Leaving LA (Los Angeles, Pasadena, San Gabriel: house, neighborhoods, tenants)

[arandomhuman9]

Anyone who has left LA, what did you miss? I'm trying to prepare myself for a move to the NYC suburbs for work. What is unique about LA that you wouldn't know is unusual if you've never left?
(I live in East LA)

[ImmerLernen]

I haven't left (yet), but everyone I know who has left misses Mexican food. And you, especially, coming from East LA, what you consider authentic Mexican food probably won't match up with what you find in your new location. Not saying you won't find something good & tasty, but it won't be the same.

[ohio_peasant]

I left LA over 20 years ago (hence the screen name), and returned relatively recently. What I most missed in the interim was the friendships and social-life. These were not recaptured upon returning. In fact, several close "friends" with whom I maintained a written correspondence for 20 years, and whom I'd sporadically visited over the years when on business-trips to LA, felt little occasion to renew a steady relation, now that I was once again a local.

Cue the usual remark, along the lines of "you can't go home again".

Then the 'rona hit, and nearly all socializing became taboo. Institutions on which I came to rely, closed. The university with which I was closely associated, shut itself down, and banished even its regular staff, not to mention students or alumni.

My biggest regret over these 20+ years is a material one: I should have bought a house here, in the 1990s, and held on to it. It would have been a wonderful investment. Back then, a modest house in what might be termed a second-rate suburb, say somewhere in the San Gabriel Valley, could have been picked up for well under $200K. Today that house is >$600K... so, prices tripled or quadrupled. That is better than the stock market, even accounting for reinvestment of dividends. That is, even if I had left the house empty. Were there to have been tenants, the deal would have been even sweeter.

[Csonka]

I think I will miss the people

That's about it. The people here, in order to be able to make it, have to be pretty intelligent. So you get interesting people and so forth. In fact this is the only thing that makes me hesitant to sell my house and move. Even very smart people from other places, if talking to them on chat boards or traveling, no matter how educated and successful they lack that little bit of something extra, specialness, uniqueness, you find with people who live here.

[Bert_from_back_East]

If I were to leave Los Angeles for New York, I would probably miss the generally sunny disposition of most Angelinos. In New York, people are not necessarily ungraceful or unhappy, they are simply more harried than people in Los Angeles due to the greater economic demands and social pressures of New York. In other words, the environment of New York is akin to a pressure-cooker, and this dynamic is reflected across multiple aspects of life, such as last-minute lane-merging and seemingly curt verbal communication.

Also, it is important to note that people in suburban New York are not typically descended from Protestant Midwesterners or Southerners of middling backgrounds, unlike people in suburban Los Angeles; instead, most people living in the suburbs of New York are descended from relatively recent (i.e., 1900 to present) Jewish and Roman Catholic European immigrants of poor backgrounds. As a result, Downstate New Yorkers have different social graces than Southern Californians. For example, New Yorkers do not generally smile or say "good morning" at the workplace, but they are typically very punctual. As with any region of the country, once you crack the social code, you will not be offended or off-put by certain behaviors and traits.

[JustMike77]

I would miss my boat. I'd miss driving along PCH and looking out at the ocean. I'd miss driving through the canyons. I'd miss wearing just T-shirts in January. It kinda goes on and on.

[volosong]

I miss the perpetual summers, museums, opera, the Hollywood Bowl, and as others have mentioned, "real" Mexican food. Oh, one more thing, and it is a bit weird in a way. I miss hearing Spanish on the streets. Don't have many opportunities to practice my own Spanish as few hear speak it.

In New York, museums, opera, and Spanish won't be an issue for you. But nothing can replace the Hollywood Bowl.

[Racer46]

Originally Posted by volosong

I miss the perpetual summers, museums, opera, the Hollywood Bowl, and as others have mentioned, "real" Mexican food. Oh, one more thing, and it is a bit weird in a way. I miss hearing Spanish on the streets. Don't have many opportunities to practice my own Spanish as few hear speak it.

In New York, museums, opera, and Spanish won't be an issue for you. But nothing can replace the Hollywood Bowl.

Born and raised in CA and spent most of my life in So California and never yet have I been to the Hollywood Bowl.

[bativac]

The lack of humidity is what I would miss. Anybody who thinks LA is the best or only place to get "authentic" Mexican food hasn't traveled much. You can get authentic Mexican food practically anywhere in the US nowadays. Matter of fact the last time I was in NYC there were more Mexican parts of town than the "traditional New York" neighborhoods (Little Italy etc).

[LAX2CMH]

If I left LA (and I think about it off and on) I would miss the overall ease of life here. I would also miss the diversity. Not just in terms of people but the differences in communities--Pasadena vs. San Pedro vs. Malibu vs. DTLA vs. Leimert Park vs. San Gabriel vs. Koreatown (and on & on). The energy here is different too. It's hard to explain but that feeling you get when you first arrive back at LAX.