Los Angeles has been a world city for a long time, but some didn't see it that way. It took the…read more1984 Olympics and everything else that can go wrong - more population, higher prices, and increased strife - to make it one, along with a few more museums, nonstop flights, and even more Hollywood. Then, there was the joke: "What's the difference between yogurt and L.A.?" "Yogurt has culture."
Los Angeles had quite a canvas to work with. Its coastal basin is hemmed in by the San Gabriel Mountains, with its palms set against that backdrop and seen dusted in snow on a few clear winter days. With low humidity and not much rain, L.A. has comfortable weather ranging from some 55 to 90 degrees. Los Angeles moved forward to become America's second city, eclipsing Chicago, and for which they can be bitter! L.A.'s calling card is that it is the largest American city with a Mediterranean climate. While not a desert, its raw materials were not lush. Irrigation and landscaping give the illusion that it is. It's hard to run out of things to do in the L.A. area, let alone with the many day trips to nearby coastal cities, desert towns, and mountain hamlets, but the traffic into and out of the area increasingly chips away at this perk.
Los Angeles is best understood in its context. L.A. runs on an on, running into many adjacent cities or encircling some such as Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, and others. L.A. holds 4 million people. Los Angeles County, with a part in the Mojave Desert, holds 10 million people. One in ten and one in four Californians live in Los Angeles and Los Angeles County, respectively. Before Houston's growth and the trend to consolidate cities with their counties, L.A., with some 460 square miles, was America's largest city. With over 8 million people in New York's 330 square miles that include detached housing and parkland, L.A. is comparatively roomier as it spreads out to vapid suburbs that repeat the formula, but without the name recognition. It includes the large, less populated Hollywood Hills and Santa Monica Mountains, home to much wildlife, including some bears and mountain lions who became YouTube stars.
Regrettably, the city has many entrenched problems. It's America's poster child for homelessness, with the eastern half of downtown being a tent city. Tents are now found on suburban sidewalks. I never saw this growing up. It's possible that a larger middle class and more feasible prices may have served as a buffer. It is now a very "have-have not" sort of metro area. Crime is pocketed but, more so than not, L.A. is fairly safe. Transit is woeful, with a true albeit limited subway arriving in the '90s, decades behind the 8-ball.
The city has always been diverse and tolerant, with long established Hispanic, Asian, and Black communities, with L.A. born offspring being Angelenos all the more! Our street was truly a mosaic - all on one West Side block. Everyone just shrugged and coexisted. The same was true in Sun Valley, Silver Lake, and San Pedro. However, polarization has increased.
Los Angeles has never had a blond head of hair. It has always had a head of dark hair that's getting darker. "Brady Bunch" kids are a thing of the past, products of graduates of top Midwestern engineering schools working in aerospace, Dust Bowl escapees, and transplants from northerly latitudes. Now, many have left. Portland's Oregonian once featured a series entitled "The New West." It is exactly this boomer demographic that up and left - to exurbian counties or far away, to Denver, Boise, Flagstaff, and beyond. Even if they wanted to come back, and most don't, they probably couldn't afford to.
Los Angeles is a feast for the senses - a coastal Pacific metropolis with its own blend of easy-going and aloof, but with a subtle unwritten overlaid code of "cool" that thwarts its being more individualistic. I chalk that up to Hollywood, affluent whites, and surfers, among others.
If navigating Los Angeles sloppily, one might waste time and not like it. If the trip is planned well, most visitors do like it. A poll I once saw indicated that 77% of Americans had a negative knee jerk opinion of it. I'm sure most were from the Heartland or he South, and religious, yet, when there was a thriving middle class, L.A. also had its slices of old school Americana such as roller rinks, malt shops, and single screen movie houses. Those elements are mostly gone.
Visiting Los Angeles and walking down memory lane makes for sensory overload. Where are the big hair and ubiquitous Cutlass Supremes? Each of the 5 GM brands once had their own dealerships. Now, they are combined ... or gone. Stucco ranches with 2-car garages that your friends lived in look much dowdier if occupied by older owners who have paid them off, and unrecognizable if affluent younger folks have revamped them. L.A.'s overall layout is the same, but the intricacies and the vibe are so different that "you can't go home again."