Personal lens question: why LA?

Question

I'm visiting Los Angeles now. First time. I see the allure. Not a perfect city, but definitely lots to offer from my observation. For those who chose LA as home, why LA? Would you leave it? What do you cherish about it? What do you find difficult? Besides traffic, I experienced that first hand 🚗🚙🚕🏎️ 🚓

victoria · Answer

The first thing that got me was the scale, not the glamour. You can drive from the chaos of Koreatown to the silence of the desert in under two hours, and that range of escape is something no other city I've lived in offers. I stay for the canyons, honestly, the smell of sage after a hike in Runyon or Temescal beats any beach day.

I wouldn't leave, but the difficulty is the impermanence. Friends move back east for family, or up to Portland for cheaper rent, and you're constantly rebuilding your social circle. That plus the fact that everything is a 45 minute drive, even the stuff that looks close on a map, wears you down.

For a first timer, skip the Santa Monica Pier chaos and hit the Getty Villa instead, it's quieter and the gardens are unreal. Or do a late night at the Original Farmers Market, grab a pastrami sandwich at Langers, it's a different city after dark.

feefreese · Answer

Moved here from New Orleans about six years ago for a job, figured I'd stay two years tops. What keeps me is the absolute weirdness hiding in plain sight, the city rewards you for knowing where to look. A punk show in a converted warehouse in Lincoln Heights, a Korean spa in Koreatown at 2am, a random jazz set in a Leimert Park backyard. It's not a museum city, it's a dig site.

I won't leave because the creative energy here is unmatched, everyone's working on something and that rubs off on you even when you're not. The hard part is the isolation in a crowd, you can go days without a real conversation if you're not intentional about it. For your trip, skip the Hollywood sign hike and do the Wisdom Tree trail instead, you get the same view with a fraction of the crowd. And grab breakfast at the Original Pantry downtown, it's been open since 1924 and the pancakes are the size of your head.

dorothea · Answer

i moved here from the east coast about 8 years ago. honestly what keeps me is the light. sounds cheesy but the way the sun hits the mountains after a rain, or the golden hour over the ocean, it's like the city rewards you for just looking up. you don't get that in NY or Chicago.

i'd leave for better public transit and cheaper rent, but then again, where else can you surf before work and hike after? the tradeoff is real tho. my car is basically my living room. and the loneliness can sneak up on u, it's a very spread out place, takes effort to build a crew.

for a first timer, don't just do Hollywood Blvd. drive up to Griffith at sunset, or grab tacos in Boyle Heights. that's the LA people actually live in.

anka · Answer

Ten years here and honestly it's the weather doing a lot of heavy lifting. I know that sounds basic but when it's February and I'm eating lunch outside in a t-shirt, I forget about the rent. The tradeoff is you never really feel settled, everyone's always chasing something and the city does not care about your plans.

I would not leave though, I've tried twice. Both times I came back within a year because everywhere else felt like it had a curfew. The thing people don't warn you about is the quiet, you can be surrounded by millions and still feel like

Neu aus Los Angeles