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Old 12-29-2008, 04:46 PM
 
Location: South Bay
7,226 posts, read 22,110,685 times
Reputation: 3626

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while i agree that many more people would prefer the same things as you, i also imagine that it has occurred to you that maybe not everyone does. I for one would give up a 2000sf house in the valley with a 45 minute commute for a 1000sf condo in the city with a 15 minute commute in a heart beat, especially if I had kids.
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Old 12-29-2008, 06:41 PM
 
147 posts, read 381,813 times
Reputation: 66
Quote:
Originally Posted by Charles View Post
Is there something other than supply and demand at work here? Is this true in other cities? If not, why not?

What is the solution? Should the government intervene?
I think all cities should implement some type of rent control, a lady friend of mine who lived in South Pasadena was in fear of asking her landlord to fix her cabinets, because every time she asked for a repair it resulted in a rent hike. Wasn't that kind? See where things are heading here?

You always hear landlords complaining, but it is a two way street.

The city planners, companies, and developers should work on alleviating the density issues, spread the good paying jobs out towards the inland empire and the desert, and work on mass transit hubs.

Another key are good paying jobs with a higher expectation of quality of life, instead of accepting 2 to 3 familys per household as the norm.

All the best.

I'm still cringing.
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Old 12-29-2008, 06:47 PM
 
26,680 posts, read 28,579,455 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Radical Raul View Post
The city planners, companies, and developers should work on alleviating the density issues, spread the good paying jobs out towards the inland empire and the desert, and work on mass transit hubs.
Don't hold your breath. Unfortunately, a lot of people have been convinced that increasing density is a good thing, and that everything will be great once all of the subways are built. Yeah, right. Maybe in 100 years. Maybe.
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Old 12-29-2008, 11:44 PM
 
27 posts, read 95,383 times
Reputation: 33
Default Yea.

Quote:
Originally Posted by WestsideTroy View Post
I love living in L.A.
Marina Del Rey, Venice Beach, Playa Del Rey, Westchester, Santa Monica, and Pacific Palisades. The best in all SoCal!
Seal Beach and La Jolla are very nice also...
Troy Heffner

Yea. Who wouldn't love living in those neighborhoods;however, who can afford it? My experience living in Santa Monica was residents had either had been there for thirty years; thus, were paying very low rent due to rent control. Or, the residents in the section eight program. And last but not least the rich folks.

Last edited by Ashleykitty; 12-29-2008 at 11:49 PM.. Reason: spelling
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Old 12-30-2008, 06:59 AM
 
359 posts, read 1,308,965 times
Reputation: 222
Quote:
Originally Posted by newportbeachsmostwanted View Post
LA is TERRIBLE. The people are some of the worst any other city I have been to. I mean, if you leave fancy Beverly Hills and go to a normal LA "so called working class neighborhood" 1 in 3 people look like a gangster. -That's ridiculous! Alot of people have the fiery look in the eyes like they are pissed off and want to robb you-

Too many are now putting 6,7,8... illegal aliens into small 2 br apartment units. LA was not designed for this. What ever happened to the 1960's? Our freeway system was the "model" system, it was state-of the art, other cities drooled..

Transportation is a JOKE and we still don't have a rail past Hollywood, but instead we build to connect the rail with areas of non-vital economic importance such as East LA, and Boyle Heights.

I can't wait to get out. SMOG is on the rise. GRAFFITI is the WORST IN THE NATION.
Alot of people have the fiery look in the eyes like they are pissed off and want to robb you-

I don't know why this stupid statement above is so funny to me! LOL! Fiery LOOk in their eyes? WTF?! ROTF!
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Old 12-30-2008, 07:15 AM
 
359 posts, read 1,308,965 times
Reputation: 222
Quote:
Originally Posted by jlrobe View Post
As people can tell, I love LA.

Why do I love LA? Well, to be fair, I need to tell you how I spend my day. I am a young professional with no kids in the beach cities. About 20% of the beach cities or more, seem to be young professionals. I run into people from NY, chicago, boston, SF, all over. I am very social! So, the social environment is great. No one is snobby at all. Many of us are into biking, hiking, water sports, and my personal favorite, Photography.

I have only been here four months, but I already have friends in gentrified culver, marina del rey, santa monica, and westwood. I am lucky in the since that all of the people I have met so far are really cool, interesting people who like to have fun, and live in VERY fun areas of Socal.

I work in manhattan beach, and live in south redondo, so my commute is minimal. I commute along the beach, by car, sometimes by bike. I get to see the surfers every morning, the people in the coffe shops, and if it is clear enough I get to see the santa monica mountain ranges right above malibu.

I am right by PV, so I go hiking or biking on the *****ula very often. I must of lucked out like crazy becasue there are more asian eatiers and ethnic markets than I would have thought in torrance, so I dont have to go far to rent my foriegn language films, or go shopping for some asian treats. There are 3 farmers markets in my area (4) depending on how you count, and I live by redondo pier which has very fresh seafood. I have a very nice landscaped, old style, bristol farms, a whole foods, a trader joes, a vons, an albertsons, and other smaller markets within a 3/4 quarter mile radius, if you dont include whole foods, which is a very far 2 mile drive.

I live right next to the riviera village which is a charming little area. Cafes, restaurants, childrens toy stores, mom and pop shops, botiques, etc. There is a hint of LA with the salons, etc., but most of the people seem quite friendly. I am not jaded yet, so I tend to gravitate towards the friendly people.

During my lunch break, I go down to Hermosa Beach, grab some hawaiin breakfast, a panini, or some other type of fun beach food, and sit at the beach and enjoy lunch.

I have actually searched for EVERY park in the southbay, and there are some really nice places if people took the time to actualy look for them. So sometimes I go to the park, relax, and read a book.

I also love festivals, and LA has no shortage of them. Fiesta Hermosa, Old hometown Fair, Abbot Kinney Festival, and a few others top my list of festivals so far. I have only been here for four months, so I am just warming up though.

There was also two very good lectures in the south bay that I got to check out. One of the lectures was a person from Israel, who spoke about the REAL munich olympic game tragedy. The other lecture was a lesbian talking about equality for gays. All in all, very fun experiences. I wanted to check out speakersla, but it is sold out for the entire season in redondo beach, so oh well. There are some cool lecture series in downtown LA, so I will have to check some of those out instead . Every Tuesday night, not more than a 5 minute walk from my apartment there are poetry readings at the local cafe. Very cool indeed. Good crowd, good poetry, good event.

I have been to other cool things like an exceptional independent book store in santa monica, an independent theatre playing cool independent movies in westwood, and other interesting things. I have been to many ethnic restaurants that are quite good. I never really drive in traffic, and when I do, it isnt THAT bad. Of course I am not jaded yet, so, we will see in 4 years.

The weather is nice. all of my neighbors came by my apartment to introduce themselves. My coworkers are super cool. Most of the young professionals are really cool. There is good nightlife, good culture, good shopping (not just prada bags). I am close to Newport, Laguna, Malibu, San Diego and Santa Barbara so I can take a bunch of 2 day trips. The drivers in the south bay are nicer than drivers in SF. My fiance, who LOVES SF and small towns, actually LIKES LA ALOT. I dont think anyone understands how CRAZY that is. There isnt one person who has visited me who hasnt liked LA. I took my fishing buddy fishing, my clubbing buddy clubbing, and my hiking buddy hiking. LA has hundreds of stores, tons of neighborhoods, and tons of cultural events. Why would I CHOOSE to take myself or my loved ones to the bad ones? Skid Row sucks, but why on Earth would I go there?!? 70% of Hollywood is lame, but why would I go to that 70%?!?

I have a great new job, good new friends, and I live in a nice little spot. for the time being, LA is my home.
Now this just sums it up right here. You can tell when reading this, that this is person who understands that life (no matter where you are) is what YOU make it. It's all perspective. It's all consciousness. And when I think about it (as one who used to complain about LA so much, until I moved to this horrid cidt LAS VEGAS) he is right. I know all of the areas he speaks of. When he spoke of a park, my mind went to a nice little park I used to go to in Southbay behind the Galleria. There are so many wonderful pockets of LA County why in the hell would anyone go to Nickerson Gardens, Hollywood, Boyle Heights (sorry) and then put a blanket negative statement on LA. He's created a great life...we ALL create our own experiences.
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Old 12-30-2008, 10:04 AM
 
897 posts, read 1,585,027 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ArthursChoice View Post
Now this just sums it up right here. You can tell when reading this, that this is person who understands that life (no matter where you are) is what YOU make it. It's all perspective. It's all consciousness. And when I think about it (as one who used to complain about LA so much, until I moved to this horrid cidt LAS VEGAS) he is right. I know all of the areas he speaks of. When he spoke of a park, my mind went to a nice little park I used to go to in Southbay behind the Galleria. There are so many wonderful pockets of LA County why in the hell would anyone go to Nickerson Gardens, Hollywood, Boyle Heights (sorry) and then put a blanket negative statement on LA. He's created a great life...we ALL create our own experiences.
Of course it's easy to say that L.A. is nice when you're an outsider who comes in making enough money to afford to live comfortably near the beach. But there are those of us who are locals and grew up in the original Los Angeles who can see those areas for what they are. So let me tell you MY experience:

My parents, my brother and I came to this country in 1984 (legally, mind you, so don't even start that illegal immigrant crap; we rode a plane here not walked accross the border) and, after living with my aunt and uncle for 2 months lived in North Hollywood for a few years. North Hollywood was known to be "not the best area" but we enjoyed it. We lived in a two bedroom, two bath apartment in a nice, small apartment building located in a cul de sac. The landlord didn't even want to rent to my parents because of us children but my uncle vouched for us and my mom is such a neat freak that the landlord never had any complaints about the apartment not being clean or having to do too much maintenance. Hell, I didn't even know the air conditioner worked until the year we moved out.

My aunt and uncle did my parents the favor of taking them downtown to look at the "ghetto" and made sure to explain to them that education was very important in this country and that learning the language was the most important aspect of this so my parents went to adult school at the local high school every night to learn to speak english. Jobs came through recommendations from relatives at first and later through networking. My aunt and uncle explained to my parents that things are different in this country and that things that were acceptable in ours, like tossing trash out of your car window or on the street would not be acceptable here and my parents passed that down to us.

Living in NH was great to me because of WHERE we lived. The streets surrounding us were known for gang activity but nothing ever really happened in our little cul de sac because that particular street only had the kids that lived in our building to worry about. We rode our bikes around the block and, as we got older, around the city but we always had to be aware of what streets not to go down. The elementary school we went to was 75% hispanic (and about 90% of those hispanics were Mexican) and I learned pretty quickly that, as a hispanic, I only had two choices: be a nerd or be a future gang banger. I chose nerd and it got me into quite a few fights since I had a bad temper back in the day. Nobody ever got teased for being smart where I came from so I wasn't used to it.

When I was 14 my Dad got a job as an apartment manager in downtown L.A. I HATED the neighborhood right away. The streets were dirty, the place was crowded and the building we moved into was big, dirty and noisy. The people who lived there were the prime example of what my aunt and uncle had shown my parents of "how not to behave". It was rough on me and my siblings (my sister had been born by now) right away because the kids in this were even rougher than the ones in NH and we got threated simply for being the manager's kids. Needles to say, my brother and I used my uncle's address (he took over our old apartment) to continue to go to school in the valley and my sister went to catholic school once it was time for her to go to school. Long story short (too late) I made it out of there but my parents stayed due to my Dad's job for a few years more.

In my twenties, I moved back into the downtown area (I had actually missed it because the valley seemed so flat to me) for work and it was great at first. I discovered lots of little treasures that were in walking distance from where I lived like the water court, the grand central library, the new cathedral, little Tokyo, all the shopping "districts" downtown, the 7th and fig shopping center, etc. But, in the end, I am hispanic and anyone hispanic living in the area that I lived in was expected to behave a certain way and, since I didn't, I got attacked twice. I moved into the building that my parents lived in (thanks to a hook up from my Dad since he was the manager) and things were better but I'd had enough of downtown living. The sad reality is that if you look the way that I look and you don't act a certain way, you just don't fit in there. I get labeled as "whitewashed" by other hispanic immigrants because I speak English well (this stereoptype is fading as I get older though) when they don't even bother to learn the language and am seen as a race traitor for having a black wife. Nobody ever said anything about the latter but the stares were there and were noticeable enough to make my wife uncomfortable.
She and I were just dating at the time and this was at the beginning of the real estate bubble so my Dad's bosses decided to gentrify the building in order to raise the rent. Guess who they got rid of first once the building had been refurbished. Yeah, my dad. I guess they felt his skin was too dark and his accent to prevalent for young, white and asian professionals to feel comfortable with so they hired a white woman to replace him. In an apartment building that is usually the first step in gentrification. Don't missunderstand me, you can still be part of the staff if you're a male hispanic. You just have to be young, have the right complection and speak English without an accent. It's a sad fact but it's a fact nonetheless and, if you don't believe me, go "luxury" apartment hunting in the downtown area. The next thing they did was raise the rent on everyone in the building, including those of us who didn't have anything new done to their apartments to their new prices in order to push us out.
It's a whole other long story how I ende up back in the SF Valley but let's just say that living here has been way more enjoyable than living in the downtown area. So, yeah, it's what you make of it but sometimes, no matter how much good you see in a bad situation, it's still just a bad situation.
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Old 12-30-2008, 01:31 PM
 
26,680 posts, read 28,579,455 times
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Very good story, fatmancomics.

And I agree that it's much easier to enjoy yourself and say that "life is what you make of it" if you have the means to live in a pleasant area and can afford more than just the essentials for getting by. For much of the population of L.A., living a middle-class lifestyle is equivalent to being poor in most other cities.
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Old 12-31-2008, 10:22 PM
 
Location: Las Flores, Orange County, CA
26,338 posts, read 93,466,069 times
Reputation: 17827
Quote:
Originally Posted by ArthursChoice View Post
He's created a great life...
Actually, all he did was rent an apartment near his job and write a post on City-Data. (However, the tone of his post indicates he is happy and mentally healthy - probably more important than anything else I will write below.) His post basically stated that he likes to do what can be done in just about any city with a half million or more people in it: eat at ethnic restaurants, attend festivals, visit museums, etc - except the living by the beach part....

His job was in Manhattan Beach and he lived in South Redondo. One of these days, Ms. Right will come along and he'll get married and have kids and want a home with good schools. Maybe our poster is pulling in $200K+/year (about three times the average income of Los Angeles residents) and he'll continue to live down there. Or, he'll be like the other 98% of us and either A) buy a home he can afford somewhere far away and commute or B) move or C) wait for the homes to continue crashing and buy a home not too far away - if he still has a job.

I'm not knocking the guy (actually I envy him; but I'm married with four kids), but a single dude renting an apartment near the beach and not commuting isn't a huge accomplishment. I was sort of doing the same thing myself when I was in my 20s.
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Old 01-02-2009, 11:50 AM
 
897 posts, read 1,585,027 times
Reputation: 1007
Quote:
Originally Posted by ArthursChoice View Post
Alot of people have the fiery look in the eyes like they are pissed off and want to robb you-

I don't know why this stupid statement above is so funny to me! LOL! Fiery LOOk in their eyes? WTF?! ROTF!
To you it might be but my wife told me that, when we started dating, I had a type of "mean look" that I lost after I moved out from L.A. I used to laugh it off but other people (like co-workers) told me that I used to have a "don't f- with me look" and my current co-workers have told me that I still get that look every once in a while. It's probably a survival tactic that those of us who grow up in bad neighborhoods develop subconsciously.
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