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The Chicago area is Midwestern plains its neither coastal nor mountainous.
The closest cousins to LA are Houston, Miami, Vegas, & possibly Phoenix.
At least for me, I am talking more about the layout of the city, density, cityscape than the geographical terrain. Vegas has little in common with Los Angeles, even less than Phoenix or Houston.
For me the similarities are a fairly strict grid network with very few super-block type developments (which are extremely common in the cities you mention above); moderately high densities (12k+) achieved through a mish-mash of SFHs, low-rise apartments and duplexes/triplexes; fairly wide commercial arteries with a mix of strip development and street-front retail; relatively few big-box stores with monster parking lots, particularly in the core (though not unheard of in LA, they do not appear nearly to the extent of the cities you mention above).
There are obvious differences and the cities are probably more different than alike, but considering how many people consider Chicago and LA to be night-and-day different, when in fact they share quite a few common threads.
Honestly, the way I view LA economically is basically Chicago on the West Coast. LA's economic base has HISTORICALLY been extremely blue collar, much like Chicago has. Unlike Chicago, LA is still trying to diversifying the economic base in the aftermath of the manufacturing exodus post-NAFTA.
When I visited Chicago I thought that too. I stayed with a friend in Lincoln Square and saw some of the outer neighborhoods and it reminded me of LA in a way. Lots of tightly packed SFH's and low rise apartment complexes with little yards and set backs, smaller pedestrian commercial corridors, and a surprising amount of strip malls.
Yeah there are a lot of similarities between the two. When you take out the cores for both cities because that is different, Chicago feels like the closest thing to LA. The density is consistent and ever lasting and this can be seen by the expansive grids both cities have. LA keeps going on and on but Chicago's the only city that could attempt keeping up with that. Chicago is also built comfortably for both the car and transit, it's the model for the best of both worlds. For a lack of better choice words Chicago has a core like the east coast cities but the rest of Chicago metro is formed like LA's metro. I think half the spread but the densities mirror one another for quite some time.
One other city that's similar to both but smaller is Miami, evidently after you take out its core too but it's smaller than the other two.
They really could. I think where LA and Miami start REALLY pulling away from each other are when you get to the outlier areas. The natural features and climate are just too vastly diffirent from each other. And LA's core is larger and more urban than Miami's. LA and Miami have similarities, but are overall unique. But like you said, the Miami links I posted could easily pass for South LA. It's uncanny how certain parts of LA and Miami look alike.
Yeah there are a lot of similarities between the two. When you take out the cores for both cities because that is different, Chicago feels like the next closest thing to LA. The density is consistent and ever lasting and this can be seen by the expansive grids both cities have. LA keeps going on and on but Chicago's the only city that could attempt keeping up with that. Chicago is also built comfortably for both the car and transit, it's the model for the best of both worlds.
One other city that's similar to both but smaller is Miami, evidently after you take out its core too.
Not sure why you would need to take the core out of Miami for it to be similar to Los Angeles. Areas like Little Havana look a whole lot like East Hollywood to me. And East Hollywood is not really in the core of Los Angeles.
Really the main part of Chicago that LA has no answer to is the North Side (or whatever that area is called). DTLA is vaguely similar to the Loop though nowhere near as massive vertically, and a few decades behind in development.
Agreed. I don't find LA to be unique in the city's culture.
But in regards to it's physical structure, denisty, layout etc, it's one of the most unique. I am not the biggest LA fan, but I found it to be a weird city. Not in a bad way, but in a unique way. It was like a highly urban city mated with a very suburban suburb and they gave birth to this huge city that is a mix a both throughout almost all the city.
Good observations about my hometown. LA is often called "100 suburbs in search of a city," or something like that.
It IS a weird city, and growing up there will make you think being weird, in one way or another, is normal, so I wouldn't have it any other way!
I DON'T think the poll choices are all there. I gather the author of the poll wants cities out of California or the West.
If within California or the West, my answer is San Diego which, 135 miles away, has a completely different personality, and I don't mean that in a good way.
If outside of California or the West, my answer is Houston, which is not on the poll. If you blur out a mountain backdrop, LA is very much like Houston - the look of the downtown, the edge cities, the never-ending suburbs, the late-comer status to commuter rail mass transit, the presence of an important but not very scenic working port, and the big maze of freeways, including the very same one, I-10, which passes through both downtown LA and downtown Houston.
Next would be Atlanta, with its monikers like "Hotlanta" and even "the Los Angeles of the South." Nevertheless, it would be much further down the list than Houston in resembling Los Angeles.
One minor addition: the retention rate of people seeking "greener pastures" than LA in different parts of US is highly variable, and many experience HUGE cognitive dissonance upon relocating. Not all, but many. For exactly the reason that there really is no other metro area like Los Angeles.
You know, the very existence of this thread is what annoys a lot of people about LA, and Californians in general:
Why would you move out of an area and try to find an area almost just like it? Isn't that why you left the first area to begin with?
Let Los Angeles be Los Angeles, Miami be Miami, Houston be Houston, etc. Every single place on the planet has a particular set of circumstances and a particular way for why they are the way they are. In every place I lived outside of LA, I never ONCE tried to find something about LA about it. It makes absolutely no sense.
Sure, there are similarities between LA and X, but you can say that between any two populated places. As Lisa Simpson once eloquently put it, "...usually the something of something is typically not the anything of anything" It takes away not only the uniqueness of the first place being compared, but the second place it is being compared to. I understand the need to compare X place with Y place for familiarity purposes, but using even the littlest thing to compare and then magnifying it x1000 as if its the most important consideration is just, well, dumb.
Then you start contradicting yourself once you get to that point, such as claiming scientifically impossible postulations.
You know, the very existence of this thread is what annoys a lot of people about LA, and Californians in general:
Why would you move out of an area and try to find an area almost just like it? Isn't that why you left the first area to begin with?
Let Los Angeles be Los Angeles, Miami be Miami, Houston be Houston, etc. Every single place on the planet has a particular set of circumstances and a particular way for why they are the way they are. In every place I lived outside of LA, I never ONCE tried to find something about LA about it. It makes absolutely no sense.
Sure, there are similarities between LA and X, but you can say that between any two populated places. As Lisa Simpson once eloquently put it, "...usually the something of something is typically not the anything of anything" It takes away not only the uniqueness of the first place being compared, but the second place it is being compared to. I understand the need to compare X place with Y place for familiarity purposes, but using even the littlest thing to compare and then magnifying it x1000 as if its the most important consideration is just, well, dumb.
Then you start contradicting yourself once you get to that point, such as claiming scientifically impossible postulations.
I know this is "city vs city" and people reflexively get a little defensive about their cities (Californians and non-Californians alike) but I'm not seeing what's offensive about the question posed here.
If the thread was titled "Which city is best equipped to shine L.A.'s shoes?" then I could how it would irk some people, but as is, it's a harmless discussion. I still lean towards Miami. Chicago's street grid and mixed housing is a similar concept to L.A., but the housing stock looks clearly different. Nice though.
Edit: I agree, people who move to a new city and complain about its differences vs their old city are annoying.
Last edited by RaymondChandlerLives; 11-15-2012 at 01:10 PM..
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