For the map enthused!
Rules:
post relevant content: interesting, informative, and/or pretty maps
be nice
People who have never been to L.A. really have no idea how insanely huge it is. Driving to my apartment from the start of city (before you even get to L.A. county) and having the city just keep going and going and going for two hours and not because of traffic jams is something you have to experience to truly understand.
NC has a higher pop than LA county.
Wake county (NC) has a higher pop than MT.
I lived near Orange for a while. The way the cities and towns have 0 gaps between them was nuts to me. It's just.. you cross the street.
In MT you have 2 lane roads with several miles in between. The county I'm in now doesn't touch the interstate. Wild.
Also means the fires out here, as terrifying as they are to my hurricane-seasoned ass, are more likely to take out stuff in the middle of nowhere and a handful of houses, not entire swaths of suburbia.
is something you have to experience to truly understand.
I'm sorry I'm too European-public-transport to even want to understand, darling
I don't blame you for that. I would also never go to L.A. as a tourist unless I knew someone to actually show me around the city and know where to take me.
Otherwise you think that it's worth doing things like walking down Hollywood Boulevard and seeing the Chinese Theater and it really isn't unless you actually plan to go watch a movie there. And even then, there's better options.
(That said, the only time I went, I got invited to the Aliens vs. Predator premiere and we ate really potent cannabis brownies beforehand and I was so high I barely remember anything about that movie, so I could be wrong and it could be the best theater in the city. But I vaguely remember it as kind of unimpressive.)
But yeah, unless you are going to a specific place in a touristy part of town, just don't ever go there. And find someone who can tell you where the places that are worth going to are, like the beaches that are not full of idiot tourists and the museums that would actually be worth your time (I miss the Museum of Jurassic Technology so much)...
The MJT looks like it is worth making a huge detour for
Absolutely. It is one of the best things in L.A., or at least was when I lived there.
Really REALLY exemplifies how ridiculous our "representative" system is.
Hmm, it's too soon to make the obvious fire joke...
That's why it's a miserable dump.
Enjoy the "Walk of Fame"
You're right by most accounts, but there's the whole fire thing that makes this insensitive.
There are a lot of reasons to complain about L.A., but acting like Hollywood and L.A. are equivalents and Hollywood isn't just a really shitty part of L.A. with a lot of tourists (so of course a lot of panhandlers will be there) is like acting like all of Las Vegas is just The Strip.
Most of L.A. is not Hollywood. I lived in the Valley and you didn't see what you're seeing in that photo. The places you will see a huge number of homeless in L.A. are Hollywood, for the reason I already stated, Downtown because Skid Row is long-established and hospitals actually dump people there when they discharge them (when I lived in L.A., they dumped someone's grandmother with advanced dementia there in a hospital gown) and Santa Monica and Venice on the beach because of both the tourists and the fact that sleeping on sand is a hell of a lot more comfortable than sleeping on concrete.
Like I said, L.A. has a lot of problems, but calling L.A. a miserable dump based just on Hollywood is silly. Don't base your opinion on a city on where the tourists go, it's always going to be one of the worst parts of town.
I lived most of my time in L.A. in North Hollywood. It has nothing to do with Hollywood proper. It's in the Valley and there's a mountain range between it and Hollywood. It was never like that when I lived there as it was gentrifying, and now it's a hip arts district that you would have no real reason to see if you were a tourist.
Homeless: serious problem, been a problem. Heartless evil the way they're treated now.
Water supply: serious problem, been a problem. Los Angeles is the highest consumer of electricity in California, mainly because the energy is spent on treating and transporting water. Highly inefficient.
Air pollution: serious problem, been a problem. Closely tied to...
Traffic congestion: serious problem, been a problem.
There has been major improvement in drug deaths. Actually quite good numbers there.
Okay, but your characterization as L.A. being full of panhandlers because of a photo of a bunch of people panhandling in a tourist area was not exactly an honest view of the city.
I thought the photo was impactful, with the stars. It's similar to a photo that first got me looking at LA and some of it's problems.
I know it's a big city. But the leadership seems so inept.
