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Hollywood/West Hollywood - no explanation needed
Downtown - vibrant and getting more vibrant with each month it feels like
Koreatown - very vibrant on the weekends especially, colorful, and can get pretty crowded
Santa Monica/Venice - pretty damn vibrant with diverse walks of life
Long Beach - can be vibrant if there's stuff going on but otherwise, it's low-key
Pasadena - the same as Long Beach but with slightly more class
I don't have much experience along Ventura in the Valley.
You can take rail to explore the first three pretty closely. If you're feeling adventurous, you can head to SM on rail too. Of course this depends on the time you're out but it can easily be done if before 1AM. The first two alone dwarf what SF has. Throw in Koreatown and that's the Bay Area.
Not sure if you're referring to Downtown as one of the first wo but that doesn't dwarf anything in SF. And no even throwing in Koreatown that doesn't even equal SF's nightlife let alone the rest of the region.
You're not an LA native, for starters and I don't live there anymore.
And your vastly exaggerating night life in Chicago and NOLA, which is not *everywhere*.
That being said, sure it's harder to bar hop from Silver Lake to DTLA despite the short distance. But the exact same thing can be said if your trying to barhop from Haight to the Mission in SF, despite close proximity.
Manhattan is the only place with nightlife like LA in dense setting. But even then, there are vast dead zones in Staten Island, Queens, and the Bronx.
Same goes for Chicago. Most of the action there is from the the neighborhoods surrounding downtown. But there are total deadzones on the south and west sides. And the suburbs there are dead.
So your notion that LA's nightlife has gotten better is sophmoric. LA and NYC have had the best nightlife for 100 years. It's the transit that has gotten better in LA.
I grew up in various parts of the greater Los Angeles area including the city proper, went to elementary through high school there and then went to college there. I used to frequent the Anarchist library and the Smell and using my fake ID at the Standard back when there was relatively little in downtown. Good on you for not living there anymore.
No, Chicago and NOLA don't have nightlife absolutely everywhere in the city, but they have them in many parts and those parts are often very accessible to each other. They also have a late last call so if you're already going, it's easy to keep going.
Yea, I don't think SF is a great nightlife destination, so I didn't use it as an example of one. Neither LA nor SF are that great for nightlife--only that LA, in my opinion, is better.
You've got to be kidding to say Manhattan is the only place with nightlife in dense settings. You've got a point with the vast majority of Staten Island and Eastern Queens and outside of that is much of the rest of the city.
LA having the best nightlife for 100 years is a pretty ridiculous assertion, though I can believe there were periods possibly in some cinema golden age and hair metal periods when LA probably had great nightlife relative to some of the US.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 08-29-2018 at 11:53 AM..
Not sure if you're referring to Downtown as one of the first wo but that doesn't dwarf anything in SF. And no even throwing in Koreatown that doesn't even equal SF's nightlife let alone the rest of the region.
Yes Downtown is one of the first two (the other being Hollywood/WeHo) and combined they do equal SF. Add in Koreatown and those nightlife areas are larger what's in the entire Bay Area. Really all you have is a part of SF, then some parts of Oakland and Berkeley. Anything else is just minor, which LA has plenty of too (Fullerton, Redondo Beach, North Hollywood, etc.).
I grew up in various parts of the greater Los Angeles area including the city proper, went to elementary through high school there and then went to college there. I used to frequent the Anarchist library and the Smell and using my fake ID at the Standard back when there was relatively little in downtown. Good on you for not living there anymore.
No, Chicago and NOLA don't have nightlife absolutely everywhere in the city, but they have them in many parts and those parts are often very accessible to each other. They also have a late last call so if you're already going, it's easy to keep going.
Yea, I don't think SF is a great nightlife destination, so I didn't use it as an example of one. Neither LA nor SF are that great for nightlife--only that LA, in my opinion, is better.
You've got to be kidding to say Manhattan is the only place with nightlife in dense settings. You've got a point with the vast majority of Staten Island and Eastern Queens and outside of that is much of the rest of the city.
LA having the best nightlife for 100 years is a pretty ridiculous assertion, though I can believe there were periods possibly in some cinema golden age and hair metal periods when LA probably had great nightlife relative to some of the US.
LA the 5th best nightlife in country but NYC is top 3 with Miami and Las Vegas
LA the 5th best nightlife in country but NYC is top 3 with Miami and Las Vegas
Probably top ten--would place Chicago, New Orleans and Atlanta definitely above and maybe Philadelphia.
One place I was surprised by was Louisville, but it doesn't run that large a gamut which makes sense as a smaller city/metro. Buffalo, too, is kinda fun, but it's concentrated mostly in a very small area--I remember people there telling me that there used to be a lot more going on but all that population drop kinda dampened things.
Yes Downtown is one of the first two (the other being Hollywood/WeHo) and combined they do equal SF. Add in Koreatown and those nightlife areas are larger what's in the entire Bay Area. Really all you have is a part of SF, then some parts of Oakland and Berkeley. Anything else is just minor, which LA has plenty of too (Fullerton, Redondo Beach, North Hollywood, etc.).
Exactly. Bay Areans use insane hyperbole to hype the area out.
Berkeley is pretty much dead too after a few blocks on Telegraph. Oakland just has uptown and that's it.
It's just typical delusional bay area boosterism.
Truth be told the most of SF' nightlife is not contigious either. Even worse, it is all with in 6 square miles. So in terms of nightlife, the vast majority of SF does not have anything going on at all.
People love to pretend SF is vibrant, but the median age is nearlY 40 years old, LOL!!!! SF is filled with elderly and as such, is pretty dead after 10pm.
Yes Downtown is one of the first two (the other being Hollywood/WeHo) and combined they do equal SF. Add in Koreatown and those nightlife areas are larger what's in the entire Bay Area. Really all you have is a part of SF, then some parts of Oakland and Berkeley. Anything else is just minor, which LA has plenty of too (Fullerton, Redondo Beach, North Hollywood, etc.).
Neither downtown or Koreatown is as concentrated and vibrant as your typical SF nightlife district, you're really overrating those two. Area wise, sure they may be larger....ok? Again that's just the spread out nature of LA. But as far as actual # of bars and nightlife establishments, they definitely don't equal SF. SF has one of the highest bar densities in the nation.
Neither downtown or Koreatown is as concentrated and vibrant as your typical SF nightlife district, you're really overrating those two. Area wise, sure they may be larger....ok? Again that's just the spread out nature of LA. But as far as actual # of bars and nightlife establishments, they definitely don't equal SF. SF has one of the highest bar densities in the nation.
Neither downtown or Koreatown is as concentrated and vibrant as your typical SF nightlife district, you're really overrating those two. Area wise, sure they may be larger....ok? Again that's just the spread out nature of LA. But as far as actual # of bars and nightlife establishments, they definitely don't equal SF. SF has one of the highest bar densities in the nation.
It's going on a city per capita basis and San Francisco is a small city that hosts a lot of its jobs and institutions of the metro area in city boundaries so it makes sense. That link is also six years old, and while the first point still holds, things probably have shifted at least a bit in the last six years.
Today, if you took a contiguous 47 square mile area centered around Central LA and parts of the westside, I'm not so sure there'll actually be more venues in SF than in that core area of LA.
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