one "tough" than someone who grew up in a single family home.
Which do you think is a more "tough" environment: Compton or Upper East side of Manhattan? Which is more urban?
Stop categorizing and stereotyping. Seriously.
This is actually one of the things I love about LA, as everywhere is like a blend of urban and suburban, confusing with pockets of density in the suburbs, where more urban areas like West Hollywood and East LA are technically outside city limits while West Hills in the Valley is part of LA. It prevents people adopting this stupid reverse snobbery that they think they are more cool or tough for living "in the city" LA is too geographically complex for that, and I am thankful for it.
I don't like metropolitan areas where there is a sharp and obvious dividing line between city and suburbs. It makes people on both sides obsessed with stupid differences.
I guess not, the driving depends though. In L.A. maybe not but in othe cities you might not even need a car.
Overall I meant real is in there's always something happening(good or bad). Not in terms of the person himself keeping it real but the person living in an environment that is beyond any typical suburnite or rural dweller's comfort zone. People everywhere, homeless(it's part of it unfortunately), authentic places, public transit seeing so many different people, different neighborhoods with different feels.
I dont want LA to become new york. But I do admire many aspects of New York that I wish L.A. had. Mainly public transit and overall vibrancy.
I guess what I like about LA is that I can enjoy all the things that you mentioned, but I then hop in my car and go home. If someone doesn't want to venture out of their own neighborhood, it is on them.
Theres phoniness in this "real-ness" you speak of.
The world is not divided between Manhattan and winding streets and cul de sacs
Living in an apartment does not make one "tough" than someone who grew up in a single family home.
THANK you!!
(speaking as someone who grew up mostly in apartments & multi-families in "the city." I took the train everywhere & spent almost every afternoon after school (or skipping school) in downtown Boston.
I'm certainly not tougher or more "real" (I might hate that word more than any other. It means absolutely nothing) than anyone else.
Los Angeles is now the MOST DENSE area in the U.S. Yes, more dense than New York. This is not about Manhattan vs. the LA central urbanized core (about the same in area), but metropolitan. We are already dense, but we ripped out our legacy mass transit system and are now trying to rebuild it. The density is already there to support mass transit rail lines throughout our region, but it takes a whole boat-load of money and time to build them. Lack of density is NOT our problem; having squandered nearly 25 years before beginning construction of the modern subway and LRT lines is. We are seriously behind and many may die of old age before we are even half-way to catching up.
However, there is no doubt that where we do have rail today, and in the future, we probably should increase the density there instead of going to Temecula, as just one example (a fine new suburb--from its rural legacy--but 100 miles away), but we have to deal with the fact that so many people want a 2500 sq ft single family home with all the trimmings, not an urban apartment, and yes, young-lings start out in an urban apartment, but they almost all start heading for the suburbs that will afford them the 2000+ sq ft dream house to raise the kids.
That is all a HUGE legacy of pattern that most people in US go through as they age. Heck, even young New Yorkers become bridge and tunnel people, and why do you think LIRR and MNRR are so PACKED with people LEAVING the city at quitting time to THEIR big single family homes in their affluent suburban communities? It aint just LA; it is the way the whole country thinks about lifestyles.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
) On the inverse, I've known people from the suburbs who have a skillset ranging from knowing how to show up to work on time, to how to work on an engine, how to use a rifle and reside a house, and move to a city with an open mind and the excitement to encounter new things.
Forgive me if that was snobbish of me to say. Would LA not benefit from this sort of project, though? Get rid of the blight, less-appealing, poorly-planned neighborhoods and replace them with better-planned structures. Many currently proposed high-rise to mid-rise buildings ask for planners to reserve units for lower-income families, so it's not like redeveloping South & East LA would eliminate the lower-income families. It would simply give everyone a better place to live.
