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I just dont get it. Los Angeles is a beautiful city with great weather and all.
Im not saying its perfect, its got alot of problems but just like every other city in the US.
Whats wrong with LA, I dont see why people on this forum Bash it all the time.
Because it's City Data and on City Data, everyone hates every city that they aren't currently living in. Yeah I'm looking at YOU New York! *squints eyes menacingly* ...and Charlotte, you just stay the hell away from me!
I don't anybody hates or bashes LA but this kind of posts does not make you any friends, either:
I'm not here to make friends. When I got here and witnessed the negative attitudes of people from Chicago and NYC toward LA, it really put it into perspective for me just how great LA is, since it's on your radar and everyone else's. I'm just basically telling you what you already know but are too proud and bitter to admit: everyone is jealous of LA, and can't stand it. LA owns.
First of all, what you said about Paris is very wrong. Paris is extremely urban, and has excellent planning. The definition of the word "urban" is not having "tall buildings". A city that's urban will be filled with street activity, and has density. Not just those two things, but those two are definitely important. Urban can also be a loose term, but the key thing is density, not just population density, but the overall density of a city. LA is anything but dense.
That's based upon what YOU construe "dense" as. As other people have commented, LA is the most urban and dense city in the country. What you're REALLY saying is that LA doesn't feel like Chicago or NYC, and that's what this whole thing comes down to.
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But keep in mind this is just my opinion. Your constant "LA is better than anything else" attitude doesn't help though.
Because it is. Truth is a hard pill to swallow for most, however, and I understand that.
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I just view LA as a city that in terms of density, urban planning, Etc is inferior to many other smaller cities. San Francisco for one comes to mind. Just because you don't think a city being urban is not important doesn't mean many other people do.
Again, LA is urban. It's just not Chicago or SF or NYC (thank goodness).
That's based upon what YOU construe "dense" as. As other people have commented, LA is the most urban and dense city in the country. What you're REALLY saying is that LA doesn't feel like Chicago or NYC, and that's what this whole thing comes down to.
Again, LA is urban. It's just not Chicago or SF or NYC (thank goodness).
It does not feel like any other great world city likie London, Paris, Berlin, or Tokyo for instance. LA is not nearly as dense as NYC, LA has 8,000 ppl per sq mile while NYC has 27,000 per sq mile. LA is a urban as most of northern New Jersey or South Florida - that's not urbanity in world standards.
First off, I like LA, and I love to visit California.
Excellent.
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I think people bash LA on here, and NYC for that matter, is because those two cities are thrown down our throats on a daily basis. Turn on the TV, a sitcom is set in either LA or NYC. Where's the next award show taking place at? LA or NYC. LA is just one of those cities that people get tired of hearing of.
So, in other words, people are jealous and bitter that their city is overshadowed and overlooked by the greatness that is LA (and NYC). Gotcha.
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Also, some people (NOTE: I did NOT say ALL people) who come out of LA (and again, NYC for that matter) feel their better then everyone and are above everyone just by their association to the city. I live in Northeastern part of Ohio. In a general city thread, I could bring up Columbus, OH being one of the coolest cities in the Midwest and how it's one of the fastest growing cities in the United States, yet in that same thread it never fails someone from LA will bash the city, the state, and state how Los Angeles is so much better and blah blah blah.
But LA is better. I would never discuss LA in the context of it vs. Columbus, OH because it clearly isn't a fair match, and I don't really compare cities that way.
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Like I said, I like LA and the state of California. I just think people bash the city for an accumulative of reasons. People get tired of always hearing about it. People get tired of the people who boost the city. People get tired of people from LA or NYC bashing other cities just because their simply not LA or NYC.
So, again, people are jealous that they are overlooked and that their city doesn't get the attention that NYC and LA get. It creates resentment and they lash out at LA, emphasizing its ills in an attempt to mask their own insecurity with their own city.
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Also, to answer the questions more simply: Not everyone likes LA.
It does not feel like any other great world city likie London, Paris, Berlin, or Tokyo for instance.
LA is newer than those cities.
And plus, your feelings are subjective. Just because you feel LA doesn't measure up to those cities doesn't mean it doesn't.
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LA is not nearly as dense as NYC, LA has 8,000 ppl per sq mile while NYC has 27,000 per sq mile. LA is a urban as most of northern New Jersey or South Florida - that's not urbanity in world standards.
As Uptown_Urbanist pointed out, there is some dispute on what constitutes urbanity and density.
It's not less significant or interesting yet it is hard to compare 400 years of history with 200 years of history. LA is simply too young to have rich history on par with Philadelphia, Boston or New York. Would you say Gold Rush was as significant event in the history of the US as the revolutionary or civil wars? Did it shape the entire country as much?
*Note: I posted this all in another thread, but I just copy and pasted it
So the Mexican-American War had no impact on the United States? Even though it expanded the US national territory by 1/3, giving the US access of not only the Pacific but also more of the Gulf Region (where Houston is today)?
The Mexican War even had an impact on the Civil War. Ever heard of the Wilmot Proviso? This was toward the run up of the Civil War, where there was a proposal that there wouldn't be any slavery in the new territories captured by the Mexicans. However, many Southerners opposed it since it would give more control of national power to the North.
The Wilmot Proviso, one of the major events leading to the Civil War, would have banned slavery in any territory to be acquired from Mexico in the Mexican War or in the future, including the area later known as the Mexican Cession, but which some proponents construed to also include the disputed lands in south Texas and New Mexico east of the Rio Grande.[1]
Congressman David Wilmot first introduced the Proviso in the United States House of Representatives on August 8, 1846 as a rider on a $2 million appropriations bill intended for the final negotiations to resolve the Mexican–American War. (In fact this was only three months into the two-year war.) It passed the House but failed in the Senate, where the South had greater representation. It was reintroduced in February 1847 and again passed the House and failed in the Senate. In 1848, an attempt to make it part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo also failed. Sectional conflict over slavery in the Southwest continued up to the Compromise of 1850.
It had a direct and decisive impact in the Compromise of 1850, which repudiated the Compromise of 1820 which gave the the US the Fugitive Slave Law (which affected the North) and the idea that slavery would be voted in by popular sovereignty.
What makes people think the West Coast lacks a rich history? The Spanish don't count as history (you know, that minor thing having to do with 21 missions all over California?) The Russians in Northern California isn't history (Fort Ross http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Ross)? The Mexican presence isn't history? The Gold Rush isn't history? The Transcontinental Railroad isn't history? Or do you mean British colonial history only?
The history of the Americas isn't simply limited from the Atlantic Coast westward. Remember, the whole reason why the British got involved in North America to begin with was to counter the Spanish galleon trade in the southern part of this continent. Everything that happened after was reactive to the Spanish or the French. In terms of even settling the United States, why do you think the British came to the New World to begin with? Who were their direct competitors? It was the Spanish, who were becoming extremely rich not only from the mineral deposits in Central and Southern America, but also through their control over trade with Asia through the Manila Galleons.
Just remember why the British founded their early settlements in the areas they did. Early British settlements at Jamestown and in Plymouth were supposed to be defensible from outside European powers, namely the Spanish. Remember this is contemporary to the Spanish Armada, which was still on the minds of everyone building these areas. This is the same reason why the Presidio of San Francisco was built by the Spanish to counteract the Russian movement in Northern California in the late 18th century.
As an aside, I wonder what the Pacific Northwest would have looked like if the Russians stayed as colonizers.
You simply can't restrict your view of history of the United States to the Atlantic, because these other developments deeply ingrained the national development of the US as a whole. California and the rest of the Southern United States wouldn't have developed a deep ranching culture if it wasn't for the Spanish/Mexicans, San Francisco (later the hub of the Easterner rush of the 49ers) wouldn't have been built the way it did if it wasn't for the Russian influence, and North America probably wouldn't have interested the English much unless it was for the Spanish becoming rich off of Mexico and South America's mineral resources.
Don't even get me started on the history of the natives of this region. I'll give a subtle clue on which area was settled first; look at the position of the Bearing Strait/Land Bridge, and see which area was closer to that region. However, the Mid-Atlantic did have the Iroquois Confederation (the largest such confederation in North America pre-colonial era), but the California tribal formations were relatively isolated from one another due to geographic hindrances, giving this era a really rich Native American tapestry.
In terms of reminders of this rich colonial history that California has, I don't even have to go far. In fact, there's a mission less than 5 miles from me.
Unless you don't think that it was important for American identity to expand Westward, nor think its really that important that America had access to the Pacific, enabling it to become a world power, then I don't know what to say.
Let's not forget that Chicago is in fact younger than Los Angeles.
That's a 52 year difference! Why doesn't anyone attack Chicago for a 'lack of history'? I don't get it.
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