Okay, hmm, well, let's see.
Not all of these things will seem good or bad to everyone. They're just differences. To me, I can see both good and bad, to both NJ and SoCal.
One thing that's good is that the people do seem at least outwardly more friendly here. Significantly so. You don't have to pack your own groceries...the checkers run to help you. You'll always get a smile when you buy something or talk to anyone on the street. You'll always get a wave "hello" if you take a walk, and this from strangers. Kids as well. Keep in mind that I'm not in the city. I'm out in the suburbs. I don't know if it's different in LA "proper".
The mountains are neat to see in LA. I mean you're driving through the city and there's this backdrop of mountains. Tall mountains. Eight thousand feet...nine...maybe more. That part is very cool.
Now, there's not the "historical" vibe here (even though LA surely has as old a history as the east coast). Whereas you get that sense of charm on the east coast, the charm and "hominess" and "old family"-ness and all that of the east coast is missing out here. Or at least as I see things.
Homes here can be beautiful, but tend to be, again, less charming. You tend to see more "cookie cutter" "oh, here's another one-story Spanish style ranch" home out here. There's much more individuality that way on the east coast. *Again*...keep in mind I'm comparing suburbs to suburbs.
Home prices in general in LA are higher than home prices in general in New Jersey...yes, even more pricey than Ramsey.
(Which I almost wouldn't have thought possible...) The difficulty here is that salaries are *not* significantly higher than NY/NJ.
The weather is nice here, of course...except for five blistering months a year...yeowch. (In NY/NY, you might get a blistering 100-degree one or two or three weeks.) It's much less muggy...but definitely much more air polluted. There are a lot of "hazy" days here. That's air pollution, sadly. That's not to say there haven't been a lot of clean-air initiatives in SoCal in the past 30-odd years, just as there were tons of clean-water and clean-soil initiatives in NJ in the past 30-odd years.
You won't be able to get directly from anywhere to anywhere here.
You're used to public transportation...extremely complete, every-9-minutes, available 24 hours transportation. There's a reason they say "nobody walks in LA" or "everybody drives in LA". Everybody DOES drive in LA. Okay, not every single person, obviously! ETA: SoCal natives will tell you, "there are buses all over the place! And there's the MetroLink..." I am here to tell you that unless one has lived in the northeast, one doesn't know what being able to obtain transportation at literally any time day or night in any area really is.
Again, not good, not bad, just a difference that WILL surprise you.
Back to the weather, it definitely is temperate and predictable MUCH more so than the northeast, and of course there's no snow, sleet, ice to drive in. It's so awesome to be able to predict that you WILL go for a hike this weekend, or you CAN have your child's birthday party out doors next month...with a 90% degree of accuracy. There is much less of a rhythm, there's no expectation of changing seasons, and there's much less "seasonal" stress on holidays. Again, some might consider this good, some bad and some neutral. It leaves me very lonely and very off-rhythm. But being able to take walks for 7 months of the year certainly is nice.
There's lots to do here. But you generally feel very "sterile" and "far from" nature. My husband always says, "Oh, we can drive to our seasons! If we want snow, we can drive to a mountain and then come back home that night." Great for some, weird for others. Actually, a lot of people must feel the way my husband does because I hear this type of comment a lot. So you might feel the same way too.
The vibe: totally different...100% different...I can't explain how. Definitely completely different, which is why I was surprised that you said you thought LA must be like NJ.
Hope all that helps...maybe someone else who has lived in both places can give some input.
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02-14-2008, 01:29 PM
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