LA's Problems

Ferneynism said:

^ Dude, we had a Toga party at the pad on March 18th, you should of swing by...... Maybe next time your in Town.

Talking about the weather is a bit on the cool side this afternoon.

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I'll be in Phoenix from June 6th thru the 10th. Dull. Big time dull. Afterwards, I was thinking of going to Las Vegas for a couple of days..... or maybe L.A.? I don't know if my wife and my 3 month old son would quite appreciate a toga party. I would! :drunk: :drunk:

I would just like to take this time to say that again, this thread has nothing to do with new york, mid-town, we don't care about every thing new york has to offer that makes it so much better than Los Angeles, second I have no idea where you get your info, but most of the surfers out here speak normally, finally you really need to stop posting pictures of new york in an LA thread.

LosAngelesSportsFan said:

i agree, those 60's buildings, the strip malls, etc, they all suck major ass. they are mostly concentrated in the valley though. you wont see much of that in central LA. thankfully, there are much stricter building codes and asthetics is an issue now , so we dont see horrible architecture like that anymore. Strip malls are endangered species, and its taken a turn for the better in LA.

Also, Boston is Beautiful.

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Thanx "Sportsfan" for declaring clarity to this subject. What LA has now come to shoulder is all of the American architecture of the past century. From Decco to Modernist to Post-Modernist. I have friends who are architects and home designers who are swept up with this city. Nowhere are you going to find those wonderful flat roofed mid-century homes w/ open floor plans which incidentally sit in the Hollywood Hills overlooking what is now that famously beautiful nightime sprawl of city lights that seem to go on forever. So as LA ages it's not surprising that it is becoming more and more appreciated by the starched collar crowd.

Boston's one of the coolest looking cities in the country. The old architecture, the curved streets. Gorgeous city. Almost European.

Yeah, LA is unashamedly American. It is in my opinion the first major city in America to have been built in size and scale solely as an American city(no quaint little curvy cobblestone roads) in celebration of Manifest Destiny, so you may not find it quaint and inviting. But "smart growth" is to LA and the western cities of its generation(sans SF) what the "city beautiful movement" was to the older eastern cities in the 19th century.

mid-town said:

New York is second in the country for geographic features.

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New York is second? Do you have a source for that statement? Plenty of states own New York in terms of natural beauty: California, Alaska, Hawaii, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Montana, Oregon, South Dakota, Wyoming, New Mexico, Washington, Nevada, Texas, and so on.

klamedia said:

But "smart growth" is to LA and the western cities of its generation(sans SF) what the "city beautiful movement" was to the older eastern cities in the 19th century.

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What do you mean by "smart growth"? In my opinion, the early zoning laws and lack of building codes does not add up to smart. And I think L.A.'s government and the rest of the country would agree.

As I said, I'm glad to see that the city is making an effort to correct the issue. I also said I do think that L.A. has some incredible architecture. It's got some real gems. But the landscape is just littered with a lot of crappy buildings that have no regard for their surroundings.

By the way, it was not me who originally compared Boston to L.A. I didn't bring Boston into this conversation until somebody else felt the need to slam Boston. If it will make you feel better I'll tell you what I think is wrong with Boston's architecture But this thread is supposed to be about L.A.

Los Angeles unfortunately has some of the strictest zoning laws and tightest earthquake codes in the world. Of course LA was a planned city, but alot of it was planned with the auto in mind. Smart growth tends to reclaim the city for the man and not the machine. Aesthetically functional over just functional. Smart growth advocates green spaces within walking distances, traffic calming, waterways, lighted streetscapes, better public transit, hidden or structuralized parking, doors facing sidewalks not vast parking lots, density as opposed to sprawl, using sustainable materials in construction and so on.
So the "smart growth" movement of today is very similar to the "City beautiful" movement of the 19th and early 20th centuries. So we are learning here in the newer cities that a city can be liveable and pleasant, not just funcitonal. Good example: The plan is to eventually unpave the LA river. Why of course! Who in the world would pave a river to begin with?? Aesthetics over purely functional.

One of the greatest achievements IMO to come out of the 19th century movement to make cities more beautiful and liveable was the creation of Central Park in NYC.

And ironically LA has worked hard since the '70's to control its urban sprawl so successfully that it is now the most dense urbanized metropolitan area in the US.

hydrogen said:

New York is second? Do you have a source for that statement? Plenty of states own New York in terms of natural beauty: California, Alaska, Hawaii, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Montana, Oregon, South Dakota, Wyoming, New Mexico, Washington, Nevada, Texas, and so on.

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California is the only state that beats NY. 15 miles north of NYC in the Hudson River Valley won an award for best scenery in the Fall. We're talking about features. NY has flatness on Long Island, coastal cliffs and beaches on Long Island, small mountains in the Hudson River Valley, the Catskill Mountains, the SNOW-CAPPED and the oldest forest in the world and a long time ago the tallest mountains in the world called the Adirondack Mountains, the Finger Lakes with nice hills in the background, the Great Lakes with nice sunsets and beaches, Niagara Falls, the rolling hills of WNY, and Thousand Islands Seaway, and thousands of lakes in the Adirondacks. Also, in WNY, there's a place that used to be underwater a long time ago, but it's not anymore, there's like 100 foot boulders with seashells stuck in them and fossils. You can still see the lines from the water on the boulders and even the plants look wierd. You can't tell me NY isn't a beautiful state because it is the most beautiful state next to California. CA is the only state I would put above NY for beauty even though NY won an award for best scenic roads.

New York is a beautiful state. Definitely.

But seriously, dude, have you ever been to Hawaii? It has every major eco-system represented. Talk about features. Also Utah is pretty spectacular in terms of variation. Forests, mountains, deserts, lakes, INCREDIBLE rock formations. They call it Land of Contrast I think. New Mexico and Arizona are similar in this regard. New York is a beautiful state, but you're definitely the only person I'll ever hear in my life say that it's 2nd in scenery or whatever. I think the gorges/niagara falls areas are top notch, though, and something to be proud of if you're New Yorker.

Also, I was curious about the "oldest forest in the world" thing. I looked it up online and only found really confusing science stuff. Do you mean like there has continuously been a forest there longer than anywhere else? I guess that makes sense. Because the world's oldest forest in terms of the age of trees is the Bristlecone pine forest of the eastern sierra nevadas (CA). They're the oldest living things on earth, but I always thought there had to be like some lichen somewhere that's lived for like a billion years or something. maybe not. Sorry for derailing this thread. oh wait it's already been derailed about twenty times. Maybe if we derail it enough we might go full circle and be back on track?

oh yeah, just to clarify:
Hawaii has snow-capped mountains, tropical rainforests, coral reefs, arid deserts, pine forests, mediterranean-like chaparral, rocky cliffs, white sand beaches, fertile rolling farmland, not to mention
FUCKING ACTIVE VOLCANOS!!

it's first in my book


www.whosenaturedickisbiggercity.com

Actually, Washington and Maine are very similar. Acadia National Park is one of the most beautiful places in the world. Go there in the early Fall.

callanoj said:

Actually, Washington and Maine are very similar. Acadia National Park is one of the most beautiful places in the world. Go there in the early Fall.

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You know those are beautiful pictures, but that looks exactly like a lot of the places in the Midwest too. Wisconsin in particular. In fact if I were to guess I would have guessed those were all from Wisconsin--looks exactly like it.

solongfullerton said:

I think the amount of hills gives away that those pictures aren't of Wisconsin. I lived in Virginia for a while and it is also very similar.

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Sounds like you've never been to Wisconsin. The entire western half of the state of Wisconsin looks exactly like those pictures. Check out Google maps and do a satellite image if you've never been. I mean EXACTLY like those pictures... except for the picture with the lighthouse, which looks EXACTLY like a picture along Lake Michigan...

...and the first picture of the lake which looks EXACTLY like Devil's Lake:



My point is not to get into a debate or anything with beautiful areas in states, or to downplay anything, I'm just saying if someone showed me those pictures I would be 100% sure those were from Wisconsin having travelled there. Of course I would be wrong, but my point is you could show those pictures and tell people here in Chicago that they were from Wisconsin and people would be like "Oh yeah, the western half, oh and there's Devil's Lake!"