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Old 01-06-2009, 02:15 PM
 
Location: Glendale/Los Angeles
571 posts, read 1,926,665 times
Reputation: 246

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Quote:
Originally Posted by that1guy View Post
I can see the whole wanting to be in the desert and also cheap housing, but what the hell does illegals have to do with anything? C'mon really? I rarely encounter illegal immigrants. Most middle class areas rarely are in contact with the poor in SoCal. Everybody complains "Oh illegals!", but when asked if they directly impact their lives typically the answer is vague and it turns out they are not really impacted. It is a little ridiculous and paranoid.

LOL ok I mean I agree with you 100% but if you live anywhere in SoCal and think you rarely encounter illegal immigrants that is just BS.. even the rich fancy neighborhoods need nannys and gardeners and maids.. I am sure you see tons of people everyday who are illegal and maybe you don't think they are. Your valet, your waitress and cook when you go out to eat, the cleaning crew who clean your office building, the guy mowing the lawn next door..

And BTW all illegals are not "poor" .. my own husband used to be illegal and we are middle-class, he's college educated, and he speaks perfect English - you could be in contact with people like him daily and you would never even know it. There are lots of different "types" and ways to be illegal other than just the poor Mexican family with 7 kids.. I have known tons of extremely intelligent young adults from all over the world and mostly from Europe who either fell out of status or aged out of a parent's petition or were screwed over by a shady lawyer. I also know many Mexican families who are illegal and own their own home (NOT renting out any rooms and all that BS - just own it by themselves) I know many Mexican families who are illegal that own their own very succesful businesses.. ESPECIALLY in L.A. you would be extremely, extremely surprised by just who doesn't have a social security number. Trust me.
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Old 01-06-2009, 02:17 PM
 
Location: Glendale/Los Angeles
571 posts, read 1,926,665 times
Reputation: 246
Quote:
Originally Posted by fatmancomics View Post
As a part of an interracial couple and being a minority myself, I can't live anywhere else. I've tried to do so when my wife and I lived in Santa Maria for a little over a year and, though the traffic was light, the scenery was great and the surrounding cities were very welcoming while we patronized them, Santa Maria was not a warm place towards a Salvadoran and a black woman. The cost of living was higher, there weren't too many things to do after about one year and we didn't have our family nearby. Jobs were also scarce no matter what your education level was and the pay was not as good as the ones in L.A.
If my wife and I were to leave L.A. again, we'd have to go to another area that was more tolerant and we'd lose the good weather and have to leave our family behind again. To us it's just not worth it.

I know what you mean.. when I went back home for Christmas (suburbs of Houston) I noticed tons of stares at me (white) and my husband (VERY light skinned and Americanized Mexican) why the stares.. I don't get it? This never happens to us anywhere in California .. I got LESS stares as a white American woman visiting a part of Mexico that probably doesn't get many white American visitors.. Nobody cared there..

Everyone loves to say how "diverse" their area is and how they accept people of all races, but they don't truely understand unless they experience it..
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Old 01-06-2009, 02:33 PM
 
359 posts, read 1,309,049 times
Reputation: 222
Quote:
Originally Posted by HamptonU View Post
ok plz excuse me.....but this is bull****......i read thru so many of these comments and have just read how bad LA is how ppl get robbed and killed and harrassed on the regular........I guess I just been living in a hole my life in LA because I haven't experiecned any of this. My car has never been stolen, Im not gonna lie i have been robbed but honestly i feel that comes wit living in big city and I say that having expereicend Dallas Houston Atlanta and New York lived in Va for 4 years and can't Wait to move back to LA. In my opinion, NY was dirty wit rats walkin the streets like normal peds, the only city part of Atl was Downtown, the rest of the city feels like Im in the boonies, Dallas and Houston way to damn hot, and living in a small city in va was horrible with everything shutting down @ midnight on a good day as well as the complete far right conservative stand point on everything. Ppl constantly complain about how horrible LA is but majority of the ppl u see say that are the ones who have lived here their whole entire life and have not expereinced other parts of the country. No direspect but im not writing this to convince the ppl who don't like LA to cause if yall move thats less traffic on the freeway but for the ppl that are just browsin and happen to read this. Like some1 said b4 compare the ghettos of LA to other major cities.....trust me a lot the ppl that thnk they can survive in compton, aint got nothin on the ghettos of NY, so If i had to choose a ghetto to live in, I would def pic LA, where i may live the ghetto but i have a house wit a fence and where besides thugs on the corner or a couch chillin on the corner my street would like a normal neighborhood. Now I can say all of that because I moved to VA to get out of LA, I would say after a year I was ready to move back. Talk about crime, I had never seen anyone be shot until I went VA, point, crime is everywhere and there are **** holes around the country but trust me the amenties of Los Angeles are like no other city. What makes LA so different and makes me fall in love with it so much is that one LA is a young city so it has so much growing to do as for NY where u can't really add anything else, LA also has 88 different cities in one, where some city everyone is goin to downtown to party, shop, work, etc.....No....LA I can get u go snowboarding in moring, come down the mountain go do dinner in Downtown, go to a party in Hollywood and end the night @ a bombfire on the beach in which I have done, no joke, tell what other city in the world u can do all that on the same day....enough said as far as financial probs in LA, I have learned thru my contact with different individuals from co-workers to friends to family financial probs come from ppl tryin to live above their means and live in LA light, u shouldn't own a hummer or any car over 30K and u live in a one bed apt, u should be buying a new $500 blackberry wen u need to pay ur rent, ppl wanna look flashy on the outside and spend their money on all this extra stuff, when if ppl actually budgeted their money they would survive in LA witout a prob, LA is an expensive city, that should come as no surprise, but its so funny how ppl complain about how expensive LA is and say yea Im moving to NY...LOL Goodluck,
lol..I can appreciate this....a lot of truth.
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Old 06-29-2009, 03:14 AM
 
Location: Outside of Los Angeles
1,249 posts, read 2,686,954 times
Reputation: 817
Quote:
Originally Posted by CESpeed View Post
It's amazing to me how that the only truth people ever want to hear about LA is how nice the weather is, how many celebrities one can meet or how one can make tons of money just by moving here.

The reality is most of the people who live here are struggling to make ends meet. Just yesterday I was at the Century City mall and saw two security guards chasing this kid who apparently robbed a store in the mall. All over the city, except for the most affluent areas, there is graffitti on the walls and anywhere the monsters can write or scratch on. English is quickly becoming an endangered language. And yes, violence is on the rise.

Two women at USC were raped withing the past month. In Inglewood, four people have been killed by Inglewood PD in a six week period. A mother and three of her children were killed in Palmdale. Robberies and thefts are on the rise.

And people keep moving here thinking it's utopia. Raggedy isn't that why you're moving here? You think LA is utopia but PacifiCop is right there are other areas of this State and this Country that offer the same financial opportunities that Los Angeles does. The fact is if people who are flocking to LA stayed and built up the places they are from, there would be more jobs, etc. All over the country.

I work for a high end cruise line where cruises cost an average of $30,000 per couple most of our guests come from small towns not LA, NY or other big cities. Most people living in big cities are too busy working to make money to enjoy the money they make.
This is a brilliantly written post! No the weather in LA is not always nice when you consider the horrible pollution and smog, plus the lack of real changing seasons. I could probably write a few more paragraphs of why LA weather is not all that it is thought to be but I won't. Weather is not everything.

People in Southern CA/LA are struggling to make ends meet, that's true. It is just so outrageously expensive to live out here that I don't know how people can manage that. There ARE better places to live in than Los Angeles and the metro area, PacificCop is correct. I don't blame him or her for wanting to leave if he/she has not already done so. Too many people move here, that's one of the reasons that the job market is so competitive. Great post
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Old 06-29-2009, 01:07 PM
 
18 posts, read 43,554 times
Reputation: 14
I used to LOVE LA when I was younger and didn't have kids... now that I have 3 kids, I'm dyin' to get out of here! I would love to live in a place that honors family values, feels safer, and is more affordable! I'll miss certain things about LA, but overall.. not so much!
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Old 06-29-2009, 07:40 PM
 
Location: Denver, CO
2,324 posts, read 5,487,575 times
Reputation: 2593
I keep seeing all of these posts in the Colorado section from people who want to move here from L.A. I say GO FOR IT!! I did 6 years ago and it's the best thing I've ever done. L.A. may have been fun and friendly with a good quality of life 25 years ago but it turned into a crime-ridden, over-populated, angst-filled place that doesn't even come close to resembling the "California dream" of the past. I lived on the beach in Santa Monica and you couldn't pay me enough to go back there. And no one here will hold it against you that you're "another California escapee". The only people I know who still love it in L.A. are either multi-millionaires who live on the beach in Malibu or in the Hollywood Hills or newbies who've been there less than a year.
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Old 06-29-2009, 07:48 PM
 
Location: Las Flores, Orange County, CA
26,338 posts, read 93,474,008 times
Reputation: 17827
Quote:
Originally Posted by whoisjongalt View Post
I keep seeing all of these posts in the Colorado section from people who want to move here from L.A. I say GO FOR IT!! I did 6 years ago and it's the best thing I've ever done. L.A. may have been fun and friendly with a good quality of life 25 years ago but it turned into a crime-ridden, over-populated, angst-filled place that doesn't even come close to resembling the "California dream" of the past. I lived on the beach in Santa Monica and you couldn't pay me enough to go back there. And no one here will hold it against you that you're "another California escapee". The only people I know who still love it in L.A. are either multi-millionaires who live on the beach in Malibu or in the Hollywood Hills or newbies who've been there less than a year.
Denver is a pretty nice city. Perfect sized: All the pluses of a big city (four major sports teams for example) and less of the hassles (not a lot of traffic; there is light rail too). It is sunny but it can get windy and cold off and on. Icy roads are pretty scary once in a while. Nice suburbs like Highlands Ranch and Lone Tree and Castle Rock and Parker. Boulder is interesting and not too far away. Nice airport (free internet in the terminals too.)
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Old 06-30-2009, 12:15 PM
 
64 posts, read 183,449 times
Reputation: 47
I lived in Europe and I lived in various parts of the midwest, and traveled to many different parts of the US. I still like LA the most. Yes, it's imperfect, it has many problems, but its many facets, diversity adds up to something that is unique and hard to describe. If it's not your thing, you are welcome to leave, find your ideal, safe, segregated, white-picket-fence place in the "heartland."
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Old 06-30-2009, 02:13 PM
 
Location: San Gabriel, CA
34 posts, read 192,415 times
Reputation: 57
Just about everything in life has its trade-offs. I have a season subscription to the L.A. Philharmonic, go to many Dodgers and Kings games, regularly attend the L.A. County Art Museum and the Pacific Asia Museum, and love to go to the UCLA Library as well as our world-class public library. I also enjoy being able to eat Chinese, Thai, Indian, French, Mexican, whatever I want, there is an excellent restaurant not fay away. Such things are important to me.It would be hard to find such amenities in Appleton or Boise. So in the end it depends on what you prefer.
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Old 06-30-2009, 05:04 PM
 
Location: SW MO
23,593 posts, read 37,333,939 times
Reputation: 29336
Quote:
Originally Posted by ToadB View Post
IIf it's not your thing, you are welcome to leave, find your ideal, safe, segregated, white-picket-fence place in the "heartland."
We'll be moving back to "America" in about three months. For us it will be Missouri which is a nice mix of mid-western and southern with four distinct and definable seasons, rivers lake and streams, the Ozarks, tons of greenery, a slower-paced lifestyle, friendliness and a much lower cost of living.

I'm originally from southern CA and now live in Sacramento which is like a microcosm of L.A. There's lots of diversity, tons of local governmental pandering to minorities to capture their votes and more gangs than I care to count. Like the OP, I'm a former peace officer from SoCal. No one can escape all the societal ills anywhere but one doesn't have to settle for being immersed in a seething pot of them.

An ideal, safe, white-picket-fence scenario is something I cherish, especially now that I'm retired, and it doesn't have to be segregated. However, I also see nothing wrong with wanting to live somewhere in my own country in which I haven't become a minority. I don't care for that and I don't have to prove how progressive and accepting I am by pretending otherwise.

I've lived in three other countries and enjoyed each one of them, even when there were people shooting at me. The experience of other cultures was invaluable. But it's now time to leave California and return home, back to America. My wife agrees and we're both natives. There are worse things in life than safe and sane surroundings where our own language is spoken in our own country.

By the way, for the foodies, my wife and I both cook in several languages so we won't be doing without!
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