Los angeles in the 1990's and early 2000's vs now (Vista: rent, crime)

[brokenmadness77]

What was LA like back in the 90's and early 2000's? was it better or worse? I'm thinking LA had much more crime, air pollution was worst, more abandoned buildings, Santa Monica pier wasn't as great as it is today and there was more graffiti on buildings/more of a gang presence? has LA changed for the better?

[disgruntled la native]

Originally Posted by brokenmadness77

What was LA like back in the 90's and early 2000's? was it better or worse? I'm thinking LA had much more crime, air pollution was worst, more abandoned buildings, Santa Monica pier wasn't as great as it is today and there was more graffiti on buildings/more of a gang presence? has LA changed for the better?

Much better.
Air pollution about the same (it was worse in the 70s and before)
Traffic was so much better back then. Rush hour didn't really start till 4:30 or so and it was over by 7:30. Now it's 1:30 to 9:30!!!!
Home prices were reasonable. A middle class person could afford parts of Santa Monica for example. One bedrooms didn't rent for over 50% of the median family income like now!
There was class mobility.
Crime - there were more murders in the early 90s but by the late 90s there was virtually no crime. We may much more property crime now than back then due to income disparity. The homeless problem has grown exponentially too.

[Chicano3000X]

Crime wise, L.A. WAs worse.

Aesthetic wise, L.A. Is getting better now. More urban than before. More transit and undergoing an evolution.

[CA4Now]

http://www.city-data.com/forum/los-a...90s-soooo.html

[JohnG72]

Suburbs were better then. Inner city and especially downtown were so much worse.

[Nafster]

I can't imagine an LA where rents and housing prices in Santa Monica, The Westside, and West Hollywood were affordable. Sounds like a dream!

[disgruntled la native]

Originally Posted by Nafster

I can't imagine an LA where rents and housing prices in Santa Monica, The Westside, and West Hollywood were affordable. Sounds like a dream!

It was. And with those areas being affordable for middle income people.. that means the "Affordable" areas of today (i.e. SFV, Koreatown) were dirt cheap back then!

[majoun]

Originally Posted by Nafster

I can't imagine an LA where rents and housing prices in Santa Monica, The Westside, and West Hollywood were affordable. Sounds like a dream!

Santa Monica was no longer affordable in the '90s - it became expensive in the '80s. However, Culver City, Palms, Mar Vista, Westchester, Pico-Robertson, most of Venice, and parts of West LA, Fairfax, and West Hollywood were affordable at the time. So was Silver Lake

[majoun]

Downtown in the '90s was a no-go zone at night, with only drug dealers, hookers, people looking for same, gangbangers, and homeless on the streets. The transportation system was worse.

L.A. in the '90s was much more dangerous than today, even with the recent rise in crime L.A. has not yet returned even to the levels of the late '90s. While crime was going down in the late '90s it didn't really start heavily decreasing until Bratton came in and cleaned the department up. Bernard Parks was not very good as a police chief, although he went on to become a good Councilman.

LAUSD was already crap in the '90s. The double whammy of Prop 13 and busing arriving simultaneously destroyed it, although in the better schools like Uni or Grant the decline happened a little more slowly. Those schools continued to be good schools well into the '80s but by the end of the decade they had also fallen prey to the same ills that destroyed the rest of the district. By the '90s the whole district was a lost cause.

There are many periods in L.A.'s history that I can understand nostalgia for, particularly the mid 20th century and the 1960s, but even the 1970s. I can't understand nostalgia for '90s L.A. at all, even though there were many more affordable neighborhoods and there was a lot less homelessness.

[disgruntled la native]

Santa Monica was expensive but someone with a middle class income could easily afford a one bedroom in most of the city in the 90s.

The 90s were a good time as we had economic prosperity, low COL, and only moderate traffic & crime.