Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I guess for the elite things couldn't be better anywhere in America. But the quality of life in Los Angeles in general is very low.
Not only that their city will be spending $1.3 billion a year in pensions in 2019 compared to just over 400 million in 2005.
No wonder many of their streets are falling apart, they have crumbling outdated infrastructure and extremely low quality and overwhelmed city services that can't even do remedial cleanup.
The gold-plated areas of Los Angeles are small compared to the vast majority of the city. Most of the city of Los Angeles looks very blue-collar with small homes. Even these gentrified areas have small homes on small lots and aren't all that impressive.
Riverside is much more luxurious than most of Los Angeles, IMHO.
Pretty much all of America is in a massive bubble right now. Los Angeles though is only about 11 percent above the national average of per-capita income. Omaha, Nebraska just a middle-American city on the plains is 17 percent above the national average.
When ever most people think of technology and Los Angeles, they think of Snapchat. Most people when they think of tech, they think of the Bay Area.
A few restaurants and celebrities don't change the fact that Los Angeles has an overwhelmed, incredibly old infrastructure with a massive ignored homeless population and the highest percentage of people in America burdened by excessive rents which reduces disposable income.
I guess where you live it is perfect with no crime and white picket fences. Unbelievable.
" YouTube video shows how good America cities were in the 1940s compared to today with all the new inventions "
That's a nice vintage video. It's also a short made by the Santa Fe Railway. They were trying to entice people to travel across the country. Even back then, I'm sure there were poor neighborhoods, but it wasn't in the company's best interest to show them. They had posters, magazine ads and even commissioned artists from Santa Fe New Mexico for their advertisements.
I grew up in the 50's and 60's, and I agree that towns and cities were a lot different and more pleasant back then. We never even knew where the key was to our front door, and it was extremely rare to hear of any serious crime in our area.
As an example, my sister moved to West Philadelphia in the 50's, and I would go there to visit her every Summer. She lived in a row, block home that was adjoined with a lot of other homes. Everyone took pride in their home, knew their neighbors, and would even have cookouts together. At midnight, even being a 12 year old kid, I could walk down the street to the nearest corner store, and we could sit out on our front steps until the wee hours and never worry about any danger. I could walk down the street and see older kids waiting to get into American Bandstand.
Then, the neighborhood began to change. Different people moved in, and it became worse and worse. Drugs and crime moved in, and the houses became dumps. All the former residents fled to the suburbs to escape what was happening there. About 12 years ago, I revisited the area to go past her old home, and I was afraid to drive through there with my windows up. On every corner were hookers and people selling drugs, and the place was filthy and depressing.
I guess where you live it is perfect with no crime and white picket fences. Unbelievable.
No, but most cities are in much better shape than Los Angeles. Most big cities in general are not doing very well in my opinion outside of construction.
They can build as many high-rises as they want in Los Angeles, doesn't change the fact that at street level it is a overwhelmed city filled with many negative elements such as rampant homelessness, rampant communicable diseases, polluted air, stressed-out population and rapidly increasing violent crime rates.
Just because Los Angeles has lots of celebrities and high-profit margin experience restaurants and clubs does not equate to a high-quality of life.
All the new construction of mainly luxury high-rise condos doesn't change the fact that Los Angeles offers a very low quality of life for the average resident with terrible public services, overwhelmed infrastructure.
When I was walking in Westlake a couple months of ago there were hundreds of people with towels on the street selling questionable merchandise, medications being sold out in the open and people taking fruits and meats out of garbage bags and coolers to cook with no permit.
I doubt that they could even dream of the majority of their city being such a mess in the 1940s and 1950s.
Public parks full of dogs, sick people in desperate need of medical help coughing and public/animal waste on the streets.
Los Angeles might have "record high" home prices because it is basically investors on buying sprees and tycoons from the third-world buying up real estate.
With the best weather and entertainment in the world? Your loss.
P.S. 200% equity gains in the last 5 years, what has your house in your inferior state done???
The weather sucks there and what entertainment? The films that they have put out are nothing but bad remakes. Where the hell is the creativity in that city! Or should I say as people from there call it a large suburb more than a city
Not all cities were 'cleaner' back then. St. Louis reportedly had the worst air quality in the nation- some days were so bad (due to heavy pollution) that daytime almost looked like night time reportedly.
It definitely improved once the burning of anthracite coal was banned.
As for health and environment, 'thanks' to our forefathers of the 1940s, parts of St. Louis County have been faced with cancer clusters and other localized health issues.
Following WWII, Asbestos was dumped en masse into Maline Creek, and, even worse, tonnes and tonnes of Uranium from the Manhattan project were dumped into suburban Coldwater Creek, causing innumerable long term health consequences to nearby residents.
To be fair though, I've often thought I was born in the wrong era and am somewhat obsessed with the social history of yesteryear... but in reality, it certainly wasn't the perfect utopia it appears to be in advertisements and publicity footage of the time. They definitely had their fair share of issues, and even caused some of the environmental issues we have to contend with today.
I was born in 1940, and for me and Hucklberry Finn life was great, but of course I didn't know better....No indoor plumbing, so no running water, outhouse in the back yard...Froze our butts off in the winter...Mom cooked on a wood stove, and stored food in an ice box rather than a fridge...The house was heated with a coal furnace that would not burn the whole night, so we'd wake in a freezing cold house in the winter with our drinking water frozen...
There were no clothes washers, driers, or dish washer, no vacuums, or air conditioners..Some food items and other things were rationed because of the war....
I have many good memories, but I wouldn't want to go back.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
