How fascinating do you find LA? (Los Angeles, San Francisco: movies, schools, living in)

[majoun]

Originally Posted by EscapeCalifornia

LA is fascinating like a train wreck.

In other words, like L.A.'s women?

[happ]

Thousand Oaks allows easy access to Malibu & San Fernando valley [west valley] but too far away to enjoy a night out for dinner & theater\ Hollywood. The travel just isn't worth it. I live in Pasadena area of LA & have easy access to downtown\ Hollywood because of trains. But I almost never drive out to Santa Monica for dinner or a swim in the ocean [it takes easily an hour to cover the 15 miles]. I remember when it was only 30 minutes.

[City Boy]

I love LA, it's nice to go down there for a weekend and eat and hang out.

[eureka1]

I spent seven of the best years of my life in LA but the farthest (furthest?) I ever had to commute was from Santa Monica to downtown, and that was a few years ago. The whole Bay Area is just as smoggy as LA now, just as congested , just as expensive if not more. Never go there unless I have to.

[jaynetarzana]

I would hardly say that the Bay area is as smoggy as LA. According to Money magazine, some of the cleanest air in the country is in the Bay area:

Cleanest air

In these cities, the air quality is rated highly, and pollution levels are below the U.S. average.
Rank City Air quality index
(% days AQI
ranked good) Air Pollution Index
(100 is nat'l avg;
lower is better) 1 Novato, CA 100.0% 85 2 San Rafael, CA 100.0% 85 3 Kingman, AZ 100.0% 92 4 Richmond, VA 100.0% 94 5 Evesham, NJ 100.0% 95 6 Medford, NJ 100.0% 95 7 Mount Laurel, NJ 100.0% 97 8 Lake Havasu City, AZ 100.0% 98 9 Moorestown, NJ 100.0% 98 10 Cheyenne, WY 100.0% 98 11 Santa Fe, NM 99.7% 86 12 Santa Cruz, CA 99.2% 80 13 Bismarck, ND 99.2% 94 14 Monterey, CA 98.9% 79 15 Salinas, CA 98.9% 82 16 Victoria, TX 98.9% 88 17 Alamogordo, NM 98.9% 97 18 Summerville, SC 98.7% 86 19 Goose Creek, SC 98.7% 87 20 Mililani Town, HI 98.6% 75 21 Waipahu, HI 98.6% 76 22 Pearl City, HI 98.6% 77 23 Waimalu, HI 98.6% 78 24 Honolulu, HI 98.6% 80 25 Kaneohe, HI 98.6% 81
Best places to live 2008 - Top 25: Cleanest air - from MONEY Magazine

[jc76]

Been to LA 5 times. Lived there for about a month and a half. Honestly I can't think of one thing besides the cost of rent that I did NOT like about LA. I liked the people because they seem to mind their own business, unlike hickville USA where I currently dwell. I LOVED the weather! I could wake up to a blue sky and sunshine everyday for the next 50 years and it would never get old. The traffic did not really bother me too bad because I am aware and accepting that LA is one of the largest metropolitan areas in the country, so obviously traffic will be horrible.

I like LA, but most likely will move to Fresno or San Jose when I'm finished with college due to rent cost.

[Bunjee]

I'm neither obsessive nor derisive of LA. I love my hometown but I take it for what it is. What I'm fascinated by is the Rorschach effect it has on outsiders, unlike natives like myself who simply have their memories. The city has always been defined by outsiders in relation to themselves and that's its great myth, and why, weirdly, they've always tended to apply such overwrought moral dimensions in discussing what's really just a town with a lot of different people living in it! That's why psychologically it appears to have no center, because--weird, even from the inside--they tend to look at it from the outside as looking into a mirrored bubble. I have lived elsewhere (SF, NYC, Seattle, Colorado) and I have found Los Angeles' effect on people to be really... quite... intricate?

[vdy1985]

Originally Posted by jc76

I like LA, but most likely will move to Fresno or San Jose when I'm finished with college due to rent cost.

Just FYI, San Jose is more expensive than LA.

[jaynetarzana]

I was just about to say the same thing.

[ImRandy]

Originally Posted by Charles

Even a Saturday night date into into the SF Valley (like to a restaurant on Ventura Blvd for dinner) from TO the traffic would jam around Woodland Hills. Very frustrating.

A lot of people felt the same. We'd hear about new restaurants in Santa Barbara and go even though they were much further away rather than deal with traffic going to restaurants in the Valley or LA.