Is Los Angeles small?

[losangelino]

Originally Posted by anak_mm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...cities_by_area

minus the ones with the asterisks(city-counties) LA would be 4th

Something else that strikes me as odd is that they would split "DFW" Dallas and Ft Worth into two. If they had not done that, it would top the list and best Houston in the process. Anyone who lives in DFW I am sure get tired of their metro area constantly being split in two due to statistics or other political reason. It is a single metro area. End of story. Why pretend otherwise?

[klamedia]

Originally Posted by croyboy

all i'm saying is that unless you're at the 'little suburbs of major cities convention', it's a very unlikely chance that other people need to know you're from downey or pomona or glendale etc.. almost noone is gonna know what you're talking about or even care. it will probably just annoy them. same goes for when i hear a non-local introduce themselves to me:

me: where you from?
friend: ewing.
me: (?!)
friend: it's near trenton, new jersey
me: (f***in' assh***)... oh! ok... what were we talking about before all that bull****?

Ok, I guess all of you win...including "kenni". I guess if you live in the suburbs of Paris you just say Paris. When you live on Long Island you just say NYC. Or if you have visited San Marin you just say San Francisco cuz lord knows someone in Pyongyang won't know what the Bay Area is but probably have heard of SF. Say what you want going forward...the defense rests.

[Kenny]

Oh my Lord! it must be raining frogs outside or sum'tn Becky!

[milquetoast]

Originally Posted by klamedia

Ok, I guess all of you win...including "kenni". I guess if you live in the suburbs of Paris you just say Paris. When you live on Long Island you just say NYC. Or if you have visited San Marin you just say San Francisco cuz lord knows someone in Pyongyang won't know what the Bay Area is but probably have heard of SF. Say what you want going forward...the defense rests.

Oh, that's just brash silliness, Klams!

I lived in Montmartre for a while and I would NEVER call myself a Parisian! And someone from Sausalito wouldn't align with San Francisco! And the poor souls in NK wouldn't know what time of day it is!

[pesto]

I go through the same process when I meet people from LA or SF: they mention the big city and I ask "What part" and they name some suburb like Redwood City or Montebello. Same for NY, except the Jersey people might say New Jersey instead.

From the list of cities by area, LA is number 6 in the US (the Alaska and Montana cities don't count since I am going to guess they are about 95 percent empty). I would count that as large.

DFW may not make sense now, but it certainly did at one time. These cities were remote from each other and had distinct patterns of development. Something like SF and SJ, which is now larger than SF but you would never argue they are part of the same "city". Same metro yes.

[tanzirian]

Some people may not draw a distinction between a municipality and greater urban area. I tend to be one of those people. For me, if they are a contiguous urban area, they are one city. I am aware of administrative or historic divisions but I see them more as neighborhoods within a greater whole. There is no right or wrong here...just different perspectives from different people. The map below another forumer posted from around 2000 is close to my conception of the city:

image hosted on flickr

[klamedia]

This is my conception of Los Angeles more or less during any given week.

All that I need is pretty much within the blue section. Only work and school do I need to travel outside of that area. Clubs, bars, shopping, gym, hiking.....all there.

[pesto]

klam: so you give up the Expo Line and Coliseum but want all of Griffith Park? I would probably go more to the NE and further south.

Tanz: if the proposal for a new state goes through (which it won't) your LA will be in two states.

[klamedia]

This all perception and cultural prompting as far as what we believe LA to be and not to be. As Dwntwn, Hollywood, Koreatown/Westlake etc. continue to densify and create trip generators such as LA Live, Hollywood/Highland etc. LA will become "smaller". Throw transit in the mix for example connecting these points of interest and trip generators and you effectively minimize the area of the city. Even in the primary stage if I'm a tourist I can hop on the subway visit Downtown/LA Live and take a 15 min ride by train to Hollywood. Go another 1 stop to Universal Studios. In the near future I could access the beach/Promenade without much more effort or time. Disneyland would then be seen as a deliberate excursion outside of the city and understood to be a good distance away from most of the activity in LA. LA is only becoming smaller.

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

Originally Posted by klamedia

This all perception and cultural prompting as far as what we believe LA to be and not to be. As Dwntwn, Hollywood, Koreatown/Westlake etc. continue to densify and create trip generators such as LA Live, Hollywood/Highland etc. LA will become "smaller". Throw transit in the mix for example connecting these points of interest and trip generators and you effectively minimize the area of the city. Even in the primary stage if I'm a tourist I can hop on the subway visit Downtown/LA Live and take a 15 min ride by train to Hollywood. Go another 1 stop to Universal Studios. In the near future I could access the beach/Promenade without much more effort or time. Disneyland would then be seen as a deliberate excursion outside of the city and understood to be a good distance away from most of the activity in LA. LA is only becoming smaller.

exactly! thats why NYC, Boston, Paris, London and SF feel "small." As a tourist, you can manage the sites and the city fairly easily. We are headed that way and i think within 10 years, LA will be viewed entirely differently.

[croyboy]

gotta say klam, my map looks just like yours... unless i go to the beach or visit family (scattered all over LA, IE, and parts of OC)

[losangelino]

Originally Posted by klamedia

This is my conception of Los Angeles more or less during any given week.

All that I need is pretty much within the blue section. Only work and school do I need to travel outside of that area. Clubs, bars, shopping, gym, hiking.....all there.

So you exclude LAX?

[losangelino]

Originally Posted by croyboy

gotta say klam, my map looks just like yours... unless i go to the beach or visit family (scattered all over LA, IE, and parts of OC)

I live in the city of LA and my area is north of Burbank and is most certainly LA. Seems strange to exclude bonafide parts of the city to make a point about excluding areas that are not part of the city proper.

[pesto]

Originally Posted by klamedia

This all perception and cultural prompting as far as what we believe LA to be and not to be. As Dwntwn, Hollywood, Koreatown/Westlake etc. continue to densify and create trip generators such as LA Live, Hollywood/Highland etc. LA will become "smaller". Throw transit in the mix for example connecting these points of interest and trip generators and you effectively minimize the area of the city. Even in the primary stage if I'm a tourist I can hop on the subway visit Downtown/LA Live and take a 15 min ride by train to Hollywood. Go another 1 stop to Universal Studios. In the near future I could access the beach/Promenade without much more effort or time. Disneyland would then be seen as a deliberate excursion outside of the city and understood to be a good distance away from most of the activity in LA. LA is only becoming smaller.

Some truth to this. Over time, we may define Los Angeles as only the core truly urban area, where travel by transit is easy. But I suspect that the westside will stay attached since it will have good transit links and density. The rest becomes "SoCal" or "the OC" or whatever.

[klamedia]

Agreed. I would extend the blue marker lines west to the beach encompassing SM and Venice.

[klamedia]

Originally Posted by losangelino

I live in the city of LA and my area is north of Burbank and is most certainly LA. Seems strange to exclude bonafide parts of the city to make a point about excluding areas that are not part of the city proper.

Does your area have a name? By not stating the name forthright I'm inclined to believe that your "area" doesn't have any trip generators and is probably not connected to the larger rail system. If this is true, indeed your "area" will increasingly be considered an outlier of the core of Los Angeles in the next 25 years.

[losangelino]

Originally Posted by klamedia

Does your area have a name? By not stating the name forthright I'm inclined to believe that your "area" doesn't have any trip generators and is probably not connected to the larger rail system. If this is true, indeed your "area" will increasingly be considered an outlier of the core of Los Angeles in the next 25 years.

Sylmar.. and yes the Metrolink (Sylmar/San Fernando Station) runs through here.

[tanzirian]

I don't understand why anything beyond downtown or subway lines is considered outside the city. A city is much more than its downtown. That's particularly true for a decentralized place like LA where downtown lost its eminence a long time ago, and where the subway / rail system is grossly inadequate. A downtown is like hub in a wheel...it's nice to look at but without the rubber it wouldn't go anywhere. The two together make a whole.

[milquetoast]

Jet Blue offered 4 dollar flights between Long Beach and Burbank and because of Carmaggedon, sold out.

Flights from the City to the Valley.

Actually, Los Angeles might look at intracity flights as a way to beat traffic.

'Cause we're small.

[klamedia]

Originally Posted by tanzirian

I don't understand why anything beyond downtown or subway lines is considered outside the city. A city is much more than its downtown. That's particularly true for a decentralized place like LA where downtown lost its eminence a long time ago, and where the subway / rail system is grossly inadequate. A downtown is like hub in a wheel...it's nice to look at but without the rubber it wouldn't go anywhere. The two together make a whole.

Increasingly it will. The rail lines will give LA true point markers that take people from one part of town to the other. Freeways are connected to the larger Interstate Highway System so basically just blow through town on to other places. Although the rail system is still expanding I don't consider it to be grossly inadequate. I travel 23 miles each way everyday all by rail and it serves me well. For the 4th I visited friends in Long Beach and laid out on the beach all day another 25 miles from home and it got me there again, very efficiently. In fact the train was so packed on the 4th that they had to begin queuing the lines. I haven't and I won't buy into the idea that I need to hop in a car and drive needlessly long miles to get what I want. This "I can't do anything without my car" is a learned helplessness that is a very difficult mindset to curb.