A Chicagoan's review of LA

[FLKitties]

Responding to the original post, seeing this too many pages of commentary in but for the most part I agree with OP's take. I personally really enjoyed Santa Monica but we actually lived there. We never put so few miles on our car living anywhere else. But we were also within walking distance of the Promenade so we didn't really need to go far for anything since it was all right there. I would still kill for some of those crepes.

I think my husband is still mad that I wouldn't let us buy a condo downtown several years back when they were decently priced. I just felt too unsafe walking in the area as a visitor back then, let alone having to be there on a daily basis because the homeless people there were indeed mentally ill and/or all strung out on drugs.

I did note, however, that not all of the "homeless" people elsewhere are indeed homeless, at least that was the case in Santa Monica. I'm assuming the other tourist areas run into the same problems where people come in with their signs and are really just panhandlers. Once we were leaving the bookstore and heard the one lady who "worked" the corner of 3rd & Wilshire complaining on her cell phone about her weed bill being $100/mo and her dry cleaning and cell phone bills so clearly she was making bank under the guise of being homeless as normally she held up some sob story little sign. Tourists give them money, not the people actually living there because you knew better as you saw the same story and person working their corner ALL. THE. TIME. - in fact, we thought there was going to be a dust up one time when we heard one guy walk up to another guy and tell him to beat it, saying "you're working my corner" so clearly neither was homeless, they just arrive to "work" their shifts. I would say 99% of the people we saw asking for money there weren't even homeless. I can only think of 1 or 2 that we saw on a regular basis who actually were homeless. You can tell the real homeless people from the panhandlers based on their appearance. The true homeless are usually a little unkempt looking, for obvious reasons. They'll be the ones washing their clothing in the fountains, not chatting on their cell phones about dry cleaning and weed costs when they think no one is paying attention.

[Losfrisco]

Originally Posted by Meowen

Downtown SF is not that interesting. Much like LA, the majority of the tourist attractions are spread throughout the city and not really focused downtown. In fact, I would say downtown LA nowadays has the edge on SF. As for overall interest to tourists, SF may be more tourist friendly and interesting, but that's kind of in the eye of the beholder.

Only downtown Los Angeles has way more readily identifiable attractions than downtown San Francisco.

As you saw earlier in the thread, San Francisco is assumed to have a better downtown because it "sounds right' with the narrower streets, cable cars, structural density, etc.

Ask someone to name something unique or interesting about DT San Francisco....crickets...or "its just better."

Los Angeles (I don't even live there) off the top of my head downtown-Lakers, Clippers, Kings, L.A. Live concerts, Grand Central Market, Broad, MOCA, LACMA, Grammy, Geffen Museums, SkySpace, 71 above, Broadway Theatre district.

Now Google "things to do in downtown San Francisco" and get ready for a laugh.

[saybanana]

What I find really interesting about Downtown LA are the smaller districts in wholesale business that not many cities have. NYC is the only one that rivals it. Flower District, Jewelry District, Garment/Fashion District, Automotive parts District, Toy District, Seafood District, Produce District. Even a pinata district, not officially, but a dozen stores selling pinatas. https://goo.gl/maps/ZfLy5zsYgyYc1Bxt7
I guess being on the west coast with a major port, things come and goto and from America-Asia, Central and South America, elsewhere.
I lived in Seoul city and you find a lot of districts everywhere. I was offered a fish tank, and totally got into it with lights, and materials, sea plants, and fish. Try carrying that around the subways in Seoul where the bag can burst any second. I like that LA has something like these small districts. Im sure other cities in America has small parts, too, but LA has a larger area.