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This essay is Stevie HowellArtist and business owner living in Los Angeles. Edited for length and clarity.
I moved to Los Angeles from San Francisco about five years ago, but previously lived in New York and Chicago.
I thought the move would be easy since I’ll continue to live in California, but I was surprised to find that what I saw in a smaller city like San Francisco wasn’t so common in Los Angeles.
LA has a lot more to offer than just great weather for outdoor activities year-round. The city also attracts creativity; it’s home to great design, art, and comedy. The region also has great produce; you can grow pretty much anything here, so lemon trees and passion fruit vines abound.
But these are the five worst things I experienced while living in Los Angeles.
1. LA’s urban planning is terrible.
LA can do better when it comes to urban planning. Decades ago, city planners made huge mistakes that destroyed the city. They removed most of the canals that made Venice Venice, got rid of the streetcars, built freeways through low-income neighborhoods, built huge unwalkable roads and too many buildings large enough for a human to walk through, and built shopping malls everywhere instead of inviting storefronts you could walk through and window shop at.
In general, LA doesn’t seem to value urban beauty – here, beauty exists behind walls and in private homes.
I noticed there There isn’t enough green spaceLos Angeles doesn’t have as many great parks as other cities like San Francisco or New York. Frederick Olmsted I’ve made several trips to Southern California.
Driving around LA, you can see how neighborhoods change: some get more attention and infrastructure, others don’t.
2. The city feels boring
Despite being a bustling city, life in Los Angeles can be surprisingly lackluster — it lacks the urban feel and excitement of New York or San Francisco.
People watching is rare here, unless you’re doing a DIY photoshoot in front of the pink wall. A conversation unique to LA Or when I hear my neighbors practicing their lines in their backyard, the conversation usually involves too much traffic talk.
Because of the traffic and the struggle to get to your destination, you end up doing a lot less than you would in another big city. For me, that means fewer museums, galleries, shows, talks, or even dinners on the other side of the city. The same museum shows that are on in LA often move to other cities, and even if I miss their entire run in LA, I’ll still see them on a quick trip to New York or Chicago.
3. Feeling lonely
Los Angeles felt socially distant even before COVID-19, even before the term “socially distant” was coined, like suburban enclaves sprawled out next to each other, with people in their own worlds, doing their own thing.
It’s common to not see close friends for months on end, and this is one of the things I know best. Related Regardless of traffic and urban sprawl, people seem to be staying in their own neighborhoods and homes.
4. Driving here is awful.
We all know that traffic congestion is a big problem in Los Angeles — after all, it’s home to 11 of the top 25 cities with the worst traffic congestion. Transportation Corridor In the US, you’re lucky to have a best friend who lives 12 miles away. Even if you have a ton of great podcasts, traveling from East to West or vice versa can be a pain.
Walking is impractical most of the time because the roads are wide and the distances are long, and every time you walk you risk being hit by drivers who don’t expect people to be walking, even at crosswalks.
And on the rare rainy days, everyone forgets how to drive: A light rain roughly doubles my commute time.
5. There’s no sense of community
I don’t feel a strong sense of community in LA. I think there’s a lack of cohesion that holds the city together, and that’s why people have to work hard to find it.
It’s a very driving culture, so you don’t interact with people as much as you do in other cities I’ve lived in. You don’t get on the subway and sit next to people who live a completely different life than you.
The lack of interaction with the wider population makes it hard to feel connected to the city as a whole.
If you’ve moved to a new city or state and would like to share your experience, email Manseen Logan at mlogan@businessinsider.com.