Chiggs
Member
I posted this thread in October of 2014 after a successful interview for a management position I would eventually land. Roughly 2 months later I found myself living in big, bad Los Angeles.
After about a year and a half of living here, I wanted to share my thoughts on one of the world’s most important cities (like it or not).
Housing:
It’s as bad as you’ve heard. Not NYC or SF bad, but still bad nonetheless. I pay $1800 a month for a 500 square foot studio apartment. Granted, I’m about a mile from the beach in cozy El Segundo…but this is actually considered a value. And it’s not like I’m living in luxury.
I should also mention that many apartments in this city don’t include the basics that renters are used to:
• Refrigerators
• Dishwashers
• Central AC
My first week here I found myself shelling out money for a refrigerator and portable air conditioning unit. Coming from Denver, I wasn’t reeling from the cost of an apartment in Los Angeles, as much as I was reeling from how little you actually get in Los Angeles.
Also, your overall happiness in this city might just be linked to how close you are to your place of work, which leads me to my next topic….
Traffic:
Also as bad as advertised. I distinctly remember leaving my apartment at 2am in the morning to capture some shots of an illuminated downtown LA skyline, only to be caught in a traffic jam on the 110 that lasted for 45 minutes.
Probably one of the most astute points ever made about Los Angeles traffic…it’s just baffling. I feel like you have to throw yourself at the mercy of the LA traffic gods and only once do you admit to them that you are an insignificant little nothing, they allow you to get somewhere within 3 hours.
Also, the size of the city is absolutely intimidating. I once drove from the northern edge of the San Fernando Valley all the way down to Orange County and Huntington Beach and I will just never forget how long that took. It was 100 miles of city. The scale of this thing is still something I can’t wrap my head around.
People:
I was very naïve on this front. Initially, I was stunned by how nice the people in the South Bay area were and incorrectly assumed that everyone north of Imperial would be equally nice.
Big mistake.
Honestly, LA’s west side might be home to some of the biggest assholes in the world. A special tip of the hat to Santa Monica, where the “not really rich, but kinda rich” display some of the worst human behavior I’ve ever witnessed. I’d like to officially crown it Pretentious & Mean-Spirited Asshole Capitol of the United States. Make no mistake, these jerks are far worse than any of the detached millionaires and billionaires living in Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Calabasas and Pacific Palisades.
On a similarly depressing note, I’ve found that making friends—not acquaintances—is very tough. The folks you meet in this city are constantly trying to get an angle on you to determine how you can help them meet their goals. One of my co-workers confessed to me that it took her 5 years to make a handful of decent friends. To me, that’s pretty daunting, and you can imagine how trying it can be to find a meaningful relationship out here. I feel like running background checks on potential partners isn’t paranoid, but necessary.
Culturally, the city is incredible. I spent a lot of my life in Colorado, a wonderful state, but also a very white one. Los Angeles has really opened my eyes to a lot of cultural richness that you’d be hard-pressed to find anywhere else. I’m also rather amazed to see so many different people from so many walks of life all converging in this metropolis. And with that convergence comes all of the expected benefits. My favorites? Food and music. Few cities can match Los Angeles on this front.
Things to do:
Where do I even start? There is so much to do in this city. Someone told me (or I read it somewhere) that Los Angeles is a city of secrets. While I’m certainly not a LA veteran, I have also found this to be true. Be it obscure restaurants in non-descript strip malls or winding staircases that take you to parts of the city that you never even knew existed, or could be accessed, Los Angeles begs to be explored.
Places I’ve enjoyed:
• The Getty
• Dodger Stadium
• The Bradbury Building
• Griffith Park
• Santa Monica Pier
• Culver City
• Sunset Boulevard
• Manhattan Beach
• City Hall
• Mullholland Drive
• Koreatown
• Chinatown
And that’s just factoring places within the city. Outside of city limits, you have incredible places in the San Gabriel Mountains, coastal gems like Malibu, and the jaw-dropping beauty of Joshua Tree and The Salton Sea…although the latter is definitely something of an acquired taste.
Overall:
I feel like I’m finally starting to fit in around here. I’ve gone from awkward outsider to somewhat awkward denizen. But that’s also a part of LA’s charm: it’s one of a handful of cities on this planet where you can easily find a niche or carve one out for yourself. When it comes to the individual, I’m really struggling to think of a city that caters more to that approach than Los Angeles.
In some ways I wish I would have moved out here ten years ago. I’m in my mid-thirties now and I can only imagine the fun I would have had in my twenties. Does that mean I’ll stay here long-term? Who knows…but there is a special sort of charm to this place. The city is a very hard to describe amalgamation of art, commerce and eccentricity. I just know that it’s fascinating.
4k Time Lapses:
https://youtu.be/CNw0EgVKZro
https://youtu.be/QKx_mB3GC5I
