Compared to LA, do you like or loathe Orange County? (Los Angeles: houses, neighborhoods)

[mrsltd]

Originally Posted by californio sur

Good question!

I also live in Pasadena & know there is nothing like it in Orange county. Los Angeles is more urban & sophisticated w/ tremendous diversity. I like Orange county, esp the beach cities [Huntington\ Laguna\ Newport, etc.] but inland is as boring as the San Gabriel valley.

Orange county is radically different from Los Angeles. In today's LA Times an article pointed out that Orange county wants to widen the 405 freeway but LA won't because transportation $ goes into trains instead. The article essentially said that Orange county is a few decades behind LA.

Also, Orange county is too Republican & white; it doesn't reflect California like Los Angeles and San Francisco do.

Survey says, "ehhhhhhhh"!

Typical pablum.

This is true of newly built (past 30 years) south OC and upscale coastal areas. (that is, Republican and white)

But NOT true of the vast majority of the county.

You can plug in zip codes in City-Data and find out for yourself, or I might start doing it if I become a little more exercised.

Santa Ana, Orange County's largest city, is 76.1% Hispanic (all races), 12.1% non-Hispanic white, approx 7% Asian (of various sorts).

Anaheim, the 2nd city, is 46.8% Hispanic (all races)......maybe not enough? With 8% Asian, and 24% "other" as well....

This accounts for over 20% of the county's population.

There are 32 other cities, some majority Hispanic, some a healthy mix of Hispanic, Asian and "white"....

I only emphasize this because of the apparent ignorance of some posters.....

Even at South Coast Plaza, it can be a literal day of Pentecost there, with people speaking tongues from every nation on the face of the earth (or so it seems).

[mrsltd]

This I will say.....there is not much of a black presence in Orange County, generally speaking.

Perhaps 2-3% of the county is black.

To the poster who felt like an alien when he was here, that does indeed "blow".

It could also be that the people who were staring at you didn't know quite what to do, and that any response at all would be interpreted as "racist".

But they may just have been buffoons, too.

[Charles]

Originally Posted by mrsltd

This I will say.....there is not much of a black presence in Orange County, generally speaking.

Perhaps 2-3% of the county is black.

You'll see more blacks at a Kings hockey game than you will at an Angels game.

[jbunniii]

Originally Posted by mrsltd

This I will say.....there is not much of a black presence in Orange County, generally speaking.

Perhaps 2-3% of the county is black.

To the poster who felt like an alien when he was here, that does indeed "blow".

It could also be that the people who were staring at you didn't know quite what to do, and that any response at all would be interpreted as "racist".

But they may just have been buffoons, too.

There's definitely a racist/skinhead presence in Huntington Beach, at least on weekend nights. I don't know if they live there or commute in from the 909 to cause trouble or what. Very uncool.

As for being stared at like an alien if you look "different" in any way, I imagine that can also happen in snooty white LA County enclaves like Palos Verdes or Manhattan Beach or Brentwood. Fortunately these are easily avoided and most of LA is more ethnically and racially diverse than pretty much any city I've ever been to. It's one of the things that makes LA such a kick-@ss city in my opinion.

[subPrimeTime]

Great thread, I think about this stuff a lot. Mrsltd, I’ll agree with you on the diversity thing. OC does get a bad rap from outsiders who assume that the place is all white. I lived in OC for about 12 years (college at UCI, then worked in OC post-college). It also gets too good of a rap from outsiders who think everything is so new and clean and pretty. OC has some really bad areas too and many more normal, middle-class areas than people realize. But I enjoyed my time there, it has its charm in its own little way (either that, or I just didn’t know what I was missing in regards to the rest of the world).

Anyway, now I live in West LA and the longer you’re out of OC the more you realize how un-unique the place is. Essentially, there’s nothing like West LA, Pasadena, Downtown LA (I could go on) in all of OC. And there’s nothing like Beverly Hills or Hollywood in all of America.

[calipoppy]

Originally Posted by jbunniii

There's definitely a racist/skinhead presence in Huntington Beach, at least on weekend nights. I don't know if they live there or commute in from the 909 to cause trouble or what. Very uncool.

As for being stared at like an alien if you look "different" in any way, I imagine that can also happen in snooty white LA County enclaves like Palos Verdes or Manhattan Beach or Brentwood. Fortunately these are easily avoided and most of LA is more ethnically and racially diverse than pretty much any city I've ever been to. It's one of the things that makes LA such a kick-@ss city in my opinion.

I am a Black woman who was born and raised in LA (View Park) but have lived in Rancho Palos Verdes, Pasadena and Santa Monica. Trust me the level of acceptance for Blacks in these areas is a piece of cake compared to any part of Orange County.

I have cousins who were born and raised in Orange County and they have encountered so many racist incidents that they are practically immune to that now. During the 80s, I remember that the family (the wive & kids...the father stayed behind) had to come stay with us during one Thanksgiving weekend because they had just bought a house in the city of Orange and the neighbors welcomed them by tossing a burnt turkey through their front window. Also, they would come home from work to find dead animals (bird, cat, squirrels, lizard etc) thrown into their pool. The next door neighbor had a little black cat named "N----r"....and it goes on and on and on.

My personal experience from working in Orange County (La Mirada) is that there is a lot of ignorance in that population about all of Los Angeles, its residents, crime, etc. The people (mostly White) all assume that if you are Black you grew up in the slums (and still live there). The people in OC, in general, lack sophistication even the ones with money.

[EscapeCalifornia]

Originally Posted by calipoppy

My personal experience from working in Orange County (La Mirada) is that there is a lot of ignorance in that population about all of Los Angeles, its residents, crime, etc. The people (mostly White) all assume that if you are Black you grew up in the slums (and still live there). The people in OC, in general, lack sophistication even the ones with money.

Hate to break it to you, but La Mirada isn't even in Orange County.

[calipoppy]

Originally Posted by EscapeCalifornia

Hate to break it to you, but La Mirada isn't even in Orange County.

La Mirada is on the border of Orange County. My position required me to be out in the field (my territory was North Orange County) and the majority of the people that I worked with lived in areas such as Brea, La Habra, Fullerton, etc.

[streetscenes]

Like LA County, Orange County has a wide range of areas that make it hard to classify. Personally I'm not big on the OC but if I worked in the area I would move down there. Areas I like in Orange County are San Clemente, Newport Beach on the Balboa Peninsula, Seal Beach, Rossmoor, Yorba Linda and some of the canyon areas that go up into the Cleveland National Forest. There are also some nice, old style downtown areas like in Tustin or Orange. Areas I'm not to fond of include Irvine, inland Newport Beach, Huntington Beach, Coto De Caza, Laguna Niguel, Dana Point. There are areas of Santa Ana, Garden Grove and Anaheim that are plain scary. Some of these neighborhood are worse than most areas of LA County.

[californio sur]

Originally Posted by streetscenes

Like LA County, Orange County has a wide range of areas that make it hard to classify. Personally I'm not big on the OC but if I worked in the area I would move down there. Areas I like in Orange County are San Clemente, Newport Beach on the Balboa Peninsula, Seal Beach, Rossmoor, Yorba Linda and some of the canyon areas that go up into the Cleveland National Forest. There are also some nice, old style downtown areas like in Tustin or Orange. Areas I'm not to fond of include Irvine, inland Newport Beach, Huntington Beach, Coto De Caza, Laguna Niguel, Dana Point. There are areas of Santa Ana, Garden Grove and Anaheim that are plain scary. Some of these neighborhood are worse than most areas of LA County.

Agree with you. I've spent Memorial Day in Laguna Beach every year since I was a kid & love swimming\ surfing in Orange county from Seal Beach to San Onofre. It's the weird "Nebraska" mindset that seems so alien.