How do you define Los Angeles?

[klamedia]

NextBus is in operation with Metro now. Put this on your phone. Realtime bus arrival times. Let's compare service.

http://www.nextbus.com/customStopSel...ss/nextbus.css

[tanzirian]

Originally Posted by klamedia

I always wonder where people live and why they deliberatley chose places that are inaccessible to transit in the first place? The least expensive areas are at this moment in LA history, transit rich. I travel from Silver Lake to deep into the Valley (Northridge) on a very regular basis. I don't drive there. I've never driven there. I don't ever plan to drive there. The quickest and easiest way from my place to that part of the Valley is Red Line to Metrolink Ventura. I'm there in about an hour. My other regular commute is to LAX. I don't drive there either. Red Line, bike or bus to Union Station and then take the Flyaway. This is also the easiest and way to LAX other than a door to door cab ride. Would you like to share where you are originating from and where your destination is? Did you take transit into consideration before settling on a place to live in the metro?

Life is not so simple always. My wife needs to be close to her work in Westwood, due to the nature of the job, so we live near West LA. For me the closest work option is centered in Irvine, though I am frequently at different sites in Orange and LA counties. To go to work using public transport...I would have to drive or take the bus to Wilshire / Western, take the metro to Union Station, change and take a different line to OC, take another bus, and then walk some distance. Coming back, there would be no metro leaving Irvine after 5 pm. If I could spend half the day commuting, and finish work by 4 pm, I might consider it. Instead, I drive 3-4 hours per day. Not ideal, but for me the lesser of two undesirable options. Thankfully, my commute should improve in June, for six months at least. In the last few weeks, I have been to DC and several European cities, and only used a taxi on rare occasions. Much as I love my hometown, I can't do that here.

Also the LA urban area is the least sprawling and most densely populated urban area in the US.

Whether it's the most densely populated urban area depends on how you define that term. Least sprawling? I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree about that

[klamedia]

I wasn't intending this to be a debate, I was truly interested in your commute and why it wasn't easy and how to make it easier. If the Purple Line was running to UCLA would that solve your commuting problems? Head east to Union Station and then transfer to Metrolink?

[tanzirian]

Originally Posted by klamedia

I wasn't intending this to be a debate, I was truly interested in your commute and why it wasn't easy and how to make it easier. If the Purple Line was running to UCLA would that solve your commuting problems? Head east to Union Station and then transfer to Metrolink?

I don't know if it would but it would help with my commute but certainly the missus could use it for hers And it would be appreciated at other times...though it would be really great if it ran as far as Santa Monica.

I will most likely be moving to somewhere near Long Beach this summer so my commute should improve.

[kidA]

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...ary-life-in-la

"When I was leaving Los Angeles and moving back to London, one of my friends said, "Thank you for documenting our twenties." We had a lot of fun over the seven years I lived there. I hope you like the pictures.

When I moved to LA, aged 21, even the most ordinary things seemed very foreign and exotic. Over the seven years I lived there, I never got bored love of shooting all the normal things going on around my day-to-day life (which bemused my American friends but delighted my mum.)

Back home in England, we see so much photography from Los Angeles, but the action films, paparazzi shots, beach babes and plastic surgery that make the headlines had nothing at all to do with my normal lives as honorary Angeleno.

Of course, over seven years, sometimes unusual things do happen, like police interrupting a fantastically picturesque street party, the LA Marathon going right past your apartment, or a being woken up by tribal drums as a protest against immigration policy dances up your street, but on the whole I just took pictures of what went on in my neighbourhood, what my neighbours got up to on the weekends, my Russian teacher and her new dog, tons of really good and very loud bands, the weekend balloon-seller man walking past the murals on the wall of the clinic down the road, and everything else that a less picture-obsessed person might be able to ignore.

I didn't set out to make a book when I first touched down at LAX, but by the time I was lugging my suitcases through security on my way back to London seven years I knew exactly how the book was going to be. It's a really personal project now, summing up the sunny SoCal years from a small island on the other side of the world."

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A couple of my old friends are in these photos. I can say that these past 7 years in Los Angeles have been amazing. I've I've been to parties in downtown, Echo Park, Eagle Rock, Hollywood Hills, Lincoln Heights, on mountains in a teepee...etc. Been to many events, concerts, or just did nothing and its all been worth it! I love how this book is out to show the REAL Los Angeles and not the MTV watered down version.

[YagoHoffman]

City of Angels and movie stars

[VZN]

Reading L.A.: David Brodsly's 'L.A. Freeway'

As far as polarizing subjects in Los Angeles go, freeways have long ranked near the top, perhaps trailing only Shaq-Kobe and the question of where the Eastside really begins.

Most of us love to complain about our freeways -- about the bad air and gridlock they produce, mostly, and to a lesser extent about the way they cleave neighborhoods in two. Others -- a smaller group, admittedly -- have praised the freedom they enable and even the beauty of their form as monumental urban objects.

But rarely has a writer looked at them in as much depth, and with as much clear-eyed restraint, as David Brodsly does in "L.A. Freeway: An Appreciative Essay," his 1981 book and the ninth title in our yearlong "Reading L.A." series.

As Brodsly puts it in his prologue, which is titled, after Wallace Stevens, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Freeway," the book "is neither a diatribe nor a paean. Sometimes I hate freeways and sometimes I actually love them, but that is not the point. The point here is simply to spend some time thinking about a subject that most of us take for granted. ... My hope was to understand the freeways, not to judge them."

For Brodsly, Joan Didion's famous observation that driving on the freeway ranks as "the only secular communion Los Angeles has" doesn't go quite far enough. He calls the Southern California freeway "the cathedral of its time and place." And he spends a large portion of the book exploring the details of that cathedral as an architectural historian might, tracing the development of seemingly every major freeway, extension and spur. He also explores the symbolic, communitarian and political importance of the freeway in diffuse, ever-changing Los Angeles.

"The freeway system supplies Los Angeles with one of its principal metaphors," Brodsly writes. "Employed to represent the totality of metropolitan Los Angeles, it is the city's great synecdoche, one of the few parts capable of standing for the whole."

He quotes the architect Charles Moore: "It is interesting ... to consider where one would go in Los Angeles to have an effective revolution of the Latin American sort. Presumably, the place would be in the heart of the city. If one took over some public square, some urban open space in Los Angeles, who would know? ... The only hope would seem to be to take over the freeways."

Brodsly, who grew up in San Pedro, the son of parents who "would religiously listen to SigAlerts at breakfast," began the research for "L.A. Freeway" as part of his undergraduate thesis at UC Santa Cruz. It was published by UC Press when Brodsly was in his mid-20s. He went on to work for the city of Los Angeles, and later moved to the Bay Area, where he works in public finance. He never wrote another book.

For most of "L.A. Freeway," Brodsly maintains a scholarly detachment in examining how various freeways were planned and paid for. But occasionally he drifts into Banhamesque reverie. ("Driving the freeway can create a rare, and distinctly urban, moment of joy when the car drives well, the freeway is uncrowded, and there is a good song on the radio.") And at several points he directly takes on the relationship between freeways and L.A.'s civic character.

Brodsly argues that the freeway system has radically "democratized transportation" in Southern California. He quotes an essay from the New York Times magazine making the case that in Los Angeles "the freeway allows you to create your own life. Your community is formed not by geography or community but by common interests."

At the same time, Brodsly acknowledges the way that the freeway keeps us cocooned in our cars, within sight of but apart from our fellow citizens. And he links that separation to the one produced by zoning and the popularity of the single-family house. "Protected by the detached single-family home and the detached private automobile," he writes, "the Angeleno can maintain his daily life remarkably free of intrusion. Thus Los Angeles is able to maintain its facade of a garden patch of urban villages, a metropolitan small town, without ever compromising the anonymity that is a hallmark of city life."

Elsewhere Brodsly suggests that the freeway ranks as an even more separate and detached sphere than the house. "More than any other ecology in Los Angeles," he writes, "more than any single comprehensible place, the freeway is a private space."

Brodsly's research for the book in the late 1970s and early 1980s came at a fascinating historical moment for Los Angeles, as the growth of the freeway system began to slow, and as the region took on the task of building a comprehensive public transit system, including its first subway. The subway, of course, proved politically controversial, even explosive, and its construction was largely put off -- and we wound up increasing our reliance on the freeways rather than starting the process of weaning ourselves from them.

Today we've arrived at a similar crossroads -- or maybe it's the very same crossroads, one we've been idling in front of for three decades. We are no longer building new freeways; the freeway system as a whole now qualifies as both crucial infrastructure and historical artifact; and we continue to struggle to build and pay for a subway. Even as we grasp intellectually that a city arranged around freeways is an outmoded city, hardly a model in any sense for future urban development, we can hardly fathom giving up our practical and emotional relationship with private mobility, especially given how accustomed we've grown to covering huge swaths of Southern California on a daily basis.

The result is that much of Brodsly's text reads as if it were pulled from a fortune cookie inside a time capsule.

[VZN]

Devil of a time with City of Angels' name

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, President Theodore Roosevelt and Bugs Bunny might appear to have little in common, but they do share one distinction:

They've all mispronounced Los Angeles.

Perry committed his gaffe the other day at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena when he greeted a Latino group with the words, "Buenos dias, Los Angeles!" He rendered the city's name as Loce AN-guh-leeze, as though it contained a hard G and rhymed with "fleas."

It was somewhat reminiscent of the time President Roosevelt referred to the City of Angels as Loss AN-jee-leeze during a 1903 visit, according to historian John Weaver.

Bugs Bunny would later use the hard-G pronunciation as well, though it is probable that the rabbit was just being mischievous.

Mispronouncing L.A. is an old tradition.

"There is no other city in the world whose inhabitants so miserably and shamelessly, and with so many varieties of foolishness, miscall the name of the town they live in," author Charles Lummis wrote in 1914.

As early as 1880 the Chamber of Commerce issued this reminder to visitors (and residents):

The Lady would remind you, please

Her name is not Lost AN-jie-lees."

But what is the lady's name? It depends, of course, on whether one is talking about a Spanish or Anglicized pronunciation.

In the early 1900s, The Times advocated the Spanish version, carrying a box by its editorial page masthead that proclaimed the way to say Los Angeles was Loce AHNG-hayl-ais.

English speakers who found that difficult could only be thankful that the city had shortened its original name, which some scholars believe was El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula.

The Times' campaign aside, the United States Board on Geographic Names decreed in 1934 that the name should be Anglicized to Loss AN-ju-less.

The Times said the federal agency's decree made the city "sound like some brand of fruit preserve." It detected a conspiracy to rob California cities of their "soft, sibilant Spanish syllables" and asked whether San Jose would next be pronounced San JOCE and San Joaquin would become San JOK-kin.

The newspaper predicted that the change to Loss AN-ju-less would "find no favor with the people of Southern California." The Times was correct, to a point, but not in the way it meant.

While the Spanish version lapsed into disuse, a debate arose over newcomers using an alternative Anglicized version with a hard G — something along the lines of Loss AN-guh-less.

So, in 1952, Mayor Fletcher Bowron impaneled a jury of experts to determine an official pronunciation, once and for all, for the city. After all, Los Angeles was approaching its 171st birthday. It was time to figure out what to call it.

A Times reporter noted, incidentally, that in Bowron's remarks, "the mayor carefully steered clear" of trying to say Los Angeles, "referring to it as 'our city.' "

The jury, composed of pioneers, language professors, radio announcers and, for some reason, newspapermen, voted for Loss AN-ju-less.

USC professor Dwight Bolinger told The Times that "from a Spanish language standpoint, the pronunciation is not as much at variance with the true Spanish as that employing the hard 'g.' ''

Mayor Bowron gamely confessed what many had believed — that he was a hard-G man. "This means breaking a habit of most of my lifetime but I'll go along," he vowed.

A senior city librarian was appointed to head a committee to notify "all publishers of dictionaries" as well as "all radio and television stations and boards of education and libraries."

Perhaps someone forgot to remind City Hall. A few years later, Times columnist Jack Smith detected another mayor, Sam Yorty, using "a sort of nasalized Law SANG-lus" version, which he "brought with him from Nebraska."

The eeze-ending wasn't dead, either. Besides Bugs Bunny cartoons, it popped up in an Arlo Guthrie counterculture hit that went like this:

Coming into Los AN-ju-leez

Bringing in a couple of keys

Don't touch my bags if you please

Mr. Customs Man.

During the 1995 O.J. Simpson trial, historian Bruce Henstell complained that defense attorney F. Lee Bailey was "making the name of our fair city rhyme with bees."

And, now, the Texas governor's assault on Angeleno ears. Perry was apparently trying to use the Spanish pronunciation in his opening. He wisely used a translator for the rest of his speech. (Perry can be heard on this link to a National Public Radio piece.)

Of course, when it comes to Los Angeles' name, there is another option, one that Mayor Bowron feared was taking over in 1952.

As The Times reported back then, "the mayor prayed that civic pride would prevent its citizens from ever, ever referring to it as 'L.A.' "

[pesto]

Well, I suppose the "correct" way to pronounce it is "Lohs AN-he-les".

But there is no longer any right or wrong in pronounciation. Whatever people use is right and that's the end to it.

[milquetoast]

"STAHL LUGGED THOUSANDS OF POUNDS

OF BROKEN CONCRETE TO THE PLOT VIA HIS CAR"

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I need some new furniture ...

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IN LOS ANGELES ...

A MAN'S HOME IS HIS CASTLE

CASE STUDY #22

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THE MAN WHO STARTED IT ALL

PLANTING IVY AT THE PROPERTY

GREY VILLET/LIFE MAGAZINE

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AND THE PHOTO THAT STARTED IT ALL ..

JULIUS SHULMAN

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Famed photographer Julius Shulman nailed it when he snapped the indelible image of two women lounging casually (and seemingly impossibly) within a stunning glass house nestled high in the hills overlooking the shimmering lights of Los Angeles.

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JULIUS SHULMAN

TAKESUNSET.COM

The photo seemed to perfectly capture the art of modern living – and living spaces – as post World War II America transitioned out of the sleepy 1950s into a new era filled with possibility.

Amazingly, you can explore this mid-century modern gem in the Hollywood Hills overlooking the Sunset Strip on just about any weekend.

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As mid-century modern lookie-loos, we were thrilled to be in on one of the best-kept secrets in L.A. So on a recent Sunday, we made the steep trek up N. Crescent Heights Blvd. in West Hollywood. Winding our way to a smaller gated road, we soon arrived at a fairly unassuming carport. When our tour guide, Andrew, opened the entry door that led to the stunning pool and deck area, we were completely floored by the drama of the house, the location, the panoramic views…

and yes, an incredible sense of optimism and possibility that the house and site still conveys.

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The house was built by C.H. “Buck” Stahl in the late 1950s, after snatching up what was sold as an “unbuildable” piece of land. In fact, the home eventually became part of a grand experiment in architecture called the “Case Study” houses. Sponsored by Art & Architecture magazine, the program ran from 1945 to 1966 and highlighted model homes that were pragmatic, inexpensive to build and therefore potentially well suited for the housing boom that followed WWII.

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Over the next two years, Stahl lugged thousands of pounds of broken concrete pieces gleaned from construction sites to the plot via his car. He basically leveled and graded the plot on his own – then shopped for an architect. Pierre Koenig was the first to say “yes” to Stahl’s challenging proposal. The result, Case Study House No. 22, constructed in 1959 on the slab Stahl built, remains an unforgettable 2,000-square-foot glass box that continues to turn heads 50 years later.

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The living room is defined by three glass walls. As visitors in our tour group of about 15 people, we were allowed to sit on the couch or chair and indulge in the mind-boggling views, and soak up our guide’s stories about the house.

Originally, Andrew explained, the living room floor, now carpeted in creamy white, had been an unadulterated concrete slab. Not exactly great for warmth or insulation (the house still runs cold in winter and hot in summer, with the large sliding glass doors the main form of cooling and ventilation). But the durable surface had also provided a safe place for the Stahl children to roller skate in their youth. Playing around the pool, perched over a cliff, would have been too dangerous. (A wire fence a few feet below would have caught them, though none of the children ever fell, Andrew informed). I’m guessing adults would fare better. I can’t imagine anyplace better for a summer cocktail party. Clink your glass, put on some Sinatra, and look east to behold the incredible skyline of downtown Los Angeles; to the west, Century City. Below, see the hills and canyons dotted with other amazing homes and the businesses that line the Sunset Strip.

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As with the living room, the home’s kitchen is completely open, and provides the same stunning views. Though the refrigerator has been updated with a trendy stainless steel model, the rest of the room remains very 1960s, complete with double wall oven, and wood paneling. The minimalistic fireplace and centerpiece was redone at some point, and crusted with the common brown rocks that still adorn many mid-century modern homes.

As you continue along the home’s L-shaped floor plan, two bedrooms open to the pool via full glass walls. And a small bathroom off the bedrooms greets visitors with whimsically carpeted walls. (A joke left over from the ‘70s, perhaps?)As you can imagine, and as tour guide Andrew confirmed, the Stahl home may be one of the “hardest working houses” in Los Angeles. When advertisers, filmmakers and others aren’t using the location as the backdrop of their latest music video or print ad, mere mortals are allowed to have a look for themselves. Interestingly, the home is still owned by Stahl family.

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Tours are available Saturdays and Sundays, and reservations must often be made a few weeks in advance. It’s $26 for a day-time tour, and $42 at night… apparently, everyone wants to get their own version of Julius Shulman’s unforgettable photo… (and we don’t blame them).

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www.stahlhouse.com.

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MODERN-BUNGALOW.COM

[VZN]

Fashion Issue 2011: Does L.A. Have a Fashion Identity?

It is flip-flops at business meetings, and sweatpants at fancy restaurants. It is jeans with sneakers, but also with skyscraper stilettos. It is baggy sweaters and little straw hats. It is giant sunglasses and giant purses, big enough to carry a squadron of tiny dogs. It is crazy color: fuchsia, turquoise, neon yellow, baby blue. It is weird. It is sexy. It sucks. It is industry folks in leather jackets. It is schlumpy guys who can't dress and drop-dead-gorgeous girls who show so much skin in their skimpy dresses they might as well be naked.

This is what people tell you when you ask them, "What is L.A. style?" The answers are all over the map. In terms of a definitive Los Angeles look, there seems at first glance to be no there there. But ask the people who live, eat, sleep and breathe fashion — local designers, photographers, stylists, style bloggers — and familiar themes do come up.

First and foremost, Los Angeles is casual. It's a deceptive casualness, though. A deliberate kind of nonconspicuous conspicuous consumption. Casual, in L.A., isn't an accident. It's an aesthetic. "Everyone looks casual, but you know that T-shirt cost $500," says Jonny Cota, founder and lead designer of L.A. cult favorite design house Skingraft. Because he's invested in fashion, Cota can tell if an outfit is expensive or not. The general public, however, usually can't.

It takes substantial care to look like you don't care. The quintessential L.A. it-girl uniform is the epitome of careful not-caring: skinny jeans, blazer, a little top, statement bag, 5-inch platform Brian Atwood heels. "Yes, it's casual. But everything seems so chosen and thought-out. It doesn't quite look ... doesn't quite gel," says Melissa Coker, who designs the clothing line Wren.

Yet strangely, Los Angeles is not a town for high fashion, for $5,000 head-to-toe designer outfits. "We're behind a little," Cota admits. "Or we don't pay attention. Fashion Week in L.A. is not the strongest. It's not a priority."

Peter Gurnz, photographer and founder of the artists collective Boxeight, is the guy who has been trying to turn L.A. Fashion Week around for years, with mixed success. For a while, Gurnz and Boxeight hosted standard runway shows. Those eventually morphed into live photo shoots that are more performance art than anything. Guests watched as the entire theater of a fashion shoot went on display, from makeup to hair to lights to models posing for shots.

"L.A. is not a very fashionable city as far as the percentage of people who spend time every day considering their clothes," Gurnz says by phone from Martha's Vineyard. "Can you order me a lobster roll?" he calls out to someone nearby. "Sorry. People go to business meetings in shorts and flip-flops," he says of Los Angeles. "But that said, there's a unique style [there] that's copied in Asia and that we're starting to see in Paris. There are little camps of people who are thinking L.A. is cool."

He ticks off the distinct styles associated with Los Angeles: the "scarecrow" look — skinny, rich woman in oversized clothes. The avant-garde modely look, epitomized by designer Michel Berandi. "You know, really couture stuff, like sewn-in hair and stuff." Berandi, who'll sew long skeins of goat hair onto, say, a bolero or a shirt collar, is an L.A. local. "We did a fashion show with him and people were crying on the runway."

The Mexican kids doing the Morrissey rockabilly thing with pompadours and slim-cut, dark-wash jeans. The surf bums: "The one thing that does well here is sports fashion and surf apparel companies."

The rocker vampire look. "I'm wearing Endovanera right now. I probably look a little weird," he admits. "Then there's crappy shit like Christian Audigier." Audigier is the king of so-called luxury streetwear: regular T-shirts, hoodies, jeans and such, printed with loud graphics, bedazzled with rhinestones. "Those are all definable L.A. looks. Though not everyone's running around looking like scarecrows or rocker vampires."

L.A. does not influence the global fashion industry, Gurnz says. But then again, L.A.'s sense of style is still young. "We're kids. We don't have an infrastructure to support a real fashion industry. We have great designers, but then they leave. It's simply more profitable to go to other places."

By infrastructure, he means the fashion events, clients, design houses, magazines, photographers and market weeks that fuel the engine of style. "Vegas almost has a better market week than we do because of all their convention centers." He pauses. "A boutique in the East Village is going to do better than a boutique on Melrose. That's just the temperature of the water."

Does L.A. get a bum rap in the fashion world? "No. We deserve it."

But that's going to change soon, Gurnz believes, because of the rise of video-based "fashion films." Instead of sending lookbooks — the industry-standard print catalogs that show off a clothing line — to department store buyers, designers now are shooting short, Internet-based videos to showcase collections. New York–based fashion photographer Steven Klein shot a video starring Brad Pitt beating up Angelina Jolie. "Every camera now has HD video capability, so all the fashion photographers have become fashion videographers," Gurnz says.

Because of the presence of the film industry and the city's intense celebrity culture, fashion films will drive the big players to L.A., Gurnz suspects. "It's gonna put steroids into our whole structure," he says in his deep, languid voice before slipping back into Martha's Vineyard.

Some trends do start here and spread out across the rest of the fashion world. Wren's Melissa Coker keeps a steady roster of clients stocked with her ready-to-wear line of "preppy but not too prissy" dresses, tops, skirts and slacks. "Feminine with a tomboy's touch," as she describes it.

L.A. street style tends to be really influential throughout the whole country," she says, curling into a squashy chair in her Atwater Village studio. "People don't realize that." The current ankle-length skirts, voluminous maxi dresses, the cropped tops and button-down shirts knotted at the waist — those looks started here. And, if you believe Coker, so did UGG boots. She takes personal responsibility for the UGG's rise to infamy. She wore them a decade ago to fashion shows, where the stiletto-clad girls would make fun of her ("What are you wearing, Nanook?"). But Coker soon started seeing those girls wearing them, too.

Ilaria Urbinati, co-owner of the store Confederacy in Hollywood, introduced L.A. to Rebecca Minkoff, whose boxy, tasseled leather purses now can be found dangling on the arms of many a reality TV star. But an even more pervasive trend for which Urbinati can take credit is the current wave of young men who are newly discovering suits and ties. It's been said that Urbinati, who styles actors James McAvoy, Bradley Cooper and Giovanni Ribisi, has a talent for making guys look like GQ versions of themselves.

"Men in L.A. are only recently learning how to dress," she says. Guys come to her store for suiting. "They're now more likely to wear a suit to dinner. These are the same guys who before would've worn a hoodie." And they don't just want a suit; they want a tie bar and a pocket square.

The polished, dapper Mad Men man is still a rarity in this city, however. What Urbinati sells most is denim. Los Angeles is a denim culture. Denim is part of the relaxed aesthetic, but there is nothing relaxing about the serious consideration people here give to their jeans. Just the other day, a guy came in to Urbinati's store wondering about raw jeans, made from denim fabric that hasn't been rinsed after the dyeing process. She explained how raw denim is never washed, and how you put the raw jeans in the freezer if they start to smell bad.

Guys in L.A., she adds, are collectors of exclusive this and limited-edition that. Confederacy's best-selling item is the $300 Wolverine Thousand Mile boot from a company that has been making them since the 1800s. Urbinati can't keep the boots in stock; her waiting list is five pages long. "Guys get into collecting in a way that girls don't," she says. "Girls just want a pretty dress."

Partly that has to do with L.A.'s nightlife. This city isn't about bars so much as clubs, which call for a tight little dress and heels. And the velvet rope goes hand-in-hand with the red carpet, the most visible runway in the world. Compared to New York, girls in L.A. dress safer, more "on the nose." They love cocktail dresses.

"Here, even the women who aren't actresses are surrounded by the industry," Urbinati says. "They want pretty, easy to understand, accessible, as opposed to fashion-forward. The ones who are actresses have to worry about wearing something flattering because they might be photographed. They worry about having their makeup on and extensions in because a director might run into them."

Urbinati's theory is that all the tall pretty girls move to New York to become models and all the short pretty girls move to L.A. to become actresses. Girls in L.A. are tiny. Confederacy's best-selling size is a 0 to 2.

"In New York, you get kudos for wearing a cool outfit," she continues. "Maybe the Sartorialist will photograph you and post your picture on his blog. Here, style is not such a form of expression. In L.A., everyone wants to look good — healthy, sexy, pretty. Everyone hikes and has a dog and eats well." In L.A., having a perfect body and wearing clothes that show it off to best advantage are much more of a priority than wearing outfits that stand out.

Being concerned with style, with proper dressing, she thinks, is more innate on the East Coast. "People in New York look like they walked out of a Ralph Lauren catalog. It's the whole Hamptons thing. It could be a money thing, too. There's more old money there. In L.A., everyone's sort of self-made. It's more nouveau riche."

Even the color palette is different in L.A. It's wilder, more vibrant, more unstudied. "Everyone has baby-blue nail polish here," Urbinati says. "Not that I'm knocking it. I have baby-blue nail polish on right now."

In some gut way, Los Angeles style is influenced by the beach and the ocean. When gallery owner Heather Taylor worked in New York's art scene, the gallery girls all wore black, so all she wanted to wear was black. Moving to L.A. several years ago, walking its numerous shorelines, living and working close to its warm waters, opened her up to colors and patterns.

Sipping minuscule cappuccinos at Soho House atop a building on Sunset in West Hollywood, Taylor and her friend, artist Jeana Sohn, take in the panoramic views of the city and discuss its fashion rep.

Los Angeles may not be a town for high fashion, but it is a place for contradiction and variety. For every rule, there is an exception. Not every girl in L.A. aspires to skinny jeans, Brian Atwood heels and a statement bag. Not all women go out at night dressed like slutty Sunset strippers. The idea of girls who dress overtly sexy and pretty to please men: "In our world that's intensely not true," Taylor says.

In addition to being a painter, Sohn runs the blog ClosetVisit.com. As the name implies, she takes pictures of women's closets. The blog has been an instant hit, and people often email her asking, "Isn't it hard to do it in L.A.? How do you find all these stylish people? Who are they?"

Sohn shrugs. They are artists, designers, bloggers, chefs, decorators, students, shop girls, store owners, stylists, friends of friends. They'll wear big sleeves, or genielike harem pants, or tops that wrap like a whirlwind around the body, or huge gold earrings. "Both our male counterparts look at us and go, 'Now that is some necklace,' " Taylor says of herself and Sohn with a hearty laugh. "There are looks of confusion."

"You look like a ninja," the husbands say. Or, "You look like a wizard."

"This is not for you," Taylor will reply.

She drains the rest of her cappuccino now. "Good luck trying to pin down a single L.A. anything," she says. "We are cities within cities within cities."

[klamedia]

Very interesting article!

[Calsonic]

Outside DTLA and the west side, every single suburb in LA country looks exactly alike with the same model for every city. You have your neighborhoods and your small shopping centers. It makes everywhere else but the west side, DTLA, and Beaches boring places to go to.

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

you couldnt be more wrong

[QuantumX]

How do I define Los Angeles? It is a strikingly beautiful city after a winter storm and that is how I will always remember it.

[Calsonic]

Originally Posted by LosAngelesSportsFan

you couldnt be more wrong

Monrovia, Temple City, El Monte Covina, Hawthorne etc...
What's the difference? They all follow the same model. The only thing that is different is the landscaping.

[klamedia]

That isn't Los Angeles.

[Calsonic]

that is why I said LA County in my previous post. I'm not just talking about LA.

[klamedia]

The Los Angeles metropolitan area, also known as Metropolitan Los Angeles or the Southland is the 13th largest metropolitan area in the world and the second-largest metropolitan area in the United States.
The metropolitan area is defined by the Office of Management and Budget as the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana metropolitan statistical area containing consists of Los Angeles and Orange counties, a metropolitan statistical area used for statistical purposes by the United States Census Bureau and other agencies.

Los Angeles and Orange counties are the two most populous counties in California, and Los Angeles, with 9,819,000 people in 2010, is the most populous county in the United States. The combined Los Angeles metropolitan area is home to 15.4 million people, making it the most populous metropolitan area in the western United States and the largest in area in the United States. The metro area has at its core the most densely populated urbanized area in the United States, Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, an urbanized area defined by the Census Bureau and had a population 11,789,487 as of the 2000 Census.

I'm sort of ok with defining LA by the Los Angeles-Santa Ana-Long Beach trilogy but what about Ontario, San Bernadino and the IE? I think we're coming to a point in the next 20 years (which "Chicagogeorge") brought up that all of this should be thrown in as the MSA, the commuting patterns are just too strong. We're even considering running an at-grade LRT from our Dtwn LA core out to Ontario. Our commuter rail which is LA centric gives you a single ride out to SB and many many commuters take advantage of that. Is LA being shortchanged?

[milquetoast]

Los Angeles/Long Beach/Santa Ana, described as a Metropolitan Statistical Area, is wrong- no matter what the government says.

But you really have the local leadership to blame for this "classification."

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The Metropolitan area is the classic definition of the "5 County Urban Area", and only using the 2 county description is silly.

Local officials need to say to these government idiots, "Look, commuter patterns are highly established and have been for decades! People who live in Riverside, San Bernardino and even Ventura counties have been getting up at 4 o'clock in the morning to commute into town for years now! The 18, the 10 and 210 and others wouldn't exist as parking lots during morning and evening rush if those commuters weren't there. Not to mention Metrolink and other services."

That's what they would have to point out.

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For instance, New York does this well! With that wailing fat mouth they have convinced the government that metropolitan New York actually stretches into Pennsylvania and/or Rhode Island! We can't even have have Ontario associated with us!

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So, I'll post this picture again:

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Everything you see here is Metropolitan Los Angeles. I would even include Ventura. 17.5 or more million.