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I think this is right on point. Clearly, if some of the most famous and richest people in the world can make a good life here, then it's obviously not a sewer for EVERYBODY. Living well in Los Angeles requires that you earn a certain amount of money....and the more the better. This allows you to "buy your way in" to a safe neighborhood. If you can afford private schools, then you can opt out of the LAUSD which, thanks to the illegals and the teacher's union, is tantamount to child abuse. Our "trains to nowhere" allow the illegals and the maids to get around town, but if you can afford a car, you'll never ride on one. Literally all of the people I know who have left LA did so because they just couldn't make it here financially. Basically, if your cruising down the 10 with the top down on your Porsche heading to your house in Manhattan Beach with a quick stop at the boat for cocktails, then life in LA is good. If you're sitting on a train with the illegals every day to get to & from your home in the way far out suburbs, then not so much.
I just find that hard to believe. No matter how much I can insulate myself from the
'have nots' the problems there are pretty hard to ignore and unless you just don't care about the enviornment, people, or your country at all I think it'd be pretty hard to just be ignorantly blissful anywhere. But maybe I'm just one of those 'nice' midwesterners or something with a social conscience.
If anything, I'd think it's just annoying ...even rich people have to drive places and deal with certain elements of the lower classes there, it does affect everyone, I can't see how it doesn't. I mean, just driving around ...going to the store, etc...no one wants to see blight...or do they? does it make them feel more successful?
The two major immediate issues that L.A. has to deal with are unemployment and transit. If L.A. can build more of a rail transportation system it will survive in some form.
The big issue for the future is water - there isn't enough of it for the population L.A. has. And that may also be a factor in businesses not deciding to locate in L.A. or not creating jobs in L.A. The water issue threatens to dwarf ANY issue L.A. has ever had to deal with in the past, even the '92 riots or gangs.
I'm moving to the area in a couple of weeks. I've been keeping up with California and politics from afar for years. I have had friends come and go from there, hating it. I never gave up on it though...and defended it. Now, it's hard to accept, but maybe I'll be a short-timer too. There for fun for awhile while I'm young enough to enjoy it. LA represents so much to Americans ...the way it used to be. Is it really gone? Can it be fixed?
You see threads about people leaving. Their homes have changed and I don't blame them. The gangs, the illegals, the crowds, the crime, but it's especially worse if you grew up in idyllic times. I have a home too which in my mind is idyllic and it's hard to let go of those images.
What bothers me is that people seem more willing to leave than to bother fighting for their communities. Not blaming here, what I bet is that they have just given up. But why? What is the problem and what is the solution? Is it that hard for the government to articulate the problem and a solution? Are Californians and Americans really ones who would rather fly than fight?
I hate to see it happening and I think most Americans care, because LA represents more to us than just that place out there....even though we like to pick on Hollywood.
But instead of saying 'LA sucks, like it or leave it' I'm more interested in why the government or comunities can't articulate what went wrong and the possibility of fixing it, or at least forming a more positive growth. It seems most are just laissez faire....let it die or like it the way it is.
I'm thinking of the Brian Stow story as I write this too. The lack of security...a certain "things have gotten bad here" knowledge among the people but why is this happening and why are people just letting it happen?
I'm intersted to hear everyones idea of what went wrong and how to fix it, or if it's totally lost forever. Politically incorrect as well.
Lots of cities have made comebacks (chicago for instance) can LA too?
I know some people are happy and accepting of how LA and surrounding areas are now. But to me, that is suprising too. You can take the good with the bad but there is some obvious bad. It doesn't deter me (much) from moving there for work but it does concern me that people seem willing to just let the place go...
From reading your post I feel you're going in with a negative attitude. I lived in LA for 20 yrs and worked for many years in South Central. Which is not the best area, and was there before, during, and after the 92 riot.
I love LA. Why don't you try looking at it as a new adventure rather than trying to "fix" everything?
I now live in another part of the country and see the same problems you described about LA(although on a smaller scale due to being in a less populated area) but without the gorgeous Southern CA topography, the perfect weather, and without that certain sense of excitement that LA always had in the air.
Honestly, you already have yourself moved out of LA before you even arrive.
When I opened the thread I expected it to be started by someone who was like me a long term resident, not someone who has never lived there and is getting ready to relocate there.
I've wanted to move back to California for a long time. But I was suprised by what I saw. That and I'm a geogrpaher/urban planner, by nature I just think about these things. I don't think wanting things to be better instead of worse is a negative attitude.
I'll enjoy the good things, and think about the bad things. I can't ignore them too much, will probably get used to them after awhile but I'd rather have my eyes open than be totally naive and disappointed by my high expectations.
it's quite possible to build rail that works without transporting everyone to one central hub. The great thing about rail in Europe is you can go anywhere, city to city, suburb to suburb, it's all connected, not just feeder trains to one downtown. The problem then is just being able to get from where the train drops you off to your office or whatever you need to go to, then walkability becomes an issue but not if corporations offer shuttles, or you can keep a bike locked at the train station etc. There are certainly solutions. A lot of people in the Chicago area do this....take a train from one suburb to another, keep a bike at a station or catch another shuttle, what not.
Yes, those systems are great--in asia, europe, etc.--but they are very expensive. And while I wish the US would invest in something like that, it really isn't going to happen.
LA is building (and has already built) transit from suburb to suburb, btw.. it just won't be nearly as extensive as what you find in, say, Tokyo.
And what you describe in Chicago is a very small percentage of total commuters, and simply a happy byproduct of a system designed to shuttle commuters into and out of downtown.
Also, I agree there are solutions--i.e. bus lanes and bike lanes everywhere. LA already has pretty high "alternative" transit mode share. It just doesn't have high rail transit ride share and this will likely be the case forever.
I've wanted to move back to California for a long time. But I was suprised by what I saw. That and I'm a geogrpaher/urban planner, by nature I just think about these things. I don't think wanting things to be better instead of worse is a negative attitude.
no... dude... the "negative" part is not you wanting things to be better. It's you seeing things much worse than they are.
we all want things to be better.
Just start with reality, okay? LA isn't that bad off.
I just find that hard to believe. No matter how much I can insulate myself from the
'have nots' the problems there are pretty hard to ignore and unless you just don't care about the enviornment, people, or your country at all I think it'd be pretty hard to just be ignorantly blissful anywhere. But maybe I'm just one of those 'nice' midwesterners or something with a social conscience.
If anything, I'd think it's just annoying ...even rich people have to drive places and deal with certain elements of the lower classes there, it does affect everyone, I can't see how it doesn't. I mean, just driving around ...going to the store, etc...no one wants to see blight...or do they? does it make them feel more successful?
At least they must be annoyed by the taxes...
Dude it's exactly the same in Chicago, DC, etc. You think the rich people in Chicago give a rat's ass what's happening on the South Side?
You think SF sheds a tear every time someone gets murdered in Richmond?
This whole "LA is different from everywhere else" thing needs to be put to bed...
It was movies like Crash and Colors and Traffic and Mi Familia and Terminator and Blade Runner and Boyz in the Hood and Chinatown and Falling Down and Annie Hall and Demolition Man blah blah and before that books like Day of the Locust and the Raymond Chandler novels that have over the years bombarded weak minds with this idea that LA is this continuously degenerating, devolving place plagued by every ill known to man.
It's beyond ironic that all the people who buy into this media-generated BS are the same people who claim to hate "fake hollywood." It's the ultimate trick that keeps people coming back for more.
I'm just glad that movies like 500 days of Summer and The Future and some recent comedies like I Love You Man are starting to show a real LA that's just a normal, beautiful place with regular (if white and witty) people. There's still a long way to go (why was there not a single latino in 500 days of Summer?) but at least it seems like hollywood is beginning to undo the damage it's done to its hometown.
Agree 100% about transit and light rail; having lived here for almost 60 years, our rail system is indeed light-years behind cities such as Toronto; our late Mayor Tom Bradley made several trips back there to see how exceptional their system was, and used many of its aspects in launching the creation of the Red Line.
Rampant environmentalism and the outsized influence of 'slow-growthers' have caused land and housing prices to skyrocket over the past forty years, and have certainly driven millions of middle-class Americans out of the state to more affordable cities, excluding those who moved to Ventura County or OC for a much better quality of life and superb schools, providing they had the income and education to do so.
The political fixation with mandating that any long-distance rail travel must include transferring in downtown LA has been ineptly executed, as well as the fact that the Green Line (aka the 'train to nowhere') does not go into LAX; it should have been the linchpin of a mega-transit center somewhere near LAX, another political blunder that the city and its citizens are still paying for decades after the fact.
Dude it's exactly the same in Chicago, DC, etc. You think the rich people in Chicago give a rat's ass what's happening on the South Side?
You think SF sheds a tear every time someone gets murdered in Richmond?
This whole "LA is different from everywhere else" thing needs to be put to bed...
It was movies like Crash and Colors and Traffic and Mi Familia and Terminator and Blade Runner and Boyz in the Hood and Chinatown and Falling Down and Annie Hall and Demolition Man blah blah and before that books like Day of the Locust and the Raymond Chandler novels that have over the years bombarded weak minds with this idea that LA is this continuously degenerating, devolving place plagued by every ill known to man.
It's beyond ironic that all the people who buy into this media-generated BS are the same people who claim to hate "fake hollywood." It's the ultimate trick that keeps people coming back for more.
I'm just glad that movies like 500 days of Summer and The Future and some recent comedies like I Love You Man are starting to show a real LA that's just a normal, beautiful place with regular (if white and witty) people. There's still a long way to go (why was there not a single latino in 500 days of Summer?) but at least it seems like hollywood is beginning to undo the damage it's done to its hometown.
the sad thing is, as I mentioned in my first post...I was a defender of CA thinking it is NOT that bad.
I started to think this way a bit more after a serious visit, in the process of moving and dealing with reality. It's not a movie. Heck I dont even watch movies.
you really think what happened to Brian Stow is just as likely in any of the othre big cities? I don't. I think it is more specifically an LA or California type of an issue.
Well dodgers fans can be pretty awful. But don't be silly and conflate them with all of LA or CA.
And please, so that we can be clear here... what do you feel that the Brian Stow tragedy is emblematic of, exactly?
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Why don't you try looking at it as a new adventure rather than trying to "fix" everything?
