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Vigo
Vigo UltimaDork
4/7/19 9:13 p.m.

Somewhat relevant. 

I had no idea Sao Paolo was so big. At least LA has first world water quality!

Video about issues of a megacity.

frenchyd
frenchyd UltraDork
4/7/19 11:37 p.m.
mazdeuce - Seth said:

Interestingly enough I just spent four days in the Palm Springs area and my impressions of southern California were wildly different. When I was done there I flew to Denver. There is an astonishing amount of nothing once you get away from people. 

You want to see empty land around LA? Take the coast train.   North of LA along the coast there are miles and miles of emptiness.  Not homes, roads or people. 

From San Diego to LA the beaches are jammed with housing but north of San Yasidro there is nothing!  

Up to Hearst Castle absolutely nothing and then North of that more Nothing.  

 

frenchyd
frenchyd UltraDork
4/7/19 11:51 p.m.
Vigo said:

I guess my point is, that as the big cities get bigger, they seem to get worse in many ways, but all those people are coming from somewhere and those places are not being made better by losing their populations and jobs going overseas or out of state.

Perhaps, these are both just symptoms of the overall decline of the country and not some California issue.

I drove through a lot of desolate emptiness and dead or dying towns on the way there and back. I absolutely get your point on that one and about it being a problem everywhere. That's part of what bothers me a little about LA, is that its problems don't feel contained or solved but emblematic of larger forces that just haven't reached the pain threshold yet in other places.

 I'm just sort of worried now about what the mass migration from rural to urban is going to do to all of us when the majority of the entire population of the nation is city dwellers who aren't dissatisfied enough about what sucks in their city to drive policy and technology in a better direction. I mean, the whole existence of cities more or less comes down to job proximity, and cities stayed pretty small until car travel at speeds far beyond walking became practical. But, if we end up spending 2-3 hrs per day commuting at near-walking speeds in a car anyway and don't ask ourselves what is the point of this 'proximity' any longer, it just seems like we're lazily sliding down a slippery slope to every city being a E36 M3hole wage slave colony that grinds up human happiness and dignity in return for the right to be a part of a declining proletariat, and cars stop being the emblem of personal autonomy and freedom that I grew up seeing them as. I dont know what the solution to it all is, but going to LA definitely made me ask myself the questions! I just hope that what I like about cars can survive whatever changes are coming. 

Work from home. My wife does it. Her commute is the stairs up to her office.   Traffic would be the cat  if we had a cat.  She makes a bigger wage because the company she works for doesn’t have to pay for an office for her. Plus without commute costs her pay goes further. 

OK, so she loses her privacy. The company tracks every key stroke she makes and compares her production to those doing similar jobs in the company offices.  So any idea of saving on child care or washing clothes on company time results in quick termination.  Getting time off is actually harder than if she went into an office.  

dculberson
dculberson UltimaDork
4/8/19 5:44 a.m.

In reply to frenchyd :

Once a workforce can work from home, there’s nothing at all keeping them from being outsourced. Mumbai and Beijing have fast internet and tech savvy English speaking populations that are happy to work for way less than an American. 

frenchyd
frenchyd UltraDork
4/8/19 11:28 a.m.
dculberson said:

In reply to frenchyd :

Once a workforce can work from home, there’s nothing at all keeping them from being outsourced. Mumbai and Beijing have fast internet and tech savvy English speaking populations that are happy to work for way less than an American. 

IT is completely able to work from home, yet most companies hire Americans for any position they can fill. Even cost conscience Banking. 

The reasons are simple and complex.

  Simple I. Cultural differences mean too much time is spent explaining desires outcomes and why they are needed. Why another approach or outcome is not acceptable.  Language differences. In India where English is taught there are still problems with understanding and actually hearing what is being said. ( both ways)  poorer countries will have even greater  language barriers.  Face it, most Americans only speak English and accordingly have a poor ear for understanding other languages. 

2.  Time critical issues.  Countries on the other side of the world are asleep while we’re awake and visa Versa. 

3. Holidays!  America has darn few holidays compared to most of the world.  Yet Christmas break, Spring Break, and Summer vacation  Memorial Day, Labor Day, 4th of July, are times when a lot of decisions/action is delayed or put on hold.  

Now add global holidays in and productivity can be exceedingly slow.  

4. Security, a companies marketing plans, trade secrets, passwords, policies and procedures,  Access to inventories or other assets  All have value far in excess of whatever loyalty future wages paid provides.  

5. With the difficulty of pursuing legal recourse in a global  world  where anger and hatred of America is so common. Limits how far  American companies are able to go seeking redress of wrongs. In other words in an employee  Sells secrets etc to the Russians there is no way to deter that other than firing the employee.  ( Who no doubt calculated that in when making the deal) 

 

Stefan
Stefan GRM+ Memberand MegaDork
4/8/19 11:31 a.m.

In the banking world, there are Federal banking rules around who has access, this generally drives hiring practices in the country.

Similar to Hospitals and HIPAA, though often in that case, its more about response times as support outside of the country can't always respond as quickly as one in the same state or even the same country.

frenchyd
frenchyd UltraDork
4/8/19 2:43 p.m.

The In reply to dculberson :

A few more points about work from home.  

My best man, A friend I’ve known since the Navy works from his home in San Diego.  Has for over 30 years  He’s a detail draftsman. Specializes in stairs.  He has 3 prime customers  one in Chicago, one in Mexico City and one in Tokyo.   Makes over $200,000 a year. For every job he does he rejects 2.  

His wife puts together mortgage loans has for more than 18 years.  Her income is more modest but still about twice what I earn driving the school bus.  

My Brother in law retired as an architect but still works from home. Doing a few homes a month to suppliment his retirement. Residential work pays peanuts but more than I earn driving the bus.  

My neighbor to the north is a day trader from home( thanks to him we have fiber optics internet.) 

The neighbor to the south was a debt collector he bought a bigger home but still works from home, •••• Alone.  

2 houses up is a VP for a major lawn equipment company. Since he has a nice office at corporate headquarters technically he doesn’t work from home, except he seldom goes in. 

A few houses south of him is a jewelry designer. Her house is like Fort Knox when it comes to security. Nope,  none of the neighbors have ever been inside.  

Oh and for a few years I ran SIR my vintage restoration and race car prep shop out of my home. Until I found how much more I could make selling construction equipment  and how much less hassle it was. 

So there seem to be countless ways to work from home.  

 

frenchyd
frenchyd UltraDork
4/8/19 3:36 p.m.
Stefan said:

In the banking world, there are Federal banking rules around who has access, this generally drives hiring practices in the country.

Similar to Hospitals and HIPAA, though often in that case, its more about response times as support outside of the country can't always respond as quickly as one in the same state or even the same country.

That’s what my wife does. Works full time doing Compliance and vulnerability.  It’s extremely complex and demanding. Plus every single thing seems to have a whole trail of people needed to sign off on. 

ShinnyGroove
ShinnyGroove Reader
7/14/19 2:14 p.m.

Mexico City, London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Rio.  All places I’ve been that have the same issues as LA but to a larger degree. The difference is that those cities have public transportation, car sharing, bike lanes, electric scooters, and all manner of transportation to get people out of cars. 

 

My teenage kids have no interest in cars. It occurs to me that the difference is that when I was growing up in Pennsylvania, cars meant freedom. For them, cars mean sitting in Atlanta traffic to go five miles. I think this is a generational thing, and on the balance the car culture that we all know is going away. I love cars, but I hate car culture. 

dropstep
dropstep UltraDork
7/14/19 10:51 p.m.

Between reading things like this and talking to my family that still lives in Baltimore and Hagerstown I'm really thankful that I live in a town with a population of 20k. Sure we don't have alot of nightlife but I'd rather drive my car then go out 

monkeyodeath
monkeyodeath New Reader
7/16/19 11:46 p.m.

No offense, but 9 days in Los Angeles is only scratching the surface. You've barely seen any of it. It's a mind-bogglingly diverse and huge place. I've been here 15 years and still discover new neighborhoods all the time. Drive a half-mile in any direction and it totally changes. I mean, there are more people in the San Fernando Valley than Phoenix -- and that's just one part of the city.

Sounds like you spent most of your time in west LA, where most of the tourist stuff is. That area is notoriously dense. Traffic sucks, parking is impossible, many of the apartments are tiny, and there is no space to be a car enthusiast. You know, like the downtown core of most major cities in the world. It's even worse when you're driving all over the city to do and see things. People I know who live in that area are increasingly getting rid of/mothballing their cars and sticking with Uber/bikes/mass transit.

But that's just one small part of LA. I live 4 miles east of Downtown (a tiny distance in a city this large), and I have a 2-car garage with ample driveway space. Everyone around me has multiple cars. There are very few laundromats, and parking is always really easy. And it's not some kind of super-ritzy neighborhood, either. I can think of many other places in the LA area that are similar, and that's where the car culture thrives, from the import scene in the South Bay to the low riders in East Los to the many vintage Porsche guys in the Pasadena area.

Whether or not LA is a hellscape or not really depends on your priorities. I could care less about owning a big house or having easy parking (I live near my job, so I don't spend time in traffic). 

But I love being able to ride my bike on the beach in January. I love being able to eat dirt-cheap, world-class Sichuan/Thai/Japanese/Korean/Mexican/Dim Sum all the time. I love going to some of the best art museums in the world. I love being close to amazing mountain drives (the Crest, Mulholland, the 1, the canyons), Death Valley, and the Sierra Nevada. I love shopping craigslist for rust-free cars and trolling multiple giant junkyards on the weekends. I like eating from a taco stand/ghetto dog cart at 2am, surrounded by beautiful women, after the tiki bar or funky soul night or 80's themed bar or Star Wars-themed bar or disco club. I love that LAX has direct flights to almost every international destination. I love that there are active clubs for almost every type of car ever made here. I love that there are Jewish neighborhoods and Persian neighborhoods and Oaxacan neighborhoods and Bangladeshi neighborhoods, and that walking along the boardwalk in Venice I can see pretty much every race, clothing style, and religion in the space of 10 minutes. I love that first nice spring day when you see Deloreans and Lambos street-parked or getting In-N-Out and the long-hood 911 or GTI or Ducati guys heading out to the Angeles Crest. I like riding the Snake on a weekend and hoping I don't eat E36 M3 in front of all the people hanging out and taking pictures. I love getting off work and doing an evening hike/rock climb/rappel down one of the waterfalls in the San Gabriels. I love the 100,000 incredible breweries just down the 5 in San Diego. And I love being able to ride a motorcycle dang near every day of the year and split lanes when I do it, as God intended.

But those are my priorities, and I gladly deal with traffic and expensive housing for them. If having a big house and all the domestic conveniences was really important to me, I'd pack up and move somewhere else. 

Horses for courses, man: I've been to San Antonio and thought it was the most weirdly generic, boring, soulless large city I'd been to in my life. I wouldn't live there if the rent was free. But that's just me, I can absolutely understand what draws people there. We all gotta do what makes us happy. Just felt the need to explain why LA people love the city -- we aren't all miserable, we don't all sit in traffic 24/7, and most of us do indeed have washers and dryers. I'll freely admit that it's a terrible place to visit -- I felt similar to you the first time I came here from rural Oregon, but there are 18 million people living here for a reason -- lots of people like it.

frenchyd
frenchyd UberDork
7/17/19 3:02 a.m.
  • The In reply to Vigo : LA or New York  dense population makes car ownership and driving a real chore.  

In fact it’s pretty much the same the world over and LA isn’t particularly bad. I spent a significant part of my life In Southern California  and still go there any chance I get.  

Driving in traffic is a skill to be mastered just like any other.  There are roads to avoid and ways around the traffic tie ups.  Part of the reason traffic is so bad is because it’s perfect for the no brainers who won’t be bothered to learn the tips and techniques.

Which exit is going to get you on a smooth flowing road.  What alley to duck down to avoid a bad intersection.  When to stop and buy gas and maybe do a little shopping.  

Want to get from San Diego to north LA faster than you can drive or take a plane?  It’s smooth, relaxing, comfortable, and affordable. Not to mention great scenery.   

Yes California 1 can be slow  trapped behind  a motor home However there are times when traffic flows smoothly and motorhomes avoid. Missing taking that route is a sin!   

The national parks, the forests, the wine country., the Mountains,  deserts, and Farm country all can be a pleasure ride if you just know when and how.    

As far as expensive?  Think of it as a paradise tax. Real estate is only insanely expensive because there is so much demand for it.  Nothing good  in high demand comes cheap.  

But you can live very affordable in California.  Retired friends living only on Social Security do it every winter.  They see things visit tourist attractions. Enjoy nice meals, but they’ve mastered the art of living well modestly. 

yupididit
yupididit GRM+ Memberand UltraDork
7/17/19 5:26 a.m.
monkeyodeath said:

No offense, but 9 days in Los Angeles is only scratching the surface. You've barely seen any of it. It's a mind-bogglingly diverse and huge place. I've been here 15 years and still discover new neighborhoods all the time. Drive a half-mile in any direction and it totally changes. I mean, there are more people in the San Fernando Valley than Phoenix -- and that's just one part of the city.

Sounds like you spent most of your time in west LA, where most of the tourist stuff is. That area is notoriously dense. Traffic sucks, parking is impossible, many of the apartments are tiny, and there is no space to be a car enthusiast. You know, like the downtown core of most major cities in the world. It's even worse when you're driving all over the city to do and see things. People I know who live in that area are increasingly getting rid of/mothballing their cars and sticking with Uber/bikes/mass transit.

But that's just one small part of LA. I live 4 miles east of Downtown (a tiny distance in a city this large), and I have a 2-car garage with ample driveway space. Everyone around me has multiple cars. There are very few laundromats, and parking is always really easy. And it's not some kind of super-ritzy neighborhood, either. I can think of many other places in the LA area that are similar, and that's where the car culture thrives, from the import scene in the South Bay to the low riders in East Los to the many vintage Porsche guys in the Pasadena area.

Whether or not LA is a hellscape or not really depends on your priorities. I could care less about owning a big house or having easy parking (I live near my job, so I don't spend time in traffic). 

But I love being able to ride my bike on the beach in January. I love being able to eat dirt-cheap, world-class Sichuan/Thai/Japanese/Korean/Mexican/Dim Sum all the time. I love going to some of the best art museums in the world. I love being close to amazing mountain drives (the Crest, Mulholland, the 1, the canyons), Death Valley, and the Sierra Nevada. I love shopping craigslist for rust-free cars and trolling multiple giant junkyards on the weekends. I like eating from a taco stand/ghetto dog cart at 2am, surrounded by beautiful women, after the tiki bar or funky soul night or 80's themed bar or Star Wars-themed bar or disco club. I love that LAX has direct flights to almost every international destination. I love that there are active clubs for almost every type of car ever made here. I love that there are Jewish neighborhoods and Persian neighborhoods and Oaxacan neighborhoods and Bangladeshi neighborhoods, and that walking along the boardwalk in Venice I can see pretty much every race, clothing style, and religion in the space of 10 minutes. I love that first nice spring day when you see Deloreans and Lambos street-parked or getting In-N-Out and the long-hood 911 or GTI or Ducati guys heading out to the Angeles Crest. I like riding the Snake on a weekend and hoping I don't eat E36 M3 in front of all the people hanging out and taking pictures. I love getting off work and doing an evening hike/rock climb/rappel down one of the waterfalls in the San Gabriels. I love the 100,000 incredible breweries just down the 5 in San Diego. And I love being able to ride a motorcycle dang near every day of the year and split lanes when I do it, as God intended.

But those are my priorities, and I gladly deal with traffic and expensive housing for them. If having a big house and all the domestic conveniences was really important to me, I'd pack up and move somewhere else. 

Horses for courses, man: I've been to San Antonio and thought it was the most weirdly generic, boring, soulless large city I'd been to in my life. I wouldn't live there if the rent was free. But that's just me, I can absolutely understand what draws people there. We all gotta do what makes us happy. Just felt the need to explain why LA people love the city -- we aren't all miserable, we don't all sit in traffic 24/7, and most of us do indeed have washers and dryers. I'll freely admit that it's a terrible place to visit -- I felt similar to you the first time I came here from rural Oregon, but there are 18 million people living here for a reason -- lots of people like it.

The food, diversity, and weather is why I'll always want to move back. 

Snrub
Snrub HalfDork
7/17/19 9:34 a.m.

I work in tech in a mid-sized city. My impression of work from home is there are lots of people doing it, but many of them got in the door through an on-site job and it was a privilege given to them once they had established a base level of trust. Do a job search for work from home jobs vs. traditional. It's a very small fraction. Since 2004 city population is up 15%, but the absolute number of people employed is actually the same. Participation rate for ages 25-55 is ~60%. Many have bemoaned the loss of traditional manufacturing jobs here, but the lack of job growth in skilled white collar/services jobs is a big reason why our city has fallen behind. I can easily work for a lot less than the people who live in a big city, but it's difficult to access those jobs. They can hire 1.5 of me (sometimes 2!) for the same cost, but it's not easy to get in the door.

A lot of the reason for not outsourcing is related to work status requirements, team synergies and etc. I mentioned earlier in this thread that Toronto had the most tech job growth over the last 5 years. #2 was Vancouver. What do these large cities have in common? Very flexible Canadian work visa rules. Rather than hiring skilled "outsourced" labor, they're basically bringing them here and having them work for local wages. Skilled labor is in demand and they want it here, in person. They're willing to pay 3-10x to have it. They don't want them just anywhere here, but in the biggest cities and in the core of the downtown. Where do these workers most want to live? In vibrant cities. Look up the price of housing in Vancouver, it's utterly bonkers. A tech worker from Bangalore could probably have a better standard of living by staying put.

Toebra
Toebra Dork
7/19/19 12:59 p.m.
AnthonyGS said:

I am an equal opportunity Texan curmudgeon.  I complain about all the people coming to our state from all over the US.  They come here for the economy but vote for the same politics that ruined their previous home.  It will ruin TX too.  The three big cities in TX are well on their way to becoming LA.  Dallas is leading the way in that regard.  If my job wasn’t her, I’d be in a much more remote part of the state.  I’m leaving the city for my 60th birthday and not returning.  

California refugees have already ruined Oregon, working on Nevada and points East.  Californians are what is wrong with Austin.

 

I could lay out why California is the way it is, but that would violate the terms of use of this website.

frenchyd
frenchyd UberDork
7/19/19 1:26 p.m.

In reply to Toebra :

Since the economy of California makes it the 8th richest country all by itself. They are doing well. Yes it’s true that not everyone succeeds  at the highest level and have to leave for other lesser states.  I’d say that’s a pretty good indicator of just how successful they are. 

High real estate prices?  Just further proof of demand. Crowded? Again,  an indicator of success. 

No it’s not the same as when I served in the Navy.  Back then there was over a million servicemen in San Diego county  and fewer than 15,000 single women under the age of 30.  Back then it used to take 40 minutes to drive from my home near La Jolla to the Navy air base at North Island. Today that same trip is closer to 55 minutes.  

 

frenchyd
frenchyd UberDork
7/19/19 1:43 p.m.
Snrub said:

I work in tech in a mid-sized city. My impression of work from home is there are lots of people doing it, but many of them got in the door through an on-site job and it was a privilege given to them once they had established a base level of trust. Do a job search for work from home jobs vs. traditional. It's a very small fraction. Since 2004 city population is up 15%, but the absolute number of people employed is actually the same. Participation rate for ages 25-55 is ~60%. Many have bemoaned the loss of traditional manufacturing jobs here, but the lack of job growth in skilled white collar/services jobs is a big reason why our city has fallen behind. I can easily work for a lot less than the people who live in a big city, but it's difficult to access those jobs. They can hire 1.5 of me (sometimes 2!) for the same cost, but it's not easy to get in the door.

A lot of the reason for not outsourcing is related to work status requirements, team synergies and etc. I mentioned earlier in this thread that Toronto had the most tech job growth over the last 5 years. #2 was Vancouver. What do these large cities have in common? Very flexible Canadian work visa rules. Rather than hiring skilled "outsourced" labor, they're basically bringing them here and having them work for local wages. Skilled labor is in demand and they want it here, in person. They're willing to pay 3-10x to have it. They don't want them just anywhere here, but in the biggest cities and in the core of the downtown. Where do these workers most want to live? In vibrant cities. Look up the price of housing in Vancouver, it's utterly bonkers. A tech worker from Bangalore could probably have a better standard of living by staying put.

My wife was recruited because of her skills.  Banks needed those and to get her talent offered her more working at home than she could make driving through rush hour and paying for parking.  

Many of the people she works with are the same.  They are on their second or 6th contract. Most contracts are 18 months.  Recently they switched to 2 year contracts.   

They live in Iowa and  upper penn of Michigan. Down in Mexico part time and home in Maryland during the summer.  Minnesota and California. Often working with employees in India. Occasionally  other countries.   They are older and younger than she is. A variety of ethnic backgrounds, mostly male but a scattering of women.  

Most are contractors but some make it FTE ( Full time employee) but even as contractors they get full benefits including health care and unemployment insurance. 

My wife is just now making the transition to full time. Still will work from home even though the bank has rooms full of offices with few or no people in them.  

frenchyd
frenchyd UberDork
7/19/19 1:57 p.m.
monkeyodeath said:

No offense, but 9 days in Los Angeles is only scratching the surface. You've barely seen any of it. It's a mind-bogglingly diverse and huge place. I've been here 15 years and still discover new neighborhoods all the time. Drive a half-mile in any direction and it totally changes. I mean, there are more people in the San Fernando Valley than Phoenix -- and that's just one part of the city.

Sounds like you spent most of your time in west LA, where most of the tourist stuff is. That area is notoriously dense. Traffic sucks, parking is impossible, many of the apartments are tiny, and there is no space to be a car enthusiast. You know, like the downtown core of most major cities in the world. It's even worse when you're driving all over the city to do and see things. People I know who live in that area are increasingly getting rid of/mothballing their cars and sticking with Uber/bikes/mass transit.

But that's just one small part of LA. I live 4 miles east of Downtown (a tiny distance in a city this large), and I have a 2-car garage with ample driveway space. Everyone around me has multiple cars. There are very few laundromats, and parking is always really easy. And it's not some kind of super-ritzy neighborhood, either. I can think of many other places in the LA area that are similar, and that's where the car culture thrives, from the import scene in the South Bay to the low riders in East Los to the many vintage Porsche guys in the Pasadena area.

Whether or not LA is a hellscape or not really depends on your priorities. I could care less about owning a big house or having easy parking (I live near my job, so I don't spend time in traffic). 

But I love being able to ride my bike on the beach in January. I love being able to eat dirt-cheap, world-class Sichuan/Thai/Japanese/Korean/Mexican/Dim Sum all the time. I love going to some of the best art museums in the world. I love being close to amazing mountain drives (the Crest, Mulholland, the 1, the canyons), Death Valley, and the Sierra Nevada. I love shopping craigslist for rust-free cars and trolling multiple giant junkyards on the weekends. I like eating from a taco stand/ghetto dog cart at 2am, surrounded by beautiful women, after the tiki bar or funky soul night or 80's themed bar or Star Wars-themed bar or disco club. I love that LAX has direct flights to almost every international destination. I love that there are active clubs for almost every type of car ever made here. I love that there are Jewish neighborhoods and Persian neighborhoods and Oaxacan neighborhoods and Bangladeshi neighborhoods, and that walking along the boardwalk in Venice I can see pretty much every race, clothing style, and religion in the space of 10 minutes. I love that first nice spring day when you see Deloreans and Lambos street-parked or getting In-N-Out and the long-hood 911 or GTI or Ducati guys heading out to the Angeles Crest. I like riding the Snake on a weekend and hoping I don't eat E36 M3 in front of all the people hanging out and taking pictures. I love getting off work and doing an evening hike/rock climb/rappel down one of the waterfalls in the San Gabriels. I love the 100,000 incredible breweries just down the 5 in San Diego. And I love being able to ride a motorcycle dang near every day of the year and split lanes when I do it, as God intended.

But those are my priorities, and I gladly deal with traffic and expensive housing for them. If having a big house and all the domestic conveniences was really important to me, I'd pack up and move somewhere else. 

Horses for courses, man: I've been to San Antonio and thought it was the most weirdly generic, boring, soulless large city I'd been to in my life. I wouldn't live there if the rent was free. But that's just me, I can absolutely understand what draws people there. We all gotta do what makes us happy. Just felt the need to explain why LA people love the city -- we aren't all miserable, we don't all sit in traffic 24/7, and most of us do indeed have washers and dryers. I'll freely admit that it's a terrible place to visit -- I felt similar to you the first time I came here from rural Oregon, but there are 18 million people living here for a reason -- lots of people like it.

I can’t agree more.  For every miserable person barely squeaking by  on a 6 figure income there are several picking oranges in their back yard and then going for a dip in the pool. 

They may have moved there 30-40 years ago to get out of the freezing winters or poverty back home.  They found their niche, settled in and now are enjoying life.  

 

Vigo
Vigo MegaDork
7/19/19 4:47 p.m.

Whether or not LA is a hellscape or not really depends on your priorities.

 

I think Houston is a hellscape so not liking LA was almost a foregone conclusion. It was different than i expected, but not in terms of liking it or wanting to be there.  

I dont know if any of yall have heard of 'the monkeysphere' but there is a way of thinking related to that that says that larger and larger numbers of people in a space is inherently less and less humane. Texas is currently doing some unscientific testing along those lines in our 'migrant shelters'.

But don't get too wrapped up in what I think. I grew up running around with a pack of dogs and trying to spend enough time being quiet that wildlife would get used to me instead of running away. The tizzy of 18,000,000 human existences is not going to have the same disquieting effect on most people as it has on me. If i couldn't work in a car angle i'd have kept the whole thing to myself.  Part of the reason i ever got into working on cars was because you can turn them off and then futz with them so that when you turn them back on they no longer do things that bother you. You can't do that to a city, so out here i will remain. I've lived in a variety of settings now and that's the conclusion i've come to. 

Toebra
Toebra Dork
7/25/19 3:13 p.m.
frenchyd said:

In reply to Toebra :

1.Since the economy of California makes it the 8th richest country all by itself. They are doing well. Yes it’s true that not everyone succeeds  at the highest level and have to leave for other lesser states.  I’d say that’s a pretty good indicator of just how successful they are. 

2.High real estate prices?  Just further proof of demand. Crowded? Again,  an indicator of success. 

3.No it’s not the same as when I served in the Navy.  Back then there was over a million servicemen in San Diego county  and fewer than 15,000 single women under the age of 30.  Back then it used to take 40 minutes to drive from my home near La Jolla to the Navy air base at North Island. Today that same trip is closer to 55 minutes.  

 

1.I would say you have an extremely superficial understanding of economics and no understanding at all as to why businesses are fleeing the state.

2.I would say you have an extremely superficial understanding of the real estate market in California

3.WTH are you talking about?  

Maybe it is because you are thinking about what it was like 40 years ago, don't really know.

 

BTW, you in no way responded to Mr Culberson's assertion about outsourcing, in case you are under the misapprehension that you did.

 

yupididit
yupididit GRM+ Memberand UltraDork
7/25/19 4:44 p.m.
Toebra said:
AnthonyGS said:

I am an equal opportunity Texan curmudgeon.  I complain about all the people coming to our state from all over the US.  They come here for the economy but vote for the same politics that ruined their previous home.  It will ruin TX too.  The three big cities in TX are well on their way to becoming LA.  Dallas is leading the way in that regard.  If my job wasn’t her, I’d be in a much more remote part of the state.  I’m leaving the city for my 60th birthday and not returning.  

California refugees have already ruined Oregon, working on Nevada and points East.  Californians are what is wrong with Austin.

 

I could lay out why California is the way it is, but that would violate the terms of use of this website.

What's wrong with Austin? 

Toebra
Toebra Dork
7/26/19 5:47 p.m.
yupididit said:

What's wrong with Austin? 

Over run by former Californians

yupididit
yupididit GRM+ Memberand UltraDork
7/26/19 7:28 p.m.
Toebra said:
yupididit said:

What's wrong with Austin? 

Over run by former Californians

 

Lmao. Good, Texas needs some injection of none-Texas. Funny because southern California is overran by people from everywhere else too. Just on an whole new level. I like Austin, it's my favorite part of Texas then SA. Houston and Dallas, nope.

Everywhere else is as Tex-ass as people fear, (yee haw boy get! Dis tex-us!) Lol gross!

Boost_Crazy
Boost_Crazy HalfDork
7/26/19 11:19 p.m.

I just spent a few days in LA. Traffic was pretty bad, even by SF Bay Area standards. In the Bay Area, traffic moves freely if you avoid the commute times. Not so in my LA experience. I avoided the worst, but still hit heavy traffic no matter the time or day of week. 

I also didn’t care for the feel of the city. It seemed to me like it experienced much of it’s growth in the late ‘60 to early ‘80’s, when not much care was given to architecture or landscaping. Bunches of ugly buildings and vast seas of concrete and asphalt mile after mile. It felt like the bad part of town was the majority of town. It got better the farther towards the edges that I got, but being such an expansive city, there was a lot of ugly. Different from other large cities where most of the growth happened earlier.  

spandak
spandak Reader
7/27/19 2:23 p.m.

Lots of interesting points in this thread, I’m enjoying the different perspectives. 

I live in Los Angeles and yea it can be a mess but I echo the thoughts of Monkey. There’s not many places in the world where have the choices you have here. Beaches, mountains, amazing roads, amazing food (this alone sometimes keeps me here), etc... it’s not as bad as it looks. You get used to most of it and you find there’s a lot to enjoy. 

I think it’s amusing how people dislike Californians haha

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