LA has good weather in Jan/Feb and 10 months of smog and terrible heat. LA People are very unfriendly and odd. Buy a Snowblower and SUV. Take up a winter sport or get season tix. Moving to LaLa Land is a big mistake!
As a NYC native who grew up in LA and moved to the Cleveland area 10 years ago, I'll take NYC, Chicago, San Francisco, Portland or Seattle over the giant suburb known as LA....I'll take Cleveland over LA...douchey trust funders are rare and no earthquakes.
The picture says it all. There should be a new Shel Steinberg "New Yorker's view of the world" in which Manhattan is a shining star of uniqueness, but the world of potentially cool places across the country (or even the world) are all 'Booklyn-ish", "sort of like Brooklyn", "has Brooklyn potential"...
Los Angeles—where New Yorkers go to find out they aren't so tough after-all…
There have always been a lot of New Yorkers permanently enjoying LA, it's just that the movement has become a floodlet. Two recommendations for newbies: Don't fight the changes needed to conserve water, embrace it, asap. If you buy into a residence with a lawn, get ahead of the inevitable curve by turning it into a southwest paradise of earthtones. Out with the grass, in with the desert look, which one grows into realizing is beautiful. If you're into NY sports, buy your Dodger hat adorned by the B for Brooklyn (copyright LAD) and you will have realized neo-union with the Dodgers as your home team. Wait patiently once a year for the Yanks to play in sadly concrete-rich Anaheim and await the rare visits by the Knicks, Giants, Jets (once Stan Kroenke moves his Rams to Inglewood), Mets, Rangers and Islanders to LA, where all of them enjoy followings of sorts from your fellow New Yorker expats who preceded you.
If you miss 250 days a year of gray skies, slush, mounds of black ice that once was snow, freezing air, thick humidity, landscapes composed of cement, general filth and stench, please avail yourself of LAX, buenos dias.
If you miss 250 days a year of gray skies, slush, mounds of black ice that once was snow, freezing air, thick humidity, landscapes composed of cement, general filth and stench, please avail yourself of LAX, buenos dias.
What is this strange land Mr. Williams writes of? Could it be that such a place exists? An Atlantis I say! A modern day Eden! Harness the steads. Feed and clothe the children. Send word to the postmaster that we shall not rest until we reach this far away place of bounty and Zambian coffee. The siren song of a mystical place that has become “strikingly more cosmopolitan in recent years” has tickled my fancy. It is our calling. Farewell Williamsburgh, SoBro, Noho and FoSho.
It's inaccurate to lump Echo Park, Silverlake, Highland Park, Venice, Downtown LA, or Santa Monica all together. The demographics, socio-economics, topography, prices, commuting pattern, and simply just daytime temperatures are very different.
In my opinion, Santa Monica and Upper West Side, DTLA and Wall Street, Echo Park and Prospect Park, etc. are each more similar to its cross-coast foil than to its own city.
In my opinion, Santa Monica and Upper West Side, DTLA and Wall Street, Echo Park and Prospect Park, etc. are each more similar to its cross-coast foil than to its own city.
Okay before you New Yorkers get too excited, rent in Echo Park runs between $1800 to $2000 for a low end 450sqft 1br with no laundry or parking. We also have the highest car insurance rates in the city in the 90026. You have to have a car in LA and it better be a decent one cause no one wants to break down on their super long and annoying commute to work every day.
i had a choice to move here or NYC in the early 90's. I chose here because it was cheap, warm, and had better job opportunities. Rent was $325 a month (now it's $2000 for the same building) and you got paid between $150 to $400 day rate on average working in the film industry. The industry is flailing now, due to movies being made in cheaper cities, the day rate for studio workers has not only not gone up, but is down from the pay rates in the 90's and rent has gone up 6x as much as it was 15 years ago. The only reason I'm still here is the fact that I started mt own business and I have the cheapest rent controlled apartment and a huge work studio in an undisclosed, not quite gentrified, location in LA. Don't know how an artist newbie here would ever make it without spending at least $1800 a month on rent and another $150 on car insurance a month, not including car payments, maintenance, and parking tickets. So your base expenses just to move here, excluding food, will be , at the very least, $2100 a month.
i had a choice to move here or NYC in the early 90's. I chose here because it was cheap, warm, and had better job opportunities. Rent was $325 a month (now it's $2000 for the same building) and you got paid between $150 to $400 day rate on average working in the film industry. The industry is flailing now, due to movies being made in cheaper cities, the day rate for studio workers has not only not gone up, but is down from the pay rates in the 90's and rent has gone up 6x as much as it was 15 years ago. The only reason I'm still here is the fact that I started mt own business and I have the cheapest rent controlled apartment and a huge work studio in an undisclosed, not quite gentrified, location in LA. Don't know how an artist newbie here would ever make it without spending at least $1800 a month on rent and another $150 on car insurance a month, not including car payments, maintenance, and parking tickets. So your base expenses just to move here, excluding food, will be , at the very least, $2100 a month.
1
Amazing how insane New Yorkers are when it comes to their opinion of Los Angeles. I discovered LA 2 decades ago, it is the only true international City in america and with New York and Tokyo the only ones in the Trillion dollar economy range.
Perhaps New Yorkers need to expand their minds and be a bit less insular. Though I am one who avoids New York, never having had a good experience there, it is just too arrogant, especially for those of us who work around the world and with people from all over the world. Frankly, I have never understood why the Artist culture did not move to LA decades ago, it should have been pretty plain LA is easier to live in and try to make it as an Artist. LA besides being the only american international city, it is also the most accepting of variety, cultures, ideas and the exposure to all of this must be better for the artist.
New York, if I never find myself there again, I will count myself lucky. 18 months of working there was enough to know it is a city only good for the few who think that is some kind of life to live, it is not a place open to outsiders, not culturally.
Perhaps New Yorkers need to expand their minds and be a bit less insular. Though I am one who avoids New York, never having had a good experience there, it is just too arrogant, especially for those of us who work around the world and with people from all over the world. Frankly, I have never understood why the Artist culture did not move to LA decades ago, it should have been pretty plain LA is easier to live in and try to make it as an Artist. LA besides being the only american international city, it is also the most accepting of variety, cultures, ideas and the exposure to all of this must be better for the artist.
New York, if I never find myself there again, I will count myself lucky. 18 months of working there was enough to know it is a city only good for the few who think that is some kind of life to live, it is not a place open to outsiders, not culturally.
"it is not a place open to outsiders, not culturally."
Was that a serious comment?? You do realize NYC has more ethnic groups than any other city right? You do realize NYC still attracts more legal foreign immigrants than any other city in this country right?
Where do people come up with this stuff?
Was that a serious comment?? You do realize NYC has more ethnic groups than any other city right? You do realize NYC still attracts more legal foreign immigrants than any other city in this country right?
Where do people come up with this stuff?
2
The flip side of the right turn on red CA cultural advantage is that in NYC I can jaywalk anywhere I want without being arrested. And yes, I made the NYC-LA move a couple years ago. I only jaywalk if I can beat the car, even if they speed up.
Seriously, I like LA. I have friends who live there.
1
We still have water in NYC.
3
Well, if you can afford an $1850 month studio, or a 2.7 million villa then bless your (affluent) soul! Sometimes I hate articles like this. There are tons of New Yorkers that work every day and can barely get by day to day. They would love to leave, if an opportunity presented but that they could probably barely afford either. There is a large cross-section of the city that faces many of the same issues, but get no representation.
3
Sad to say my visits to New York lately have been a bit of a bummer.
I walk around wondering if this or that Manhattan Pizzeria Uno is quite as lousy as the one on the strip in the suburb I live in. Or watch the horrible high-rise construction in Williamsburg grind upward.
You still catch glimpses of what makes (or made) the place great. Little stores, goofy people trying out new ideas. But these seem more like references to a past that's slipping away than an index of what's happening now.
I've always loved Los Angeles. The palm trees tilted against the sky, the architectural chaos, the hills and the Sunset strip seen from a slow-moving convertible, what could be more exciting?
And New York's street life, row houses, little retail and food surprises have always been lovable too. But it seems like the new stage of plutocracy is hurting New York far more than it is Los Angeles.
I walk around wondering if this or that Manhattan Pizzeria Uno is quite as lousy as the one on the strip in the suburb I live in. Or watch the horrible high-rise construction in Williamsburg grind upward.
You still catch glimpses of what makes (or made) the place great. Little stores, goofy people trying out new ideas. But these seem more like references to a past that's slipping away than an index of what's happening now.
I've always loved Los Angeles. The palm trees tilted against the sky, the architectural chaos, the hills and the Sunset strip seen from a slow-moving convertible, what could be more exciting?
And New York's street life, row houses, little retail and food surprises have always been lovable too. But it seems like the new stage of plutocracy is hurting New York far more than it is Los Angeles.
2
This withering take-down of this article says it way better than I could: http://la.curbed.com/archives/2015/05/new_york_times_echo_park_bungalow_...
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And this is why I live in Miami.
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Manhattan has become a giant upscale, gentrified mall populated with clones in whatever is the latest group think fashion du jour. Not mentioned but going through something very similar is San Francisco - the entire creative class has fled to Oakland or parts East Bay or further. LA's sprawl is now working for it rather than against it.
1
The article wasn't even about people from Manhattan.... Also people have been fleeing LA for a while now. That's the reason NYC has been adding more population in the last 25 years.
So funny now the Angelenos who "don't care what New York thinks" are reading an article on the New York Times.
I am actually a native of Los Angeles and now live in New York City. I love NYC far more than I love Los Angeles, and more people do if you look at the surveys which always have New York at the top and Los Angeles ranking alongside Detroit. Los Angeles is one of the biggest dumps in the world and I am happy I escaped.
The differences: Los Angeles is ugly and New York has some of the finest architecture in the world. LA is a sprawling city and New York is a more civilized city in which you can get around by foot and interact with other humans instead of hiding in a car. New York is rich and Los Angeles is poor. Los Angeles more and more resembles a third world dump whenever I have to go back and no amount of Brooklyn hipsters will change the fact they the tax base in Los Angeles has been shrinking for decades as more people flee and Los Angeles cements itself as a colonial outpost of Mexico . I am appalled.
This article is cute but Los Angeles is a cesspit and I am happy I escaped
I am actually a native of Los Angeles and now live in New York City. I love NYC far more than I love Los Angeles, and more people do if you look at the surveys which always have New York at the top and Los Angeles ranking alongside Detroit. Los Angeles is one of the biggest dumps in the world and I am happy I escaped.
The differences: Los Angeles is ugly and New York has some of the finest architecture in the world. LA is a sprawling city and New York is a more civilized city in which you can get around by foot and interact with other humans instead of hiding in a car. New York is rich and Los Angeles is poor. Los Angeles more and more resembles a third world dump whenever I have to go back and no amount of Brooklyn hipsters will change the fact they the tax base in Los Angeles has been shrinking for decades as more people flee and Los Angeles cements itself as a colonial outpost of Mexico . I am appalled.
This article is cute but Los Angeles is a cesspit and I am happy I escaped
2
So this is really just a not-so-subtle attempt by Alex Williams to shake some artists out of their Brooklyn apartments and send them west... if only so that he and his kind may have their pick of the vacated units... right?
P.S. Both cities are great
P.S. Both cities are great
They're both fun to visit but not to live.
My experiences from 24 years ago living in LA for 3 years was that it felt like you could achieve everything. And people did. They also worked harder than they tried to appear and were more cutthroat than they tried to appear. Maybe because they were more desperate that they tried to appear. It's funny people say that about NYC now. And those were the mainly white blessed folk. The mainly people of color were rioting in the streets in the most segregated place I have ever experienced (and I lived in Tyler Tx for a time-why oh why!). I would be more interested in hearing those things were truly changing more than the veneer of where it's at that has been moving through the LA communities since the 50s and circling around no doubt. Plus I like my fast talkers and walkers where I can see them :)
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White "artists" from Brooklyn (like the ones depicted in the picture--the epitome of self-involvement): please do not contribute to the gentrification of a once-Latino neighborhood, i.e. Echo Park. It's not "romantic" at all. It's gritty and real, and totally awesome without you. Please do not come. We have no water left, but we DO have TONS of earthquakes. They are really scary. Finally, a pat on the back from the NY Times, does not a difference in our (Angelenos) self-perception make.
3
Connected through Kennedy on way back from Europe earlier this spring, was struck at how Soviet that airport feels, topped off with a Port Authority guy getting in a vulgar verbal spat with Customs guy at the gate.
Then I landed in LA; a TSA guy actually smiled, the weather was great, one smelled the ocean instead of rank humanity, and I still saw a gorgeous girl walking her dog despite it being one in the morning.
New York can keep it.
Then I landed in LA; a TSA guy actually smiled, the weather was great, one smelled the ocean instead of rank humanity, and I still saw a gorgeous girl walking her dog despite it being one in the morning.
New York can keep it.
2
Doesn't anyone think it's unbearably pretentious that people actually self-identify as being part of the so-called "creative class"?
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You've got it all backwards... Young New Yorkers and would-be residents were priced out of this city in the mid 2000s and migrated west in hordes bringing with them the creative energy Los Angeles now enjoys. Make no mistake, Southern California's "creative class" is not home grown.
5
My experience in both cities is that the people who proclaim their allegiance the loudest to one or the other, all moved there from somewhere else. Like Andy Warhol.
The natives don't pay any attention to this type of nonsense because they have no intention of ever moving, and long ago got used to both the good and bad of their city. (These are the people you want to know in either place.)
The natives don't pay any attention to this type of nonsense because they have no intention of ever moving, and long ago got used to both the good and bad of their city. (These are the people you want to know in either place.)
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We Californians never think of NYC unless it's thrown in our face like this article. Comparing LA to NYC? Not! Maybe LA to Manhattan. Driving from Kennedy Airport to Manhattan was a scary ride. Pretty much everything around Manhattan is a dump. I couldn't believe the walls of trash that were stacked up on the curbside throughout the city. I'll take LA anyway over NYC any day!
3
These articles only exist to troll the actual humans living in each city, don't they?
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Most of these comments fail to realize that that the article is about the artists' community moving west... Not simply NYC vs LA.
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Please share Ms. Turner's realtor, because "a 1920s bungalow in Echo Park with a gated yard, cactuses, a barbecue, a separate work studio and a garage," for $1,850 is NOT POSSIBLE in trendy Echo Park. I don't buy it. LA has become NY, in terms of real estate prices -- granted with better weather. Don't believe the hype!
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There is just too much land for LA to ever be as expensive as NY. $2500 might get you a dark studio in Manhattan but will get an actual home in LA if you dont insist on living in a hipster epicenter.
1
I appreciate a lot of the thoughts shared in this article. I've lived in LA for eighteen years now (a transplant from Chicago, the city that I will always consider home). Here in LA, I have found a tremendous amount of art and talented artists willing to take risks in the theater and independent film world. HOWEVER...Echo Park and the surrounding neighborhoods (Silverlake, Los Feliz) are NOT the "east side." You have touched upon a sore point in LA culture. Referring to Echo Park and Silverlake as the "eastside" is very westside-centric. It's a very narrow view of the entirety of Los Angeles. I live in Mar Vista, on the westside, yet I know where East LA lives, east of downtown in neighborhoods like Boyle Heights, Alhambra, Montebello, etc. The city is HUGE and it continues to offer new experiences on a daily basis.
1
Water. The lack of water will change everything.
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I don't have either a NYC or an LA ox to gore. I live in NE Florida and love it. Yes, I've traveled to New York City and Lost Angeles, multiple times, and have always enjoyed the experience. Both have their own personality and you can have a great time as a visitor if you'll accept the areas for what they are. Would I want to live in either? Nope, not on a bet. We have some wonderful places in our part of the world, just not on the scale of either NY or LA.....and I'm more than happy with that. So, until next time.....I suggest everyone take a deep breath, be nice to one another, and relax.
Y'all just had a bad winter back there is all. Relax, enjoy the spring! We don't have one of those out here ya know.
I moved to the L.A. area 10 years ago, and there were TONS of New Yorkers here then. (I, myself, am from the Midwest). Whenever they get E-motional - boy does that accent leap out at you! I love living here, compared to NYC. Whenever I go to NYC, I feel like everyone is running down the street past me. In L.A., people are truly mellow; For the first time in my life, I heard people say "No Worries" after I apologize for having done something wrong. To me, this is the best place to live - its like the Midwest, with its politeness & calm, but with a far more open view of things.
3
Omitted paragraph, "Talented East Coast creatives are now able to collaborate on low-budget favor-based projects about toddler car seats, Instagram models, 8 year-old unboxing stars, and even Pet Rocks. Some of these opportunities even yield juicy three-digit paychecks, for just a few weeks of work. The increase in competition for these glamor gigs has enabled small startups across LA to bid under each other to foster an atmosphere where everyone can work harder for less! Now artist-entrepeneurs can package their award winning skillsets for price of a New York production assistant, but at least the drought means it won't rain on your parade."
3
Out of the two? I would pick New York. Los Angeles is one of the ugliest major cities on earth. Choked with traffic, crippling poverty, horrendous roads that you actually have to drive on. The city has no architectural merit at all. It's saving grace is the surrounding areas, but if I am going to live in a city I'm going to live in a proper cities. New York just feels more like the "center of the world" than Los Angeles. New York draws the best and brightest and Los Angeles usually draws the lost souls of the world.
4
I moved to New York 20 years ago, and I became savvy in finding affordable housing. My husband is an artist who works in television, so we required a live/work space, which is increasingly hard to come by with the city's push for loft living.
We did not always live in NY. For a few years we were in Toronto. My husband lived in Istanbul for a couple years.
We moved into our Brooklyn studio in July 2009, which means we were six months shy of qualifying for coverage under the 2010 loft law. This was probably not an accident, because landlords know how long it takes to pass a law of this magnitude, so they could move in new tenants who would have no legal rights and exploit them for years. My rent increased 12% when I renewed for two years after my five expired.
Downtown Los Angeles is enjoying a renaissance, and for the rent we were paying in Brooklyn, we can live legally with responsible landlords who follow safety codes and invest in maintaining their property. We get better square footage and have condo like finishes in our unit. We could not even have a kitchen in Brooklyn and cooked on hot plates for six years! We will probably buy in CA, because that is not possible in NY.
Maybe New York doesn't care that they are losing so many creative types to better climes. But I feel it is a state driven by finance and real estate now, and its status as a cultural leader is in decline. Regardless, opportunity called and we answered.
We did not always live in NY. For a few years we were in Toronto. My husband lived in Istanbul for a couple years.
We moved into our Brooklyn studio in July 2009, which means we were six months shy of qualifying for coverage under the 2010 loft law. This was probably not an accident, because landlords know how long it takes to pass a law of this magnitude, so they could move in new tenants who would have no legal rights and exploit them for years. My rent increased 12% when I renewed for two years after my five expired.
Downtown Los Angeles is enjoying a renaissance, and for the rent we were paying in Brooklyn, we can live legally with responsible landlords who follow safety codes and invest in maintaining their property. We get better square footage and have condo like finishes in our unit. We could not even have a kitchen in Brooklyn and cooked on hot plates for six years! We will probably buy in CA, because that is not possible in NY.
Maybe New York doesn't care that they are losing so many creative types to better climes. But I feel it is a state driven by finance and real estate now, and its status as a cultural leader is in decline. Regardless, opportunity called and we answered.
1
We moved to the Hudson River Valley which has just about everything going for it. The quality of life upriver is great. We have lots of water, art, art about water, and an overall quality of life only an hour from NYC. Want a Mansion? All you need is $300,000 to take your pick.
1
As the population of California nears 39 million, and the pressure on our limited resources nears a crisis, we continue to worship the 19th century notion of progress through population growth spurred by immigration. In 1990 the U.S. had 19.8 million immigrants and 21.7% of the population of California was foreign born. By 2012 the U.S. had 40.7 million immigrants and 27% of Californian's were foreign born. Los Angeles county alone has over 3 and a half million residents that were born outside the United States. The fastest growing immigrant population is from China. The potential is limitless. Just as conservatives bury their heads in the sands over climate change, leftists refuse to accept the reality that our resources limit our capacity to absorb foreign-born nationals. It's somehow fitting that as we are tied to a 19th-century immigration mentality out greatest infrastructure investment is to build a train. So, New Yorkers please don't come, but if you must please don't drink the water.
1
To all of you New Yorkers out there who will never leave your state:
Those of us in California deeply appreciate your loyalty, and hope that you teach your children that same loyalty for generations to come.
Sincerely,
Everyone in California
Those of us in California deeply appreciate your loyalty, and hope that you teach your children that same loyalty for generations to come.
Sincerely,
Everyone in California
2
I didn't know California equals Los Angeles and vice versa. Well NYC doesn't equal NYS and vice versa...
I've been to California (specifically LA) and I didn't realize you all think and know the same things. I guess that's why I wasn't impressed... Too dull an environment.
I've been to California (specifically LA) and I didn't realize you all think and know the same things. I guess that's why I wasn't impressed... Too dull an environment.
I've lived in LA and have wonderful friends there. I rebuke all the stale and tired cliches about the place, just as I hope people would rebuke those about my hometown, NYC. I hated living in LA-it's so isolating, I loathe the constant sunshine and heat and smog-I love seasons....I missed everything incomparable about New York and realized that this is where I belong and what suits me best. I think that those here and in the article who say New York transplants love complaining are perpetuating cliches are ancient as Woody Allen's classic films where characters move West and whine about the lack of "cul-tah". NY is the most European city in the U.S. (IMHO), and I wouldn't give it up for anywhere else-except Paris!
1
In fairness to NYers, it is culture shock coming from a more traditional Big City (I'm from S.F. but lived in LA for many years). LA is polycentric and linear, with a lot of hidden gems tucked away in random strip malls. Culturally, there's a lot of freedom to do your own thing and less judgement so witty/snide remarks don't go very far. That can be a virtue or a fault, of course, but for an artist, it's a great climate for creative exploration.
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I am ex-New Yorker (born and raised), and lived for 8 years in San Diego, from 2000-2008. I returned to NYC in summer of '08 for a job promotion and a guy. Pretty much the entire time I was back in NY I was scheming about how to return to So Cal. Kept the job and the guy and FINALLY I'm back - and I LOVE it.
Love NYC and have always enjoyed my vacations there...I even
like the subways. Very interesting to a Los Angeles native (4th generation).
Found most of the people to be nice and helpful, especially when I would
ask someone for help with directions, etc.
Been quite surprised by the level of hostility towards us from California.
Thanks for opening my eyes, I guess.
like the subways. Very interesting to a Los Angeles native (4th generation).
Found most of the people to be nice and helpful, especially when I would
ask someone for help with directions, etc.
Been quite surprised by the level of hostility towards us from California.
Thanks for opening my eyes, I guess.
2
This same conversation occurred back in the early '90s. As some posters have commented, the discourse is pointless. LA and NYC are alter egos of each other while at the same time being two versions of the same thing. I've loved both cities and could live in either one. The more interesting discussion would be how smaller cities around the country have changed in the last 20 years. They have become interesting places to live and visit with great food, culture and ethnic diversity. The LA vs. NYC competition is really quite provincial and boring at this point.
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LA is always a curiosity to the ex-pat and the non-native. Witness the British screenwriters and actors who have been all too willing to capitalize on Hollywood's sense of cultural inferiority by lending a certain snobbish gloss to the tawdriness of the Hollywood film industry. Evelyn Waugh did a good satire on the British colony who had moved there in his novel"The Loved One," which is more a satire on Hollywood's cultural and moral emptiness than of the funeral business. At least the Brits practical as ever were on the Hollywood payroll. The money was somehow a consolation for the loss of soul as they downed their gin. But the New York transplants featured in this article cannot even have the consolation of material reward but are mainly unpaid freelancers who come for the low rents and the weather. Alas, not enough to sell your soul for.
I'm enjoying reading people's perspectives about the two cities, and I with agree that the two cities serve well as a foil for the other, both necessary, both with their different temperaments, their strengths and weaknesses.
It's also ironic because a friend of mine just announced that she is moving back to NY from LA. We're excited to have her back.
It's also ironic because a friend of mine just announced that she is moving back to NY from LA. We're excited to have her back.
1
The two cities are like night and day, although, having lived in both and recently, I will say LA is a tough tough city. It's too sprawling and car dependent, and if you don't have connections, you should not move there. There is only one NYC, and LA by comparison sucks, and it's not getting any better.
2
I don't know if I could ever make the jump to LA. I feel like I would miss the smells (of garbage on the street) and people (I need the panic-inducing claustrophobia of the 6 train to jump start my heart in the morning). Do they have enough rich people there to keep the economy moving? Could I handle having slightly more money to spend? How does one not live paycheck to paycheck? Do you just switch to buying non-store brand products at Whole Foods? Most importantly: what if I need a slice of pizza at 3AM?
2
Having lived in both New York and Los Angeles, there is a distinction that some commentators are missing between entertainment and culture. Los Angeles is and has historically been the center of entertainment in the U.S., both in film and, with few exceptions, television. But when a resident in Los Angeles has experienced the cultural life of New York, the yearn-to-return is ever felt, and one goes back to New York for art, for theater, for music, for dance. Each of those elements is present in some small degree in Los Angeles, but sometimes hard to find, hard to get to, and often disappointing, the one exception being the LA Phil. It is no mistake that the Oscars are handed out in LA, the Tonys in NYC.
Actually - movies and television started in the NYC area. For various reasons it shifted to LA. Notable though that in the past decade - a whole lot of the industry returned to NYC.
Overall - I agree with your sentiment though.
Overall - I agree with your sentiment though.
1
Some interesting thoughts. Personally, I wouldn't live in either one. As Oliver Wendell Douglas said, "keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside."
In his film, California Suite, Neil Simon described Southern California as "paradise with a lobotomy." He was spot on about the lobotomy.
2
My son was stationed in Camp Pendleton and up0n my first visit to San Clemente, I was hooked. Everything about California I found way above my expectations. The people were so layed back and cool it reminded me of a New York way before the crazed cell phone addicted millenials and obnoxious hipsters bought the place up. Most appealing is the weather and how Californians incorporate the outside and inside worlds together. The 10 best weather days of the year here are what they have nearly every day. I think the quality of life is much better out there and I urge all the young folks to enjoy their lives and live where it makes you.
2
have you SEEN the trailer for "San Andreas"?
Good luck, L.A.
Good luck, L.A.
Man, when will this debate every end? Born in Queens. To LA at age 2. Back to Manhattan, then Park Slope for 12 years in the 80's and 90s. (8 years in Boston, too.) Returned to LA in 1999. I'm bi-coastal. Why compare an apple to an orange? As for grittiness, LA's got more than enough grit. Multiculturalism? Ditto. Times Square did become like Disneyland by the time I left NYC. Do I miss my view of the Statue of Liberty and my bike rides through Brooklyn in the cold? Prospect Park? Walking the streets of Lower Manhattan? The Upper West Side? That sweet New York water? (The pizza, the bagels?) Thunderstorms? Of course. What you gonna do? Gotta live somewhere if you're a city rat. Both cities can coexist. Let them and their residents be.
5
Bottom line it's the pop. count...NYC has many more than LA..
Period..and this is true despite the fact NYC can have some really bad weather but LA has earthquakes so it equals out..
NYC still wins by a wide margin with the pop. count..
Period..and this is true despite the fact NYC can have some really bad weather but LA has earthquakes so it equals out..
NYC still wins by a wide margin with the pop. count..
3
when you do move from the east to LA, please bring some fresh water with you.
1
And this article is the first nail in the coffin of LA as a cool place. Give it five years, and these places will be gentrified to the hilt. If there is any running water, that is...
3
In case anyone's thinking of packing up and heading thisaway, a "charming two-bedroom 1920s bungalow in Echo Park with a gated yard, cactuses, a barbecue, a separate work studio and a garage" is fetching closer to $3000/mo than $1250 nowadays. Which is why I'm moving to Acton.
3
Why does this Article (and the people quoted in it) seem to think that "East LA" is Echo Park/Silverlake, etc. East LA is EAST OF THE LA RIVER!!! Ie, EAST of Downtown LA, which is EAST of Echo Park, Silverlake, Atwater etc. Please, if you want to talk about EAST LA, go to Boyle Heights, thank you! It just makes everyone who actually lives in LA go, Huh?? And then invalidates everything you are saying. Except that I otherwise agree with everything that you are saying. Oh, and also, there is absolutely no way a 2br bungalow in Echo Park rents for $1250. That would be in the $2200-2800 range...
7
As long as none of them move here. We have enough people from Santa Rosa and south who have moved here since the 1980's and have tried to turn King County into what they left behind. Plus true metro-NYC folks would be miserable here.
1
No amount of money could get me to live in either one of those hellholes. Well, at least NYC has tourist appeal - some entertainment, some museums. LA offers nothing - not even a decent beach.
1
Los Feliz, Silver Lake, Atwater Village, Echo park aren’t the Eastside. Boyle Heights, Lincoln Heights, El Sereno, City Terrace, Belvedere, East LA: they’re the Eastside.
3
I hope they brought some drinking water with them, 'cause the desert has run dry. What with the sanctity of the delta smelt, and the insanity of the environmental whackos blocking the building of reservoirs and such.
Next, I'd suggest they sleep with their surfboard so they can surf to Denver when "the big one" comes.
Next, I'd suggest they sleep with their surfboard so they can surf to Denver when "the big one" comes.
2
Every place is beautiful so long as you have you health. Enjoy the best of all worlds.
2
San Diego has these two cities beat hands down. I get it, the uppity cultural classes of this nations mainstream gimmick industries are rooted deeply into the both stale Los Angeles and New York.
But if you want good food, chill vibes, great views and even better weather. San Diego is the place to be. Most people in the city and around the burbs are not consciously extreme about things like the environment, thrift or where their apartment is located but the Culinary Scene is out of this world.
You'll find your fair share of D-Bags but the vast majority of San Diegoans are chill what ever they are into and where ever they come from.
But if you want good food, chill vibes, great views and even better weather. San Diego is the place to be. Most people in the city and around the burbs are not consciously extreme about things like the environment, thrift or where their apartment is located but the Culinary Scene is out of this world.
You'll find your fair share of D-Bags but the vast majority of San Diegoans are chill what ever they are into and where ever they come from.
1
Love San Diego, and living in SF I see a homeless population everywhere. But I have never seen anything like the homeless situation in SD. Beaches, downtown, in the burbs, in the hills...wow.
Being Metro is no longer good enough for New Yorkers? Now its all about being a flip flop wearing hipster metro sexual who uses "the laid back" image of the left coast to hide his insecure, snob personality.
2
As long as they don't come north to SLO County.
this story has been rehashed, regurgitated, and rewritten every few decades - yawn, yawn .... sit in a traffic jam and decide, is it better than the subway ?
more space in your home versus relatively easy access to the entire NYC experience ? ... choices, choices - weather? I like 4 seasons, not smog - friendly? --- in NYC you have more face to face interaction with strangers, and most world travelers consider NY one of the friendliest large cities --- in LA, , a lot of 'interaction' is thru after glass ... choices, choices --- as far as 'nature' with the present drought, LA will cease to be the artificial oasis it has been: remember Joni Mitchell --- 'the hissing of summer lawns' --- some of my best urban natural experiences have been in Central park, Riverside park, Prospect park .. you pays your money, you takes your choices --- ENJOY !
more space in your home versus relatively easy access to the entire NYC experience ? ... choices, choices - weather? I like 4 seasons, not smog - friendly? --- in NYC you have more face to face interaction with strangers, and most world travelers consider NY one of the friendliest large cities --- in LA, , a lot of 'interaction' is thru after glass ... choices, choices --- as far as 'nature' with the present drought, LA will cease to be the artificial oasis it has been: remember Joni Mitchell --- 'the hissing of summer lawns' --- some of my best urban natural experiences have been in Central park, Riverside park, Prospect park .. you pays your money, you takes your choices --- ENJOY !
5
Urban natural experience - snort of derision.
I grew up and went to college in the NYC area. I left Brooklyn in 1992 to pursue a film career in LA. I think that was just about the the time that Brooklyn started to explode with coolness....missed that.
LA for the first few years was pretty fun and exciting, but yes, I always kind of wondered what I was missing back in "the city". Towards the end the palm trees and nice weather were getting trumped by bad traffic and noisy neighbors (recent New York transplants).
So after 22 years in LA my wife sold the LA house adn moved to a rural town of 1000 people and are learning to live the "country life."
If LA is now exploding with coolness as this article implies, I could not care less
LA for the first few years was pretty fun and exciting, but yes, I always kind of wondered what I was missing back in "the city". Towards the end the palm trees and nice weather were getting trumped by bad traffic and noisy neighbors (recent New York transplants).
So after 22 years in LA my wife sold the LA house adn moved to a rural town of 1000 people and are learning to live the "country life."
If LA is now exploding with coolness as this article implies, I could not care less
2
Shhhh, let's keep that a secret! The L.A. I grew up with has been dead and buried for more than a decade. Even the Latinos are complaining about all the foreigners from Asia and the middle east.
1
We are already completely overpopulated here. Please consider that people have been living here for several generations and don't take kindly to transplants who want to reshape what we have built and complain about everything. If you're not willing to stop smoking, care intensely about the environment, embrace diversity, and deal with the fact that the landscape is naturally brown during most of the year, please, please stay where you are.
5
In my experience, LA and New York share much more in common than either population would like to admit. In truth both cities are fine, but far less special than they think. After traveling all around the world, I ended up falling find Philadelphia most pleasing to me with its nice combination of walkable, affordable, very cultural and artsy, but unpretentious urban life. I don't claim the weather is any better than in New York, but the food scene is amazing and as Anthony Bourdain, very much a New York guy, observed in, Philadelphia has little tolerance for the "velvet rope" mentality so common in both New York and in LA (in a different form). Philly's got tons of art students and a diverse population that help make it fun. Hipsters can hang in Fishtown and Northern Liberties and be quite comfortable. As for me, I'm not disclosing my neighborhood. :-)
3
Funny thing is that LA is more "unaffordable" than NYC. It has been studied several times. Even UCLA noted it.
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/ucla-study-identifies-l-a-as-most-unaff...
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/ucla-study-identifies-l-a-as-most-unaff...
4
I have lived in Los Angeles for 18 years, my husband for 14; we each had moved here from NYC before we met. I have loved living here, my husband not so much. Now we finally can afford to put a down payment on a 2-BR condo after years of renting, but not here in LA. The average 2-BR apartment rental is $2,400. The minimum asking price for an under 1,000-sq. ft. unattractive 1970's 2-BR condo in the Valley that has never been upgraded is $400,000. A decent 2-BR condo is upwards of $600,000. While these fees and prices may seem a bargain to a New Yorker, they represent a huge increase in housing costs for Angelenos. LA isn't the affordable city it was when I moved here in 1997. It seems that as the city has become more cosmopolitan, its food scene vastly better and its cultural life much more varied and of higher quality, it's become just too expensive for many people.
So we're leaving LA this year to move to Chicago, yes, Chicago, where we can easily afford to buy a lovely, gut-rehabed 2/3-BR condo in a nice middle-class neighborhood. I will greatly miss the wonderful weather, the energy that comes from having such a diverse population, the fantastic Asian and Mexican food here and.....did I mention the weather? But I and my spouse have a future with an affordable, better quality of life ahead of us.
So we're leaving LA this year to move to Chicago, yes, Chicago, where we can easily afford to buy a lovely, gut-rehabed 2/3-BR condo in a nice middle-class neighborhood. I will greatly miss the wonderful weather, the energy that comes from having such a diverse population, the fantastic Asian and Mexican food here and.....did I mention the weather? But I and my spouse have a future with an affordable, better quality of life ahead of us.
12
You'll get plenty of diversity here in Chicago. According to the most recent census, the city is 28% Hispanic and 32% African American. Among non-Hispanic whites, people of Slavic ancestry predominate (mostly Polish, Czech, Croatian, and Ukrainian).
1
Good luck, kiddo. You thought NY winters were bad, wait 'til you get a taste of Chicago's wind off the frozen lake. I moved to Orange County, south of LA, 4 years ago. Every morning I thank God that I made the move. I wake up to birds singing and the smell of flowers. The sun is shining and most all is good with the world. Can't water the lawn too much, but to me that's another blessing, I hate watering lawns. The food is good, the supermarkets are great, the people are friendly, but not overly so. BTW, I had been coming to CA on business for years and always thought the people were crazy. Now that I live here, the people are no crazier than anywhere else.
Again, good luck in Chicago. Did you check Austin, TX or Seattle, WA?
Again, good luck in Chicago. Did you check Austin, TX or Seattle, WA?
Plan to take a Winter vacation and a Summer vacation to a burning hot place every year. That, and good winter clothing is the key to loving Chicago. Obamas and Oprah both loved it and left it. You likely will too. A hard place to live.
Yeah, so nice of New Yorkers to come out and up the gene pool in L.A. I grew up in L.A. but haven't lived there for years, because of the traffic. Having been to NYC plenty, I'd rather live there, of the two. But frankly, I'll take my home in Austin any day.
I love New York but could never afford to live there. As a native Californian, I always have found the silly stereotypes of Los Angelenos to be just that: stereotypes. Yes, I have known a few women who have gotten breast implants, a very few. Unless you are in show business, it is not the norm. Parking is a problem and it's very hard to live here without a car, even with Uber, which is still too expensive to go the usual distances we travel for work, shopping and recreation. I welcome all the New Yorkers who wish to relocate to Los Angeles. Bring water.
2
This seems to be the opposite of my memories of casting sessions in the two cities. NY actors were instantly present, intense, and had no qualms about leaving with "I hope I get the part, I need the work." LA actors had to act like they were already successful and left with a cool, detached, "Good luck with the project." LA was all about money, and giving the impression you had plenty. NY was about trying to make a living with your acting skills.
6
This very article is a cliche and rents may be cheaper. But wages are cheaper as well. as everywhere else in the U.S.A.. Also the work culture is very very different in the rest of the U.S.A. and different in a bad way.
When you are a black/brown moderately successful creative who lived in and made no money in L.A. but moved to New York and started to make some. You're view of L.A. doesn't come with those rose colored glasses.
I'm a New Yorker nearly 18 years now and I go to L.A.. It's beautiful of course but It remains a place that gives me a vibe of the place all the white people go who enjoy forgetting the funk and getting a good old sense of a particular Americana , I personally, distaste. No surprise Lena Dunham just bought a 2.7 million dollar whatever there. She actually strikes me much more L.A. than New York.
The cloths shopping in L.A. completely sucks. That reason alone is enough for me.
But that car culture thing really seals the deal for me.
When you are a black/brown moderately successful creative who lived in and made no money in L.A. but moved to New York and started to make some. You're view of L.A. doesn't come with those rose colored glasses.
I'm a New Yorker nearly 18 years now and I go to L.A.. It's beautiful of course but It remains a place that gives me a vibe of the place all the white people go who enjoy forgetting the funk and getting a good old sense of a particular Americana , I personally, distaste. No surprise Lena Dunham just bought a 2.7 million dollar whatever there. She actually strikes me much more L.A. than New York.
The cloths shopping in L.A. completely sucks. That reason alone is enough for me.
But that car culture thing really seals the deal for me.
8
I lived in Chicago. Just about everywhere else the bars close too early.
But what people from LA don't seem to realize is that New Yorkers pile scorn on everywhere else, not just LA. I'm from New York. But I've lived in Chicago, Boston, Detroit-adjacent, spent time in LA, SD, visited much of the southeast US. Discussions with people who still live in New York seem to inevitably turn toward what you are allegedly missing out on by not being in New York.
And, as is probably obvious to all, New Yorkers enjoy piling scorn on different parts of New York. Manhattan is the center of the universe. Depending on your social class, that part of Manhattan might differ, but Manhattan is "the city". Brooklyn has become an acceptable alternative (again). But Queens or Jersey City might as well be LA.
It may be reaching the point of envy with parts of LA, but generally, it is true belief, true too-overtly announced belief.
But what people from LA don't seem to realize is that New Yorkers pile scorn on everywhere else, not just LA. I'm from New York. But I've lived in Chicago, Boston, Detroit-adjacent, spent time in LA, SD, visited much of the southeast US. Discussions with people who still live in New York seem to inevitably turn toward what you are allegedly missing out on by not being in New York.
And, as is probably obvious to all, New Yorkers enjoy piling scorn on different parts of New York. Manhattan is the center of the universe. Depending on your social class, that part of Manhattan might differ, but Manhattan is "the city". Brooklyn has become an acceptable alternative (again). But Queens or Jersey City might as well be LA.
It may be reaching the point of envy with parts of LA, but generally, it is true belief, true too-overtly announced belief.
1
New Yorkers have always run off to LA. Thus we got such wonderments as Birth of a Nation, the history of the KKK, a film which should be burned, for example.
New York and LA are linked by a double-ended umbilical cord. Not sure if this has led to an improved American culture, or a worse culture.
New York and LA are linked by a double-ended umbilical cord. Not sure if this has led to an improved American culture, or a worse culture.
Los Angeles has always been sunny, warm relatively clean... New York has always been like living in a dark cold sewer.
The only thing that has changed in the last 20 years is the complete takeover of California by the Demokrat party, with the ensuing socialism, high taxes, deficits, embrace of illegal immigration, irresponsible government spending and the shaming of our police. Under those conditions I can understand why a few New Yorkers might decide to see what it's like living somewhere sunny and warm and socialist.
The only thing that has changed in the last 20 years is the complete takeover of California by the Demokrat party, with the ensuing socialism, high taxes, deficits, embrace of illegal immigration, irresponsible government spending and the shaming of our police. Under those conditions I can understand why a few New Yorkers might decide to see what it's like living somewhere sunny and warm and socialist.
Echo Park is not "eastern Los Angeles". The east side of Los Angeles is east of Main Street, where the street address numbers increase as one travels east.
The Arts District is eastern Los Angeles. The fashion district is eastern Los Angeles. Boyle Heights is most definitely the east side of Los Angeles.
Echo Park, Silver Lake, Sunset Junction, West Adams (hello, WEST Adams), East Hollywood, Angelino Heights, and other similar trendy areas are not the eastern part of Los Angeles. Why is this so difficult for so many people to comprehend?
The Arts District is eastern Los Angeles. The fashion district is eastern Los Angeles. Boyle Heights is most definitely the east side of Los Angeles.
Echo Park, Silver Lake, Sunset Junction, West Adams (hello, WEST Adams), East Hollywood, Angelino Heights, and other similar trendy areas are not the eastern part of Los Angeles. Why is this so difficult for so many people to comprehend?
2
Personally as a writer and filmmaker, in fact a polymath I need both cities. To live in either for those who are young as half my age in the prime of their lives and when all must be done wisely while the sufferings are minor compared to us old folks, I'd adamantly recommend such of the population make arrangements for cheap hotels in both and just "Deal with it." as we used to say.
1
I understand from my friend on Southern California that for many, the ubiquitous swimming pool is going the way of the dodo bird. Can California, primarily the desert state, continue to be a vampire and suck water from other states?
You New Yorkers and LA- types keep cross-pollinating. You never know when the rest of us will be watching on CNN when the San Andreas Fault really lets loose.
You New Yorkers and LA- types keep cross-pollinating. You never know when the rest of us will be watching on CNN when the San Andreas Fault really lets loose.
1
Los Angeles has beaches in Malibu, warm weather, mountains, lawns, golf courses, mansions and Rodeo Drive.
But please, let's not compare Los Angeles to New York. Apart from a semi decent collection of art at the Getty, the Huntington, and LACMA -- Los Angeles will never rival New York for culture. New York has the Met, which is the largest collection of art in the world, the MOMA and several other venerable cultural institutions. Everyone knows that New York is and always will be the cultural capital of the US, if not the world.
I have been visiting LA my entire life and used to live in San Francisco, so I have nothing against California. But without fail, every time I have visited LA in the past few years I have been stuck in one traffic jam. I'm not sure how exactly this "zen" existence could surpass living in New York City where you can basically manage by foot and public transport.
What is pleasant about being stuck in traffic on the 405? In fact the entire premise of this article that Los Angeles is less expensive is contingent on gas prices staying low and Los Angeles not being subject to rent incrases. And California has high taxes. Furthermore who would want to move to California in them midst of the drought? LA is indeed replete with one strip mall after the next and lackluster streets...there is little character.
So I don't understand the allure apart from the weather...therefore you can go to any sunny locale such as Miami or Austin.
But please, let's not compare Los Angeles to New York. Apart from a semi decent collection of art at the Getty, the Huntington, and LACMA -- Los Angeles will never rival New York for culture. New York has the Met, which is the largest collection of art in the world, the MOMA and several other venerable cultural institutions. Everyone knows that New York is and always will be the cultural capital of the US, if not the world.
I have been visiting LA my entire life and used to live in San Francisco, so I have nothing against California. But without fail, every time I have visited LA in the past few years I have been stuck in one traffic jam. I'm not sure how exactly this "zen" existence could surpass living in New York City where you can basically manage by foot and public transport.
What is pleasant about being stuck in traffic on the 405? In fact the entire premise of this article that Los Angeles is less expensive is contingent on gas prices staying low and Los Angeles not being subject to rent incrases. And California has high taxes. Furthermore who would want to move to California in them midst of the drought? LA is indeed replete with one strip mall after the next and lackluster streets...there is little character.
So I don't understand the allure apart from the weather...therefore you can go to any sunny locale such as Miami or Austin.
10
It's also being contingent upon having a profession or a job that pays a decent wage.
Wages are lower in L.A., I found them to be much lower, as in the rest of the US.
People always complain about the high rents in NYC but you make more money in NYC. For me personally, considerably more than what I made in L.A.. There's just something about the lifestyle in NYC that gives you more, the wages, the work culture, the creative culture, the way there is always good food everywhere, often for free for varying reasons. If you can get afford to buy a house in L.A. if you really need a house and a yard you could have that in NYC if you wanted. You could move to Forest Hills or some such NYC has suburbs with yards and green as well.
Wages are lower in L.A., I found them to be much lower, as in the rest of the US.
People always complain about the high rents in NYC but you make more money in NYC. For me personally, considerably more than what I made in L.A.. There's just something about the lifestyle in NYC that gives you more, the wages, the work culture, the creative culture, the way there is always good food everywhere, often for free for varying reasons. If you can get afford to buy a house in L.A. if you really need a house and a yard you could have that in NYC if you wanted. You could move to Forest Hills or some such NYC has suburbs with yards and green as well.
4
digitalartist - yes it is a fact that LA is less affordable - even though it costs less... It is exactly the reason you stated. I'm not sure why it's hard for so many people to understand concept.
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/ucla-study-identifies-l-a-as-most-unaff...
Yes and you are right... Most of what they call LA are really suburbs. NYC has suburbs too... It even has mountains nearby... Thankfully those mountains don't abut he city and cause the air to choke the population.
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/ucla-study-identifies-l-a-as-most-unaff...
Yes and you are right... Most of what they call LA are really suburbs. NYC has suburbs too... It even has mountains nearby... Thankfully those mountains don't abut he city and cause the air to choke the population.
1
I'm a proud Angeleno who came here as a 17-year old in 1985, driving across the desert in a broke-down SuperBeetle with little more than a dream and a few bucks in my pocket. Although I'd grown up near Philadelphia with NY as the cultural point of reference for most of my friends, I knew that I belonged in LA from the time I first flew here with my family in 1972 on a vacation. What I've learned about NY and LA in the last 30 years is that they are one soul in two very different, lovely bodies. I have never felt the sense of ease which I possess in either city in any other places. There is a current of creative and free energy that surges through both cities. Having to choose between the two is a false dichotomy. And I agree with the sentiments of many posters in this thread, that both cities need one another as a counterbalance. I truly celebrate them both.
17
Our family is eighth generation California and I so dislike more people moving here. More people means more housing, more precious water being used and send down the drain, more traffic and all things we do not need.
Stay put and make wherever you live outside of California work better!!
Stay put and make wherever you live outside of California work better!!
1
Can't help thinking of Hal David's lyrics to Do you Know the Way to San Jose:
"L.A. is a great big freeway.
Put a hundred down and buy a car.
In a week, maybe two, they'll make you a star
Weeks turn into years. How quck they pass
And all the stars that never were
Are parking cars and pumping gas"
Perhaps things are changing? Still, what about water?
"L.A. is a great big freeway.
Put a hundred down and buy a car.
In a week, maybe two, they'll make you a star
Weeks turn into years. How quck they pass
And all the stars that never were
Are parking cars and pumping gas"
Perhaps things are changing? Still, what about water?
3
Just recd. a text from friends who are traveling...they write weather is fabulous, food is terrific and prices in Venice...Italy are half what they are in L.A. Word to New Yorkers, stay home or go east!
2
Maybe I'm missing something here, but if the main topic is art/culture vibrancy, why are we not even mentioning San Francisco? Surely the Times is aware of (for example) its thriving independent bookstores which easily rival St Mark's et al., or the SF Opera's rich traditions -- I'm not sure if the Met still maintains in-house soloists. If I'm not mistaken, there are not a fews fresh, raw artists to be experienced there as well.
Doubtless, many San Franciscans and New Yorkers will have scores of wonderfully relevant examples of which I am totally ignorant, but again, this will simple serve to underscore the question.
Doubtless, many San Franciscans and New Yorkers will have scores of wonderfully relevant examples of which I am totally ignorant, but again, this will simple serve to underscore the question.
1
Really? The real tragedy is that California, and especially Los Angeles, has been ruined by the unceasing flow of people from all over the world. Please don't come, stay home, make that place better. You are doing no one, including yourself, any good by invading an already over-populated state.
2
I lived in LA for 6 years. Left to start a family. None of these hipsters have kids to worry about it seems. Schools matter.
2
To the commenters thinking it's ironic that CA residents are reading and commenting in the NY Times ---- I, and I suspect most people, are NOT reading it for the local news about NYC. We read it for the national and international news, much as other readers not in LA or NYC do. Furthermore, the Times' writers don't necessarily live in NYC; an acquaintance of mine reports on science for the NYT and lives here in CA.
6
Right... But they are NOT reading the LA Times - or any other LA media publication for that matter.
1
Actually I read the LA Times more often than I do NYT, but there was a link of this article when I was reading something else.
Don't get me wrong, I think the NYT is a fine newspaper. It's just the LA Times has more LA focused business and culture articles. It has among the best investigative national and international news articles as well--gives NYT a run for its money in my book (or the other way around?).
Don't get me wrong, I think the NYT is a fine newspaper. It's just the LA Times has more LA focused business and culture articles. It has among the best investigative national and international news articles as well--gives NYT a run for its money in my book (or the other way around?).
You mentioned the "competition between New York and Los Angeles." No one here knows it is going on.
6
When rents are as ridicules as they are in NY, and LA is an up coming place to be, it's only a matter of time that LA becomes expensive. Back in the 70's and 80's downtown NYC was cheap and Brooklyn was still not a place you wanted to be, so maybe Detroit is a good place in 5 years for a new Arts Scene when the well to do start jacking up the real estate in LA.
Real estate prices in LA are already high (among the highest in the nation save perhaps San Francisco Bay area, and Orange County, CA). Homes that used to cost $400K in 1990, now go for $1-$3 million. Same for other price ranges. Rents were not as big here, but that's changed as well.
The places these artists are moving to, you can still find bargains because there are still some rough edges or they abut some rougher cities, but even then it's only cheaper by California or NYC standards, not by the standards of any other state.
The places these artists are moving to, you can still find bargains because there are still some rough edges or they abut some rougher cities, but even then it's only cheaper by California or NYC standards, not by the standards of any other state.
I remember the old joke:
Q. What’s the difference between L.A. and Greek yogurt?
A. Greek yogurt has active culture.
Now, more & more native-Chicagoan kids I know who’d moved to Brooklyn (Greenpoint, W’Burg) to pursue their creative careers have decided that tripling up to live in cramped apartments and still paying more monthly for one room (or one bed) than their folks did for an entire house--while still enduring polar-vortex winters and high prices for everything was not what they had in mind when they left Chicago. They’re all deliriously happy in Silverlake and environs, with room to breathe and no more seasonal-affective-disorder. And they have beaches & mountains to look at (or visit, if they can rent wheels) to boot.
Q. What’s the difference between L.A. and Greek yogurt?
A. Greek yogurt has active culture.
Now, more & more native-Chicagoan kids I know who’d moved to Brooklyn (Greenpoint, W’Burg) to pursue their creative careers have decided that tripling up to live in cramped apartments and still paying more monthly for one room (or one bed) than their folks did for an entire house--while still enduring polar-vortex winters and high prices for everything was not what they had in mind when they left Chicago. They’re all deliriously happy in Silverlake and environs, with room to breathe and no more seasonal-affective-disorder. And they have beaches & mountains to look at (or visit, if they can rent wheels) to boot.
1
NYC and L.A., love both of them. Trying to pick sides and tear down the other is just silly.
4
New York needed some changes from the massive ugly crime infested city it was in the 1980's. But they went overboard through the Bloomberg years ( yes three terms was too much) and now Manhattan has become a commodity. I knew NYC well in those gritty years, but it's all over now.
1
Now that the Communists (Marxists, Sandanistas, Castro-lovers, et al.) have taken over the city, the lefty artistes that trumpeted and flower petal-ed the arrival of these Stalinists flee, leaving the rotting apple to the riotous and desperate masses. It figures.
1
For every hipster doofus in L.A., there are thousands of people simply doing their best, whether working in creative fields, at 9 - 5 jobs or retired (1.5 million people over age 60 live in L.A. County, expected to double in 20 years). Rising rents, the frightening drought and increasing traffic are challenging, but there is culture to be had. The stunning hilltop Getty Center, free admission, is currently hosting a J.M.W. Turner exhibit. The recent L.A. Times Festival of Books, also free, offered over 100 panels and interviews with more than 500 authors. Not to mention the natural and architectural (yes!) beauty. I lived on the UWS for some time before returning to L.A. and frankly it was a more difficult adjustment than I'd anticipated. But at this point I can't imagine not spending time in both cities, each offers so much. Alas, I do not have a bi-coastal budget!
1
Just confuse them all by referring to the freeways by their names rather than numbers...
5
The film industry is DYING, do to directors and producers shooting outside of the state. Netflix is a big contributor to the industry crumbling as well. And although not talked about often, actors are realizing that they can become successful while living any place they choose do to a. Shooting mostly done outside of Cali and b. Auditions can be done at home with your computer. So no need to meet creepy pedophiles seducing kids with sex for a part in a film. Hollywood is Rome and like Rome it is going to burn to the ground, OR just break off and fall into the ocean. And Bob Monroe, LA has been decaying with every soul that has been ruined by the pedophiles that run amok in that town. But I love your advice! Leave!!!
I enjoy living in NYC and had great visits to LA. Although different, both places are great in their own ways. Be thankful if you have the opportunity to live in either.
2
As an actual struggling artist in L.A., who can no longer afford a pad in Silverlake, Atwater Park, or Echo Park, I'd like to NOT thank affluent New Yorkers for coming west and gentrifying neighborhoods that used to be enclaves for Latino immigrants. Those neighborhoods had cultures, now they are filled with McHipster establishments. The entire concept that there is no culture in L.A. (usually framing the entire City within the context of the wealthy, plastic-surgery centric Beverly Hills) is inherently racist. Los Angeles was not founded by Europeans, but it has always had plenty of art, dance, theatre and music.
47
Yeah it was, it was founded by the spanish.
3
LA was founded by the Spanish. The Spanish are European. It was Spanish Territory.
When Mexico got its independence they inherited it for about 25 years then it passed to American hands.
When Mexico got its independence they inherited it for about 25 years then it passed to American hands.
Culture is a reflection of the people who live in a place. It can be historical but thank goodness, it is not static. If your neighborhood turns European, that is a good thing! You should learn to appreciate a culture that is not your own! Gringos do! In fact. that is The American Way! Mix the cultures up into something new all of the time! Don't get stuck in your ethnic rut!
I love LA. That's why I moved back here from New York in January. But more restaurants and galleries on the east side does not an important cultural capital make. Is there a vibrant and valid cultural class in LA? YES. But LA is still the cliche of LA. The same way that New York is still New York despite all the Bloomberg era changes. The DNA of these cities is still intact. And The New York Times writes a piece like this at least once a year. It's getting tired. LA Is still a city of mostly shallow people who have zero curiosity about anything besides where the closest Starbucks is and New York is still the gritty dump where everyone is entitled and crabby. But New York is a global and true cultural capital with a huge intellectual class. LA is not that kind of city. And LA is NOT cheap. Do not be fooled. You still have to pay for a car and car insurance, people!
9
Years ago, when NYC was cooler than LA, I did the move from LA to NYC. Fortunately, I keep by beach home and rented it. Now, that LA beach home has appreciated by a factor of 10. Now that LA is cooler than NYC, I am moving back. Should I rent my NYC home in case NYC becomes cooler than LA in the future?
Please check a map of LA. Although the Caucasian-centric folk refer to Echo Park as the East Side it is clearly west of downtown. Having lived in Silverlake for over 20 years, I often wonder (ed) where their center of town is. La Cienega Blvd. The 405 Freeway?
5
East and west have nothing to do with downtown. I'm surprised you lived here for any period of time without knowing that.
No one in CA cares what NY thinks. Absolutely no one. We simply would like them to think it in NY, not CA.
6
Right... That's why you all are commenting right?
“I couldn’t believe how collaborative everyone out here was,” Ms. Price said. “Want to shoot a music video? Just put up a Facebook message and within hours you’ll have 15 responses from incredibly talented, passionate people who want to work for free, because they believe in you and your art.”
Yeah that's why they want to work for free, not because they're dead broke and competing with a million other wannabes. Seriously, nothing about that quote sounds positive.
Yeah that's why they want to work for free, not because they're dead broke and competing with a million other wannabes. Seriously, nothing about that quote sounds positive.
15
My God...is there any article you can't write without somehow mentioning Lena Dunham? I'm just waiting for her thoughts on the economy or politics in one of those articles, too.
11
It is telling that the idea of "culture" on which LA and NY are being compared is so remarkably shallow.
"Culture" here appears to mean restaurants and art galleries.
Well, yes, if that's what culture means to you, there's not much to pick between LA and NY.
It's worthwhile to remember what culture used to comprehend. Not so many years ago, a society was considered cultured if it engaged in serious discussion of intellectual issues, if serious writing was seriously engaged, if complex music was being composed, performed, and listened to, if there was a large body of timeless fine art objects available for appreciation and criticism. In such a world, New York was a greatly dominant city in the US.
But who cares about such things these days? When is the last time any one of the "creatives" in NY or LA or anywhere participated in any of these activities?
The deep problem with LA has always been, not its obsession with money, but its shallowness.
But we are now ALL as shallow as LA. We have NO appreciation of anything deep and rigorous in culture. Go to a concert of Beethoven or Brahms or any classical music and take a careful look at the audience -- where are there any faces below 60 years in age? Museums are hardly better.
LA is becoming cool for the young crowd because they have always been, and always will be, LA.
"Culture" here appears to mean restaurants and art galleries.
Well, yes, if that's what culture means to you, there's not much to pick between LA and NY.
It's worthwhile to remember what culture used to comprehend. Not so many years ago, a society was considered cultured if it engaged in serious discussion of intellectual issues, if serious writing was seriously engaged, if complex music was being composed, performed, and listened to, if there was a large body of timeless fine art objects available for appreciation and criticism. In such a world, New York was a greatly dominant city in the US.
But who cares about such things these days? When is the last time any one of the "creatives" in NY or LA or anywhere participated in any of these activities?
The deep problem with LA has always been, not its obsession with money, but its shallowness.
But we are now ALL as shallow as LA. We have NO appreciation of anything deep and rigorous in culture. Go to a concert of Beethoven or Brahms or any classical music and take a careful look at the audience -- where are there any faces below 60 years in age? Museums are hardly better.
LA is becoming cool for the young crowd because they have always been, and always will be, LA.
8
Meanwhile here in LA, we don't even have these cliche, foolish arguments about NYC vs LA, because we don't care. We are doing things.
10
What part of "GO BACK TO WHERE YOU CAME FROM. YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE!" do you not understand? You have ruined our Streets, Freeways, Enviroment and Economy. Anyone who cannot prove that they have been true residents of Greater Los Angeles since 1970 or born here afterwards must be expelled out of our state!!!
1
Are you kidding? People from everywhere, not just New Yorkers, are continually attracted to California and either visiting it, staying there a short while or deciding to live there more permanently. This has been going on for decades. What part of THIS IS AMERICA AND PEOPLE ARE ALLOWED TO MOVE FREELY FROM STATE TO STATE don't YOU understand.
2
I've lived 20+ years in NYC and 20+ in Los Angeles CITY.
Many people clump the entire SW California megalopolis into one category. That would be like clumping Scarsdale, Spanish Harlem, the Village and Levittown all into the the same category.
There are parts of the NY Metro Area that are way more "plastic" than parts of the LA Metro Area. Been to Long Island or suburban New Jersey recently? Conversely there are parts LA City that are more walkable than parts of NY City. Westwood and Venice are like Amsterdam when compared to the car culture mecca's of Staten Island or Eastern Queens!
Many people clump the entire SW California megalopolis into one category. That would be like clumping Scarsdale, Spanish Harlem, the Village and Levittown all into the the same category.
There are parts of the NY Metro Area that are way more "plastic" than parts of the LA Metro Area. Been to Long Island or suburban New Jersey recently? Conversely there are parts LA City that are more walkable than parts of NY City. Westwood and Venice are like Amsterdam when compared to the car culture mecca's of Staten Island or Eastern Queens!
7
Oh good, still more people w/ whom to share our last 5-6 gallons of water.
4
A film review in today's Guardian: " [The film] exists in an America where the only two conceivable places to exist are New York and Los Angeles.... I remain unconvinced that the film is self-aware enough to realise this is preposterous."
4
If you work close to where you live, LA is great. But the traffic is a complete non starter if you have to commute.
3
I moved from NYC to LA in 1996 (and after 9 years in LA, I returned to NYC). I disagree with this line: "people rarely ask what you do for a living or where you went to school.” It is true about the college part, but the FIRST thing everyone asked is "where do you work?" Maybe it's because I worked in the film industry...
2
This article is so small-minded. The east side of LA has been rich in Chicano and Mexican culture, as well as other communities of color for decades. Not a word about it here, per usual. Same thing happened in Brooklyn. Instead learning how to integrate into a community in an inclusive manor, its pure exclusivity. As someone who cherished my time in the early 2000s as an artist welcomed into the Chicano art community on the east side of LA, this article is really worrisome. After living in Brooklyn since the early 90s I hope the east side of LA has a much more compassionate and human minded course of development.
4
This isn't 1970 nobody I know as a Mexican American identifies as a Chicano. I don't and no one I've ever met has at least in the Bay Area.
Authentic Californians do not want any out-of-towners or foreigners moving here to live and use up our resources. GO BACK TO WHERE YOU CAME FROM!!! OUT!!!
2
It seems economics are primary factors in their uprooting. Reflecting on move posthaste,seeking rationale ,and still sanguine, these transplants are defined by their east coast sensibilities.
Facts of life in LA- christmass in july weather, smog, foreboding seismic event, water shortage . Eg
Facts of life in LA- christmass in july weather, smog, foreboding seismic event, water shortage . Eg
2
Los Angeles is nice to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.
1
Go back to the "Big Apple"! We do not want you here! You are part of the reason things are deteriorating here. Go away and never return here! Take your cars with you.
3
The last thing L.A. needs is another influx of well-to-do, white transplants that drive up the ("affordable"? haha!) rent. I grew up in Echo Park, when it was still "mostly" Mexican (I'm Filipina) and just another neighborhood surrounded by immigrant communities (Chinatown, Eagle Rock, Atwater, East Hollywood). Now that L.A. is "hipster enough," New Yorkers are willing to move there despite the drought and traffic congestion? That is totally irresponsible and the inherent privilege in that is just insane.
3
If not for the weather, there would be no reason to live in LA.
3
I don't know whether to laugh, cheer or cry. I've been coming here since 1980, when it was, in fact, a cultural and pizza wasteland, moved here in 1989, yet have always felt the pull of my native New York. Sadly the middle-class New York I grew up in is long, long gone - and far out of reach financially for most. More and more I've been loving my adopted town - I had to leave it to love it, for a year, back to my barely recognizable UWS for a year.
LA is in a golden age right now. But the prospect of seeing another place I love ruined and placed further out of reach makes me really sad. Hmm... what's a place both cities have no respect for and don't appreciate... next stop - Omaha!
LA is in a golden age right now. But the prospect of seeing another place I love ruined and placed further out of reach makes me really sad. Hmm... what's a place both cities have no respect for and don't appreciate... next stop - Omaha!
3
Go back to New York - East Coast leftists, particularly those from New York (complete with those lovely accents) are what's really crapped up the West Coast.
This article (another in the series of the same articles NYT is turning into a mini-rubric, probably because they are well-read and give rise to tired but enjoyable polemics) is quite unselfconscious in failing to note that the attractions of L.A. it describes are the same hipster stuff that is making NYC irritating. Culture is not found in artisanal bakeries and vintage clothing shops. Culture is found in museums, of which L.A. has zero that are of note, in art galleries that are quality, not quantity, and most importantly in the communal spirit of youth culture, which includes spontaneous meetings and people-watching, which is again impossible in L.A. because of the way the city is structured. If sunny weather and organic juices are your draw, you should reconsider your definition of culture.
I've lived in NY for 23 years, and yes, amidst the cupcake shops and chobani outposts, I've never seen it so culturally impoverished and hard to survive in. This is unfortunate. And yet, part of me wonders whether the very people exiting NYC are those that have driven the rents up and devolved culture into mere consumer choices.
I've lived in NY for 23 years, and yes, amidst the cupcake shops and chobani outposts, I've never seen it so culturally impoverished and hard to survive in. This is unfortunate. And yet, part of me wonders whether the very people exiting NYC are those that have driven the rents up and devolved culture into mere consumer choices.
5
I love both cities but live in the one with the sun
Thanks for the update on the perennial NYC vs. LA story. Perhaps it is letting the secret out, but it seems that alot of the creative, fun people I knew who pioneered setting up living quarters in the East Village of NYC and then East Los Angeles headed toward Oregon (Eugene, Portland in particular) and the state of Washington too.... And Canadians? the livelier sort seem to have gone to Vancouver or 'pioneer' with the technos and artists in Montreal's once-mfg districts, now uber hot and creative...
2
Are these real New Yorkers, or people who themselves only moved to NY after college or in their early 20s? Moby, as the article notes, is (was). But the others? Because I don't consider someone who arrives at 22 and leaves at 27 a true migrating New Yorker. They are just people passing through.
10
hold on, all you LA bashers. I am a to-the-bone New Yorker, and I could never, ever live in LA. And yes, what we're seeing will only end up as another gentrification tragedy. BUT underneath it all, LA (and California, mostly) is a a true-blue anchor to our true-blue New York, with superficial lifestyle differences but with an underlying political and social ethos that matches ours. We need them -- and they need us -- to keep trying to right the political ship. Sibling rivalry -- who's got the better arts scene -- is okay. Just let's not take it to fratricide.
31
I've always said that NY and LA have the same soul inhabiting two very different bodies. I feel very at ease and at home in both cities. There's simply a joie de vivre and creative spirit that pulses through both places, made manifest in different ways. Viva la différence!
Gentrification is NOT a tragedy IMO.
A friend and I were remembering the 1970's crime in NYC. (shudder).
Now people can walk around any part of Central Park without fear. Harlem is a neighborhood where people can go out and enjoy. The LES is habitable and fun. That is a miracle given the progress of the past 40 years. Gentrification means that if you want to walk--alone--through the city late at night in NYC. you will have nothing to fear but fear itself. THAT is GREAT.
A friend and I were remembering the 1970's crime in NYC. (shudder).
Now people can walk around any part of Central Park without fear. Harlem is a neighborhood where people can go out and enjoy. The LES is habitable and fun. That is a miracle given the progress of the past 40 years. Gentrification means that if you want to walk--alone--through the city late at night in NYC. you will have nothing to fear but fear itself. THAT is GREAT.
Thank God, now that the Times has written about how cool LA is, all my smart, funny and cultured family and friends who have always lived there will finally feel good about themselves.
3
Came out 30 years ago , never missed it except for the high rent , endless traffic noise , freezing winters & humid stinky summers it's a hell of town.
5
Move to Chicago! Bring it all here!
1
So the greatest endorsement of the LA job market this ex-pat New Yorker could come up with is 'everyone is totally willing to work for free!'
Sadly, I could see some kid who can't endure working two jobs on totally opposite schedules to get ahead saying this about New York too. Spend a half-hour browsing the NYC Craigslist or Facebook ads, and you'll see this refrain: "no pay, but great exposure for your portfolio!"
The author thought this was a commentary on NYC vs. LA. Instead, I saw a commentary of how little this country appreciates labor, how much value it puts on pillaging our earth at the expense of citizens (droughts, pollution, unsustainable building projects on BOTH coasts with rents that few can pay), and how far we have fallen as a nation. I hope the choice for most new grads is not two jobs with complete opposite schedules or free labor. If so, I weep for the future.
Even if the rent is truly $1250 a month, the landlord — save for the couple decades in the Hotel Chelsea where it was possible for a lucky few — does not tolerate "trade for portfolio" when the rent comes due.
Sadly, I could see some kid who can't endure working two jobs on totally opposite schedules to get ahead saying this about New York too. Spend a half-hour browsing the NYC Craigslist or Facebook ads, and you'll see this refrain: "no pay, but great exposure for your portfolio!"
The author thought this was a commentary on NYC vs. LA. Instead, I saw a commentary of how little this country appreciates labor, how much value it puts on pillaging our earth at the expense of citizens (droughts, pollution, unsustainable building projects on BOTH coasts with rents that few can pay), and how far we have fallen as a nation. I hope the choice for most new grads is not two jobs with complete opposite schedules or free labor. If so, I weep for the future.
Even if the rent is truly $1250 a month, the landlord — save for the couple decades in the Hotel Chelsea where it was possible for a lucky few — does not tolerate "trade for portfolio" when the rent comes due.
11
Is anyone wondering or considering what they will do when the water runs out in California?
4
They sound like a bunch of 1950's wannabe starlets moving to Hollywood.
So basically it's the same thing going on for 150 years... People moving out of the crowded northeast part of the country..?? Ok... Still NYC's population continues to grow. In fact it added more residents than LA in the past 25 years. People will always leave NYC.. They have to... That's part of the fabric of the city... It is always about flushing (I don't mean that in a bad sense) and bringing in the new.
1
There's a lot to be said for nice weather. At the age of 15 I moved from upstate NY to San Diego, CA. I still remember the sense of well-being I felt from the warmth, sea, and sunshine. Career demands eventually took me away, but I'll go back some day.
1
According to the NYT:
North Brooklyn = NYC
Echo Park = LA
North Brooklyn = NYC
Echo Park = LA
7
I read this article with amusement and some degree of confusion. I've lived in New York for 18 years and I can tell you with certainty: we don't spend much if any time comparing NY to LA, ever; we don't ever THINK about LA. Nor do we compare ourselves to any other international cities. I can understand why people prefer one city over the other as each has its benefits. But the idea that New Yorkers sit around and discuss how superior we are to anyone just doesn't happen. We are too busy complaining about other things. In fact, in the many times I've visited Southern CA and LA in particular, I find the opposite to be true. It seems that whenever someone finds out I'm from NY (and no I don't chastise people for wearing flannel (or god forbid) jaywalk, some comment about how LA is somehow superior inevitably follows -- as though it's something that remains perched on their frontal lobes. I have to say that I do love the irony here that so many Angelenos are reading and posting about an article in the NY Times. You like LA? Stay in LA. Prefer NY, stay in NY. But really, the notion that the cities are rivals is a myth, at least from this end.
8
Exactly. I love NY but also love visiting LA and San Diego, have family there ... who doesn't love some fun in the sun during a cold winter? ... but I've noticed that the subject of where to live/what's better only comes up when I'm out there with natives and they're trying to convince me to move!!!
It seems I know all about the joys and pleasures and some of the problems of their west coast lifestyle but they know (and care to know) very little about the east. It's as if they made it to the promised land - or were born there - and are never leaving.
It seems I know all about the joys and pleasures and some of the problems of their west coast lifestyle but they know (and care to know) very little about the east. It's as if they made it to the promised land - or were born there - and are never leaving.
Since when did creating great art have anything to do with comfortable weather and access to trendy coffee shops and boutiques? I'm sure the best art being created right now is half a world away from either New York or LA. Having said that, it's NYC over LA in a landslide in terms of which city is more interesting, or even which city is even a city at all.
5
Catastrophic drought. Traffic.
2
It does seem like everyone in Brooklyn, Manhattan and parts of Queens are all in big money finance in some way, and the only creative types I know are married into finance or living on inherited money. Where can anyone creative afford to live?
Dubai with blizzards, Ha!
Dubai with blizzards, Ha!
2
Good! Bring water. Lots of it.
1
ok... Everybody....just relax...... New York is New York and LA is LA....just appreciate them both.
3
With Rousseau , I say comparison is the root of all alienation.
But you do have to have a car, and drive it, in traffic , in Los Angeles. Which means a car payment, gas, insurance, and repairs.
The $600 (1850-1250) saved in rent for a better apartment can go pretty quick.
And also, you have to drive, which unless you really love it, is a total drag in LA. It's also bad for your health.
But the economic conditions generating the migration are real, and it's not just personal finances, which Americans across the nation suffer in our plutocracy.
Two great signs of the capitalist wasteland that Manhattan is becoming :
1)the transformation of St. Vincent's hospital in the W. Village being razed for multimillion dollar luxury townhomes and
2) the failure of Cooper Union college development team and administration to manage their budget to make sure college is tuition free for the best and the brightest.
It's just money, money, money all the time here, and it's a cancer to culture. It's a pox on the human spirit.
But you do have to have a car, and drive it, in traffic , in Los Angeles. Which means a car payment, gas, insurance, and repairs.
The $600 (1850-1250) saved in rent for a better apartment can go pretty quick.
And also, you have to drive, which unless you really love it, is a total drag in LA. It's also bad for your health.
But the economic conditions generating the migration are real, and it's not just personal finances, which Americans across the nation suffer in our plutocracy.
Two great signs of the capitalist wasteland that Manhattan is becoming :
1)the transformation of St. Vincent's hospital in the W. Village being razed for multimillion dollar luxury townhomes and
2) the failure of Cooper Union college development team and administration to manage their budget to make sure college is tuition free for the best and the brightest.
It's just money, money, money all the time here, and it's a cancer to culture. It's a pox on the human spirit.
8
And the metro card isn't a form of rent?
Either city will get its pound of flesh in its own way. And they both do a fine job illustrating the benefits and excesses of capitalism, each manifested through its own cultural curiosities. I'm sure that a native Angelino can point out their own current "two great signs" of demise.
Hopefully, the artistic renaissance will have bi-coastal benefits.
Either city will get its pound of flesh in its own way. And they both do a fine job illustrating the benefits and excesses of capitalism, each manifested through its own cultural curiosities. I'm sure that a native Angelino can point out their own current "two great signs" of demise.
Hopefully, the artistic renaissance will have bi-coastal benefits.
What I find so amusing about all the Californians grousing, I mean commenting, about New Yorkers and how little mind they pay to NYC is the fact that they just happen to be reading and posting on nytimes.com.
9
LA has been interesting for decades. It's also a very different culture. Many native New Yorkers can't even drive. I moved to LA from NY in the early 2000's, it took me 8 years to really love and appreciate the city. 2 years after that I moved back to Brooklyn.
LA is expensive, almost as bad as NY. Yes housing and studio space can be found for less but it's nothing like St. Louis, Detroit . The nessecity to own a car and pay for gas (highest prices in the nation) take a toll as well. I found the LA art scene to be very much segregated around where one went to school -- Cal Arts, USC, Otis, San Diego. It's not a Don Draper escapism utopia the way this piece makes it sound.
LA is expensive, almost as bad as NY. Yes housing and studio space can be found for less but it's nothing like St. Louis, Detroit . The nessecity to own a car and pay for gas (highest prices in the nation) take a toll as well. I found the LA art scene to be very much segregated around where one went to school -- Cal Arts, USC, Otis, San Diego. It's not a Don Draper escapism utopia the way this piece makes it sound.
7
I guess. As long as you don't mind the lack of water.
2
You can have NYC and LA...please take them. Just stay out of PDX. The transition from PDX from either one of these two " places", if you can call them that, is next to impossible. Example: I'm in a very fine deli the other day and some NY transplant was whining about not being able to find a decent bagel,grilling the poor sandwich guy on the provenance of the bagels in their case. The NYer claimed our water, the purest in the US, wasn't the right kind ( reclaimed sewage?). Then there's the LA and NY equity refugee who move to PDX after selling their mini mansion, tear down a historic building and build a pile of modern drek unless they are stopped as is happening more and more. Then there are the NY and LA people who complain about PDX not being hip enough, enough to do, being a cultural backwater, on and on. NYC is at the end of the day a hot and humid wasteland in the summer and a cold and miserable place in the winter unless you live at 740 Park. LA is a drought stricken desert with a Greyhound bus terminal and a requirement that anything you want or need mean a 2 hour drive in the car to go 2 miles. The NW is the new paradise...
5
most of these people are not real new yorkers, just american nomads afraid to disclose whatever sad town they originally came from
5
I don't know about LA, but most people I know can see little reason to stay in New York. High taxes, crazy cost of living, low wages, bad weather, rude people, dirty, status and money obsessed. I don't want to uproot my kids, but I am encouraging them to go to college away from this dying state. And then, I will also leave.
2
sad, the energy wasted over the years in the invention of ny/la jokes...sadder the present try at framing la as the sun-drenched version of a hip scene...the hipsters are the same whether in buttondowns or shorts...re-framing their "art, fashion and food" fetishes as the climate permits...instead try taking the best of both...the E train route, alone, is a path to education, entertainment, enlightenment and community (this last demonstrated by a conversation with a guy convinced that the government is plotting to suppress chocolate and an eavesdrop on a late night impromptu among strangers who had seen the same film)...in la the 12-month outdoor life, can't be matched by the entire a-list of trendy joints...walk/bike/run the santa monica beachfront, skip the truffle gelato and go for the produce...take in the aging rockers who play in palisades park every saturday around 2...accessible tennis and golf at rancho park and other spendid public park/rec sites...
a caution, before you make the permanent move west, check on the downstate drift of silicon valley and the high rise in rents already engulfing the beaches on its way inland.
the lucky ones are those who have connections in both cities, the back and forth itself, is, as they say, a trip.
a caution, before you make the permanent move west, check on the downstate drift of silicon valley and the high rise in rents already engulfing the beaches on its way inland.
the lucky ones are those who have connections in both cities, the back and forth itself, is, as they say, a trip.
3
Come on down to Houston! Just don't drive the house prices up too high.
God forbid!
1
Houston is pretty crowded too. How about Detroit? Pittsburgh? Buffalo? Cleveland? Akron? Dayton? Cincinnati? Louisville? Memphis? Charlotte? How about those wide open prairie states? Omaha? Lincoln? Kansas City?
The list is almost infinite and many choices of climate and lifestyle. Just not California or NYC.
The list is almost infinite and many choices of climate and lifestyle. Just not California or NYC.
They'll be back. I've lived in both, for extended periods. No way can LA match New York's excitement and surprise. LA will seemingly forever be a car culture, where you shut yourself out from random encounters. New York is a walking and subway culture, and the contrast could not be more startling.
10
I'll take crawling along Santa Monica Blvd in my car with sunroof open over being crammed in a 4 train that's inexplicably not moving.
Look at that photo of the couple in Los Feliz! A view and interior like that would cost $3,000 per month in the worst neighborhood in the city. In Manhattan, it would start at $5,000 per month -- or more. Do the math, New York landlords. And NYC politicians: Instead of being obedient slaves for landlords and developers, do something about moving this city to something that's within 1,000 miles of affordability. Stop demanding that New Yorkers to be thankful for being treated like cattle.
7
Three thousand?? Maybe in Queens. Couldn't get that in Brooklyn for three grand even if you offered to tap dance while writing the check.
Kinda funny that I was reading this when we had another earthquake.
2
South Florida ,after the eathquakes,fires,droughts,in LA, and more and more difficult winters in NYC, will be the next super hot spot.
2
The sticky humidity of Florida is gross compared to the cool breezes in L.A., nor are the Florida beaches or landscape as beautiful as L.A., which is surrounded by gorgeous desert and mountains. Another drawback, there are some great folks in Florida but its essentially a southern state full of rednecks and controlled by redneck politics, while California is reliably progressive. (Changing your gender? California kindly asks that you please notify the DMV of any gender and name changes to your license.....). Meanwhile, Florida continues to fight it's backward wars against women's reproductive rights, marriage equality, affordable health care and the right to vote.
Florida is Alabama with beaches.....
Florida is Alabama with beaches.....
10
Not South East Florida sir. Coral reefs, unique multi hispanic culture , more symphonic orchestras, art basel best nightlife, best people watching..From Palm Beach County to Dade. And man,what a breeze from the cleanest ocean yet. Hope your on vacation when garbage island and nuclear waste wash on those not so pristine beaches!
While everyone is choking on political agenda's we breathe the freshest air ,eat the freshest fish.. I'm from NY and lived and worked in LA, best move i've ever made..and yes So.Florida votes democrat.
While everyone is choking on political agenda's we breathe the freshest air ,eat the freshest fish.. I'm from NY and lived and worked in LA, best move i've ever made..and yes So.Florida votes democrat.
OOPS, i forgot.. been to Fort Lauderdale lately. The most LBGT friendly city in America.
Most stay in the North East long term because they've never been west. Why put up with the bills and crappy weather when you dont have to?
3
If you like the automobile culture then LA is for you. It ain't for me.
7
The Rent in New York City is becoming impossible. The High Rent, combined with stagnant wages, as well, as the lack of employment is back breaking, if things do not change, more and more people will be homeless, and more and more people will be forced to move to different states just to survive.
7
There is a country in between. I love living near the Great Lakes. Lake Michigan is wonderful all year long. We have water and wine country. Up State New York and the Finger Lakes Region beats New York and LA any day. I love my paid for home worth around $325,000. LA. Yuck. I much prefer Northern California and Sonoma. The article is boorish and snobbish. We have a beautiful country. Take a drive and get out of NYC and LA.
5
As someone who's lived in both areas, I can sum up very simply why I'm still in Manhattan (although with retirement looming and a spouse who hates snow and ice the final outcome is still unresolved): cars, cars, cars, driving, driving, driving, traffic, traffic, traffic, freeways, freeways, freeways. The sheer urban density and walkability of New York City neighborhoods is unique and irreplaceable. Of course you kids at the Times writing these articles are too young to know that back in the 70s and 80s New York Magazine was breathlessly reporting that "everyone is moving to L.A." Plus ca change.
15
Having grown up on Long Island, where a drive of a mile can easily take 15 minutes, the freedom I experienced after moving to the city and getting rid of my car cannot be understated.
If have Zipcar for the few occasions I need a car, but mostly I ride a Citibike or walk everywhere. The subway, buses, and cabs are always available as a back up plan.
I will never own another car and never live in a place where one is a necessity. A car is an expensive wheeled prison. To every person in the suburbs insists their housing expenses are so much cheaper, please add the costs of your cars, including repairs and insurance and compare that to my $150 a year Citibike commuting cost or even the annual $1300 fee for unlimited subway Metrocard, that I no longer purchase.
If have Zipcar for the few occasions I need a car, but mostly I ride a Citibike or walk everywhere. The subway, buses, and cabs are always available as a back up plan.
I will never own another car and never live in a place where one is a necessity. A car is an expensive wheeled prison. To every person in the suburbs insists their housing expenses are so much cheaper, please add the costs of your cars, including repairs and insurance and compare that to my $150 a year Citibike commuting cost or even the annual $1300 fee for unlimited subway Metrocard, that I no longer purchase.
1
Having lived in both New York and Los Angeles, I always roll my eyes at these battles of the hipster cognoscenti.
Each city has its allure and each has its warts. But they are dramatically different, as everyone knows.
Pick the one you like, or have a life experience in both. But please stop trying to pit one against the other.
Each city has its allure and each has its warts. But they are dramatically different, as everyone knows.
Pick the one you like, or have a life experience in both. But please stop trying to pit one against the other.
5
Great article. Many of these transplanted New Yorkers wind up in Portland.Oregon which is av very laid back place.
3
Don't underestimate the power of ever-changing atmospheric conditions upon the creative mind.
You can keep your stifling boring string of endless sunny days and dry nights.
You can keep your stifling boring string of endless sunny days and dry nights.
3
Yes indeed the often promised cultural renaissance of LA is now happening. It is great but one big problem Is looming , LA is running out of water. What can be the future in a city with no water?
6
Nothing says mediocrity more than creative people who think it's cool being part of a herd.
13
I never got that weather argument. NY doesn't have extremes. It's bitter cold in Jan-Feb & brutally hot/humid in late June-July. Sandy notwithstanding, no El Nino, wildfires, droughts (not as bad, anyway), earthquakes, mud slides.
In NY, there's forced interaction every day among people of different social strata. In LA, I don't see that because of the car culture.
In NY, there's forced interaction every day among people of different social strata. In LA, I don't see that because of the car culture.
13
That's an interesting phrase 'forced interaction'.
I've been reading the comments and I had to laugh about those, Angelenos as well as NY'ers who commented on how rude folks from NY can be. To those of us on the West Coast, NY'ers do have a reputation for rudeness. I remember my husband and his fellow police officers saying in the 70's, "If you stop a car with NY plates, just brace yourself for a chewing out. That was in Santa Barbara, Ca. Some years ago my husband and I visited Martha's Vineyard. As we boarded the ferry, I asked the ticket person if I could keep my ticket, or at least half of it, for a souvenir. I was so excited to be going to Martha's Vineyard. The man, at least in his mid-forties, just about verbally ripped my face off. I was shocked at how rude and hateful he was. It wasn't New York, maybe Mass., but it brought up all the stereotype stuff about the attitudes of East coast people. Only a moment later, a man behind me with the same East Coast accent, stopped me to apologize for the behavior of the ticket taker. He said, "I'm so sorry you had to have that experience. Please don't think we are all like that." And I don't. That nice man is what I fondly remember most about my trip to the East Coast.
5
Turns out New Yorkers are the reason the rent has gone up drastically in Los Angeles. They have no problem paying $1850 for an apartment so landlords here keep pushing the rent up. And now with Landlords renting out apartments on Airbnb, there's a real shortage of affordable housing.
Oh and all the New Yorkers moving to Silver Lake has created a traffic nightmare in a neighborhood that was once calm and pleasant. Thanks NY!
Oh and all the New Yorkers moving to Silver Lake has created a traffic nightmare in a neighborhood that was once calm and pleasant. Thanks NY!
6
Nice how this article dishes out equal shares of superior smugness towards both hipsters and LA. Well played - and so very NYC Dorothy-Parker-at-the-Algonquin.
3
I am a native Manhattanite. The only thing I don't like about L.A. is listening to all those L.A. nativist bullies complaining about us moving to "their" city. Where I come from, I had to put up with transplants and immigrants from all over the world. In fact, I moved out because I felt that New York was not my home anymore. Now I have to listen to L.A. natives complaining about people like me moving in. Only chauvinists and bigots believe that all people should stay in the city/country they were born in. Regarding L.A. Weekly putting us at the top of the "worst transplant" list, I am nothing like any of those things they describe us. I don't talk about my birth city and other than the nativist bullies, I really have no complaints about L.A. To all you nativist bullies: people move all the time. Deal with it.
4
Yes! And don't they know, New Yorkers have been there for decades already.
1
So a "wagon train" of smug New Yorkers have migrated west to be smug on the Left Coast. I hope they bring their own water, and leave the bed bugs behind.
Joking aside, I am sick to death of hearing people declare themselves the vanguard in just about every aspect of their lives. They live in the It city, in the It neighborhood. They discovered the It travel destination, before that was ruined by tourists (because, of course, they are Travelers not tourists). They found the IT restaurant...no...food truck. You really have to go there, they'll say. But then you should have gone before everyone else found out about it, because it's not like it was before. Wherever these people are, that the the place to be. Well, I have news for you Los Angeles newbies: there are about sixteen million people who got there before you. And probably half of them are convinced they are stars. So join the crowd.
Joking aside, I am sick to death of hearing people declare themselves the vanguard in just about every aspect of their lives. They live in the It city, in the It neighborhood. They discovered the It travel destination, before that was ruined by tourists (because, of course, they are Travelers not tourists). They found the IT restaurant...no...food truck. You really have to go there, they'll say. But then you should have gone before everyone else found out about it, because it's not like it was before. Wherever these people are, that the the place to be. Well, I have news for you Los Angeles newbies: there are about sixteen million people who got there before you. And probably half of them are convinced they are stars. So join the crowd.
15
Back here in Detroit, resplendent in our squalid, post-apocalyptic glory, there's tons of free parking, right turns on red and something like 4 quadrillion gallons of fresh water. If you are really an artist, or a geek, and you can exploit the Internet it's possible to get dirt cheap digs--homes with backyards--outside the city limits, for under $1000 a month. Yeah, the winters are miserable, but on these savings you can also afford a manufactured doublewide west of I95 near Miami and count the prescient Motor City icon Iggy Pop as your neighbor. Our nascent food scene was just rated 3rd in the country by Zagat, and to echo Dionne Warwick,"You can buy a car for $100 down." Just keep it away from Detroit proper where a rusty beater can still run you five grand a year for insurance.
12
$1000 a month? Heck, you could buy 3 houses in Detroit for $1000 a month (mortgage).
But you are basically correct. Live in any affordable part of the US (doesn't have to be Detroit), and then you have ample money for a vacation home in a warm part of the country and a couple of trips to LA or NYC whenever you feel you need to visit.
But you are basically correct. Live in any affordable part of the US (doesn't have to be Detroit), and then you have ample money for a vacation home in a warm part of the country and a couple of trips to LA or NYC whenever you feel you need to visit.
Who cares. I was lucky to grow up in NY and lived on East Fourth and Ave A. when I went to NYU in the sixties. It was cheap then and there was lots going on. I heard jazz at Slugs. Went to the Dom Polski on St.Marks. Saw real artists at Cedar Tavern and ate knishes at Yonah Shimels on Houston. Great times. I miss NY but I can't afford it now. L.A. ain't much better and rents are getting higher and freeways are a joke. The real artists lived in Venice. Echo Park used to be called Meco Park by some gangsters. Both cities are getting too gentrified. Portland, Maine sounds good. I think....
2
I live on the Westside, and rents are not cheap at all. Probably comparable to NYC. Artist are being driven out. People always ask what you "do." This article is quite inaccurate.
10
Was about to say the same thing: in LA even when you are at the playground playing with your kids people ask you what you do! This article has it backwards!!
2
This is an old argument, and while it's fun to read the comments back and forth, the two cities are very much different, so why not enjoy that if you can. I prefer New York...LA's just not depressing enough for me to feel comfortable. But I happily would short term rent in LA from Christmas until Easter, enjoy the weather and the differences, and then come back. No aspersions cast on either place.
I feel bad for Chicago, though...noone cares to complain either way about them.
I feel bad for Chicago, though...noone cares to complain either way about them.
5
I'm an artist who lived in Williamsburg 86-91', during that time my late father would tell his friends, "looks like Dresden after the war." I guess now it looks like Dresden with a plethora of high end sushi bars. Echo Park will one day push out any creative who can't afford to buy in, the Law of artistic migration. Artists should consider staying put in their native cities and building their own culture rather than chasing somebody else's conception of it. I have.
49
Kudos, Henry! We are hearing lots of stories about artists going to Detroit to live and work and revitalize the city that was all but abandoned.......lots of great real estate deals to be made there. Building your own culture, indeed!
New York and L.A. Narcissism East and Narcissism West. Thank God so many Americans in between actually do something useful and productive, not food or fashion or media.
9
My family loved in NYC when I was a youngster, and I think my parents and siblings always found it to be a hard place to live in the 60's and 70's, just too many small difficulties to be overcome and compromises to be made on an almost daily basis. When father's career took him to the Midwest, my folks leaped at the opportunity to leave NYC behind and to continue to raise us in a less stressful, less expensive and more spacious, enjoyable environment. I am certainly glad we relocated and I never missed the big city. Having been to California many times in my own career, I have always found it to be a very agreeable place, unlike NYC.
5
I was born and raised in Brooklyn. At 33 I moved to San Francisco. Wonderful city to live and work in. I returned to the East Coast 4 years later however. I missed the seasons and family but also NYC. I settled in Stamford, CT and have lived here the past 14 years. I can take the Metro North express to Grand Central in 48 minutes, enjoy everything thing culturally that the city has to offer and then retreat to sanity at the end of the day. Stamford is a great place and feels more like a small city than it does a burb. Hey, I've got a good thing going here, so please keep my secret to yourself !
1
I'm a writer who spent the first 30 years of his life in Brooklyn and Rockaway and couldn't imagine living anywhere else until the depressed city of the late 1970s finally impelled me to join my older relatives in South Florida, a place filled with a lot of New Yorkers -- not creative types, true, but the kind of people I grew up around. Miami/Fort Lauderdale had always had something of a NYC feel due to all the snowbirds, and it was the same kind of diverse, multicultural place I grew up in, where I could hear the sounds of Caribbean Spanish, Haitian, and West Indian-inflected English as well as Yiddish and Italian intonations.
The first time I went to Los Angeles a few years later, I fell in love immediately. For decades I'd tell people on both coasts who looked at me as if I were crazy that NYC and LA were, to me, very similar. I can recall having an epiphany pumping gas at an Arco station in Long Beach many years ago when the thought suddenly struck me: I've been here only two days and I feel at home here.
As the nation has become polarized into red/blue, coastal/flyover different countries, as I've moved between NYC and LA in the last 15 years, the two cities seem even more similar. And yes, for writers, there is a long literary tradition in Los Angeles and a vibrant scene, just as there always was going back a hundred years or more.
LA and NYC: perfect together! Or apart.
The first time I went to Los Angeles a few years later, I fell in love immediately. For decades I'd tell people on both coasts who looked at me as if I were crazy that NYC and LA were, to me, very similar. I can recall having an epiphany pumping gas at an Arco station in Long Beach many years ago when the thought suddenly struck me: I've been here only two days and I feel at home here.
As the nation has become polarized into red/blue, coastal/flyover different countries, as I've moved between NYC and LA in the last 15 years, the two cities seem even more similar. And yes, for writers, there is a long literary tradition in Los Angeles and a vibrant scene, just as there always was going back a hundred years or more.
LA and NYC: perfect together! Or apart.
8
I lived in Echo Park decades ago. It was afordable and "arty" back then - though a news program did refer to my neighborhood as where the "working poor" lived. I loved living there. I seriously doubt it is as cheap as this article says now. If so, I'm going back, traffic and all. Well, now that I mention the traffic, maybe not. Rumor has it the population has more than doubled since I left. Last time I was there it took me THREE hours to go place that used to take 45 mins. Really, trafific is the only downside of LA, but it is a big one.
3
In my 30 years or so of observation of this migration; real New Yorkers will move back from L.A. within 5 years. "New Yorkers" who are actually from Iowa or Ohio but lived in New York for a few years after college ( art school) will stay in L.A. or eventually move to Portland. Much easier for this Native New Yorker to book a table or a show. Thanks! Enjoy your water shortage and juice with a boost!
4
Few of this comments argue well for either city. I strongly suspect folks in the middle swath of land are laughing right now.
4
"Los Angeles is widely acknowledged to have become strikingly more cosmopolitan in recent years."
Acknowledged by whom? When I, an Anglo male, stepped on an elevator on my first day at work in LA in 1989, I was instantly conscious of being in a minority, in terms of color, language, often gender. That never changed in my years there, and I never stopped liking it. Now I'm in a Times Square high-rise and, by the elevator test, back squarely in the majority. I can live with it, but it's hardly more cosmopolitan.
Acknowledged by whom? When I, an Anglo male, stepped on an elevator on my first day at work in LA in 1989, I was instantly conscious of being in a minority, in terms of color, language, often gender. That never changed in my years there, and I never stopped liking it. Now I'm in a Times Square high-rise and, by the elevator test, back squarely in the majority. I can live with it, but it's hardly more cosmopolitan.
4
Go, everyone, go! Especially all you rich people who want to be on top of the biggest new thing, go to L.A.
2
The difference between the two cities get down to this: nature and culture. New York will never have the natural beauty to be found in Los Angeles. The Hudson River is not the Pacific Ocean. The Bronx is hilly and the Palisades are in New Jersey, but the mountains that come down to the sea in Los Angeles and all of Southern California are breathtaking. The cultural difference is while Los Angeles has plenty of inequality and lots of moneyed folk, just like New York, it's not the capital of money. Its two great ports -- LA and Long Beach -- far outdistance New York/Newark and the decentralized polycentric development of Los Angeles (the result of a trolley system which Angelenos are slowly rebuilding) provides the kind of room that allows people to grow. LA's economy is not merely based on Hollywood and it has a far more diversified and, to an extent, a manufacturing economy that New York lacks. The great thing about both places, and a testament to the good things about the United States, is the openness of both cities to immigrants and to diversity from around the globe. One should avoid dumb comparisons between the two places; they are both centers of urban and cosmopolitan civilization in a country whose politics has too often been shaped by rural provincialism. If you like a walking city, you'll prefer New York; if you like the advantages of polycentric decentralization -- and 20 downtowns rather than one -- you'll like Los Angeles. It's a matter of taste and mood.
9
You forgot - architectural beauty. Los Angeles itself is a very ugly city and laced with nondescript strip-malls.
LA has areas and specific buildings that can be beautiful but largely its ugly. Strip mall after strip mall vintage 1966 with dead palm trees scattered here and there. Chintzy stucco boxes with a dead lawn 8' from another stucco box.
This idea that everyone lives in some vintage 1930's Spanish
colonial with a red tile roof, bubbling fountain with fragrant bougainvillea, it's simply not true. They exist in West LA, Pasadena and other parts of town but they go for BIG bucks.
Always have. Architecturally NYC has LA beat.
After the war LA destroyed most of its architectural heritage, sadly. Hence hideous strip malls everywhere.
This idea that everyone lives in some vintage 1930's Spanish
colonial with a red tile roof, bubbling fountain with fragrant bougainvillea, it's simply not true. They exist in West LA, Pasadena and other parts of town but they go for BIG bucks.
Always have. Architecturally NYC has LA beat.
After the war LA destroyed most of its architectural heritage, sadly. Hence hideous strip malls everywhere.
As a native Angeleno of 60-plus years, who lived in NYC for 3 (my period of temporary insanity or stupidity) I welcome refugees from NCY to L.A. on a conditional basis:
Discover our wonderful theatrical scene. More shows than you can shake a stick at and they aren't all "Lion King X" or Les Ms. Saigon meets Mamma Mia near Times Sq>
Don't bitch that you can't get good corned beef. You can if you look for it. Try Langer's for a start. Or eat some of our food.
No talk of "no seasons." The jacaranda turn purple in May. The crepe myrtle turn all sorts of colors starting in June or July. Our Bottle Brush Trees are blooming red now, and if you know where to look you can find seasonal magnolias.
You have 3 seasons. Terrible summer. Hideous Winter. Okay spring and fall that seem better because you are coming out of misery. Don't brag about them
If you don't like L.A. and miss N.Y, take the 405 south to Century Blvd. Turn right and you will hit the airport.
Discover our wonderful theatrical scene. More shows than you can shake a stick at and they aren't all "Lion King X" or Les Ms. Saigon meets Mamma Mia near Times Sq>
Don't bitch that you can't get good corned beef. You can if you look for it. Try Langer's for a start. Or eat some of our food.
No talk of "no seasons." The jacaranda turn purple in May. The crepe myrtle turn all sorts of colors starting in June or July. Our Bottle Brush Trees are blooming red now, and if you know where to look you can find seasonal magnolias.
You have 3 seasons. Terrible summer. Hideous Winter. Okay spring and fall that seem better because you are coming out of misery. Don't brag about them
If you don't like L.A. and miss N.Y, take the 405 south to Century Blvd. Turn right and you will hit the airport.
9
I do not believe that the woman in the article found a 2-bedroom bungalow in Echo Park for $1,250. If she did, it was a complete anomaly and probably didn't have parking or laundry facilities. Decent 2-bedrooms are going for at least $2,500, so please New Yorkers, do not think you'll get a great deal in one of the groovy neighborhoods. You'll have to live in the outskirts of the grooviness for that. A nice 1-bedroom in Silver Lake is at least $1,800. Of course, there are exceptions, but not many.
13
There is no way she rented an entire 2 bedroom HOUSE with workshop AND garage for $1250 (*unless she time traveled here from 1989). That amount would hardly rent her a junior one-bedroom apartment in a shabby building, let alone a house with rentable extra space!
Either that is HER SHARE of the rent (with at least one roommate) OR she is renting from her grandmother or another family member.
What troubles me is the idea of some naive young New Yorker reading this, and rushing off to Echo Park, expecting to find rental listings in this price range with 2 bedroom HOUSES, rather than the truth, which is about 2-3 times as costly.
The short version: prices in LA are just as bad as NYC, but you do get a bit more space. The downside is you MUST have a car, whereas in the NYC you can depend on public transit.
Either that is HER SHARE of the rent (with at least one roommate) OR she is renting from her grandmother or another family member.
What troubles me is the idea of some naive young New Yorker reading this, and rushing off to Echo Park, expecting to find rental listings in this price range with 2 bedroom HOUSES, rather than the truth, which is about 2-3 times as costly.
The short version: prices in LA are just as bad as NYC, but you do get a bit more space. The downside is you MUST have a car, whereas in the NYC you can depend on public transit.
1
Loma Linda is a small community centered around a VA hospital and The Loma Linda University Medical School and Medical Center, about 60 miles from L.A. Two bedroom apts rent for $900 per month.
I moved from New Jersey to California 50 years ago, I have seen huge changes in California, largely due to all the new people moving here, and once here, they later move to less crowded areas and mess things up. My last move was from San Diego to Lake Arrowhead. Please do not move to Lake Arrowhead, don't even visit Lake Arrowhead. The roads are dangerous, we don't have shopping malls, we have lots of trees .... I've said too much already.
7
If I had a group of friends in LA, I would cash in on the absurd real estate bubble here and head west in a NY minute.
3
So New Yorkers decide to seek a place where the winters aren't bad, hurricanes don't hit (though earthquakes do), you don't have to wear this week's designer uniform or appease a co-op board, and studios don't run close to a million (though houses that aren't very big can still run over that amount, especially toward the west, and 'discover' L.A. Bohemian paradise? Folks, that town isn't exactly a bargain in the real estate department, and those who can build a business working from home need to network there as much as anywhere else. Laid back? Not as it was in the '60s when rents and home prices were tolerable, but compared to Manhattan and its trendoid satellites in Brooklyn just about anything is, except maybe for the military academies. At least it still has Venice, which isn't cheap either but where all sorts manage to co-exist, including people with petitions for all sorts of political agendas, including the kind that would probably get them arrested in New York, or for that matter South Florida.
That said, the last thing anyone wants there is Manhattanisation. But here's where I have to laugh. There IS an entire, huge country between the coasts, with a lot of other interesting cities, towns, and plenty of rural areas. True, none of it much resembles the East Village or Billyburg or Tribeca, which is just as well. And it even welcomes - gasp! - New Yorkers who are willing to leave New York behind. Try it. With an open mind, you might even like it!
That said, the last thing anyone wants there is Manhattanisation. But here's where I have to laugh. There IS an entire, huge country between the coasts, with a lot of other interesting cities, towns, and plenty of rural areas. True, none of it much resembles the East Village or Billyburg or Tribeca, which is just as well. And it even welcomes - gasp! - New Yorkers who are willing to leave New York behind. Try it. With an open mind, you might even like it!
3
50 years ago when I graduated from Columbia Engineering, I took my first job in Palo Alto California. The town was beautiful and the air smelled from jasmine flowers. The sky was always blue and the temperature was always in the 70s. People said to me, you've come to the right place. This area is really going to become something big!. Yeh right, I thought and moved to San Diego. One thing that San Diego and Palo Alto have in common is all the people are generally glad they don't live in LA. After a couple years in San Diego, finding that every time I met a girl, she lived in LA, I finally moved there way back at the end of the 60s. Once in a while I visit NY and yes it's an exciting city but very expensive and no place to work for an aerospace engineer. The biggest problem leaving your home town, New York or other is missing your family and long time friends. Now 50 years later, I can say that is a big regret but all in all it was a good choice for me. This month, I'm returning to Columbia for my 50th graduation reunion. I went to LA young and am coming back to NY an oldster. Wow, how did that happen?
12
Why I like New York:
• Regularly bumped into Adriana Lima on my way to work in Soho
• Standing in line next to Christy Turlington on a weekly Yoga class
• Rode the #6 Train everyday with our Mayor.
• Ride the C Train on daily basis with people who make 7 - possibly 8 - figures annually.
• Sat above Mercedes and Syd Bass at the Gala opening of Madamme Butterfly at the Metropolitan Opera
• Live across from one of the Olsen twins in the non-glamorous part of town - and no body made a fuss
• Have lunch at the local bodega surrounded by a bevy cast of Victoria Secret Angels
• Go horseback riding on weekend mounting the best thoroughbred horses at the legendary CZ Guest's former estate.
• Order the best Thai curry duck at 10:00 pm and get it delivered pronto at 10:20 pm at your door step.
• Your server at the bodega speaks Queen's English as opposed to Spanglish with attitude......
• Taking your sweetheart to dinner at a local Indian restaurant and got seated next to Tom Ford
• Going to see "Hamilton" at the local theatre and got seated in front of the Clintons - and nobody made a fuss
• Taking a weekly jog at the most amazing promenade in modern time: The Highline
• It takes only 5.5 hours to go to London
And I am poor by any measure.
In what city can you have all of that without being rich?
No city is more Democratic than New York City.
• Regularly bumped into Adriana Lima on my way to work in Soho
• Standing in line next to Christy Turlington on a weekly Yoga class
• Rode the #6 Train everyday with our Mayor.
• Ride the C Train on daily basis with people who make 7 - possibly 8 - figures annually.
• Sat above Mercedes and Syd Bass at the Gala opening of Madamme Butterfly at the Metropolitan Opera
• Live across from one of the Olsen twins in the non-glamorous part of town - and no body made a fuss
• Have lunch at the local bodega surrounded by a bevy cast of Victoria Secret Angels
• Go horseback riding on weekend mounting the best thoroughbred horses at the legendary CZ Guest's former estate.
• Order the best Thai curry duck at 10:00 pm and get it delivered pronto at 10:20 pm at your door step.
• Your server at the bodega speaks Queen's English as opposed to Spanglish with attitude......
• Taking your sweetheart to dinner at a local Indian restaurant and got seated next to Tom Ford
• Going to see "Hamilton" at the local theatre and got seated in front of the Clintons - and nobody made a fuss
• Taking a weekly jog at the most amazing promenade in modern time: The Highline
• It takes only 5.5 hours to go to London
And I am poor by any measure.
In what city can you have all of that without being rich?
No city is more Democratic than New York City.
12
You keep using that word "democratic". I do not think it means what you think it means.
3
AND WHO AGAIN ARE THE PEOPLE YOU ARE MENTIONING? Never heard of them - and that's not a bad thing, I'm sure. So, perfect. You'll stay where you can watch the Olson twins (again ???) and we'll stay where we can watch mountain lions and hummingbirds....fair enough deal, no?
5
@Ted Pikur:
Demoratic as in - adj:
Relating to, appealing to, or available to the broad masses of people
LA is very democratic, too.
But the car culture - and hideous traffic - erases the basic factor of "social leveler": Easy access to everything for everyone.
Demoratic as in - adj:
Relating to, appealing to, or available to the broad masses of people
LA is very democratic, too.
But the car culture - and hideous traffic - erases the basic factor of "social leveler": Easy access to everything for everyone.
I'm an LA native now living in NY. Someday I'm gonna go back home, and I'm looking forward to meeting New Yorkers all suffused with the LA vibe. When I come back, I'll have New York all over me, too, & I won't be the same, but hey, it's SoCal! The golden west, where all is forgiven.
2
from the article: “Want to shoot a music video? Just put up a Facebook message and within hours you’ll have 15 responses from incredibly talented, passionate people who want to work for free, because they believe in you and your art.”
Enthusiasm for creative projects is a part of LA that gets short shrift. Everyone, with a capital E, is either finishing a novel, writing a script, looking for a part, or trying to get their first song into a studio to record...visual artists of varying mediums produce works of varying merit, but nevertheless, they produce.
Yet, read between the lines.
You can say you have a project, and a dozen people immediately call to offer their abilities...for free.
FREE.
That speaks to something else: maybe two something else's actually. Here is a culture -- nationally -- that doesn't much honor or care about art, let alone understand it in any fluent sense. And secondly, more importantly for sustainability and raising the cultural production bar for art in our country -- like other labors and laborers in the US , they are paid NOTHING.
Nothing is not a wage, it's water. It slips through your hands when you try to eat. It trickles away into gutters when you try to pay the rent. It mocks you when you say, "I'm a poet, a painter, a musician, a writer, an actor, a director...."
And that says something about what we admire and like and value.
And it's not saying much to recommend us, frankly.
We produce despite the culture's resistance.
Enthusiasm for creative projects is a part of LA that gets short shrift. Everyone, with a capital E, is either finishing a novel, writing a script, looking for a part, or trying to get their first song into a studio to record...visual artists of varying mediums produce works of varying merit, but nevertheless, they produce.
Yet, read between the lines.
You can say you have a project, and a dozen people immediately call to offer their abilities...for free.
FREE.
That speaks to something else: maybe two something else's actually. Here is a culture -- nationally -- that doesn't much honor or care about art, let alone understand it in any fluent sense. And secondly, more importantly for sustainability and raising the cultural production bar for art in our country -- like other labors and laborers in the US , they are paid NOTHING.
Nothing is not a wage, it's water. It slips through your hands when you try to eat. It trickles away into gutters when you try to pay the rent. It mocks you when you say, "I'm a poet, a painter, a musician, a writer, an actor, a director...."
And that says something about what we admire and like and value.
And it's not saying much to recommend us, frankly.
We produce despite the culture's resistance.
6
As someone who owns a place in both cities :-) I find many of comments below humorous.
NYC overall is stronger culturally. It has the better museums, theatre but LA is no slouch either.
Despite the innovative places to eat in LA, NYC restaurant food seem to taste better (at least to me). Its gotta be the water.
Farmers markets in LA beats NYC easily. They can grow more varieties of vegetables and fruit over there.
They're more health conscious in LA. This is reflected in all the vegetarian restaurants and cold pressed juice places you see around.
For those who rent in LA, the prices are probably going to get worse over time in many neighborhoods. The places mentioned in this article are gentrifying at a breakneck pace. They remind me of Brooklyn in the early 2000s.
While the NYC subway is hard to match, you can get by in LA with public transportation. I don't keep a car in LA and I walk or use the bus. The big blue bus is only $1. It's 0.50 if you're over65. Metro is $1.75. I rarely need to use Uber. There are neighborhoods in LA where you can walk for virtually all of your living needs just like there are neighborhoods in NYC that are far from the subway or general amenities.
NYers seem to be obsessed about attending elite colleges. People don't seem to care out west. Otherwise the people don't seem so different.
>300 days sunshine makes growing old in LA far better, drought or not.
Both places tax you to death. So make your primary address FL, NV, TX, or WA
NYC overall is stronger culturally. It has the better museums, theatre but LA is no slouch either.
Despite the innovative places to eat in LA, NYC restaurant food seem to taste better (at least to me). Its gotta be the water.
Farmers markets in LA beats NYC easily. They can grow more varieties of vegetables and fruit over there.
They're more health conscious in LA. This is reflected in all the vegetarian restaurants and cold pressed juice places you see around.
For those who rent in LA, the prices are probably going to get worse over time in many neighborhoods. The places mentioned in this article are gentrifying at a breakneck pace. They remind me of Brooklyn in the early 2000s.
While the NYC subway is hard to match, you can get by in LA with public transportation. I don't keep a car in LA and I walk or use the bus. The big blue bus is only $1. It's 0.50 if you're over65. Metro is $1.75. I rarely need to use Uber. There are neighborhoods in LA where you can walk for virtually all of your living needs just like there are neighborhoods in NYC that are far from the subway or general amenities.
NYers seem to be obsessed about attending elite colleges. People don't seem to care out west. Otherwise the people don't seem so different.
>300 days sunshine makes growing old in LA far better, drought or not.
Both places tax you to death. So make your primary address FL, NV, TX, or WA
6
do you need a responsible house-sitter for either place? that would be so SoCal and I'm the artist-gal for it!
1
Nevada has zero income tax and zero inheritance tax. If I want to go to LA it is only a 45 minute inexpensive flight or a 4 hour drive. Frankly the food is better in Las Vegas than LA. New York is better than LA or Las Vegas but the taxes in New York and LA are incredibly high. The taxes that I save by living in Las Vegas pay for a lot of meals and entertainment.
@Sabine:
I thought you would be too busy watching the hummingbirds?
-:)
I thought you would be too busy watching the hummingbirds?
-:)
There goes the neighborhood - which has already gone to the multi-millionaires and billionaires from all over the globe, and the relentlessly greedy landlords. In fact, artists, writers, Industry workers (think the working class of movies) can no longer afford to live in LA. Yet again, the NYTimes believes the world is all upper middle class and entitled.
5
How is it that these articles, almost always, manage to find the three most non-New York girls that came from no-where, moved to Brooklyn or Manhattan for two years, couldn't make it, and then leave?
Just once (rather for the first time in 10 years) it would be nice to read an article like this about someone who was in New York in the 80's or 90's (age group 35-45 year olds) with a change or lifestyle. Why always the 25 year old girl who pretty much missed everything, yet portrayed like some rough pioneer?
Oh that's right, these are the liberals daughters who read and pay for this publication. You need to write this. Never mind..
Just once (rather for the first time in 10 years) it would be nice to read an article like this about someone who was in New York in the 80's or 90's (age group 35-45 year olds) with a change or lifestyle. Why always the 25 year old girl who pretty much missed everything, yet portrayed like some rough pioneer?
Oh that's right, these are the liberals daughters who read and pay for this publication. You need to write this. Never mind..
16
Out here in California you can always spot the newly arrived New York middle age yuppie Dad. Pressed khakis, ironed button down shirt and loafers on THE WEEKEND. Good lord, Californians do not even wear that kind of get up TO WORK on the WEEKDAYS.
The khaki button down loafer New York yuppie Dad is also asking everyone what they do for a living and looks vaguely stressed. Again, on the WEEKEND.
After about six or eight weeks, after he's settled in and taken a look around and maybe been told by a few close friends, he starts wearing jeans and tennis shoes and stops asking people what they do for a living and then, after a few more months, when its December and it's 70 and sunny and people are gliding around on their bikes, he starts to relax a little bit.
The khaki button down loafer New York yuppie Dad is also asking everyone what they do for a living and looks vaguely stressed. Again, on the WEEKEND.
After about six or eight weeks, after he's settled in and taken a look around and maybe been told by a few close friends, he starts wearing jeans and tennis shoes and stops asking people what they do for a living and then, after a few more months, when its December and it's 70 and sunny and people are gliding around on their bikes, he starts to relax a little bit.
3
Some people like snow in the winter and find endless 70 degree days boring.
To each their own.
To each their own.
Moving from pricey New York to slightly-less-pricey-yet-still expensive L.A. does not exactly conjure up images of starving artists struggling against the tide of society to create something great and memorable. It sounds more like your average young professional hipsters relocating from one fab scenester paradise to another. The only difference is in L.A. the weather is warm and it hardly ever rains and you probably get so comfortable that after awhile you find yourself painting sunsets for a living.
9
Finally a seemingly significant number of New Yorkers are leaving this crowded city lured by the warm glories of the West Coast. Can someone please tell this to the tourist!!! Walking around almost everywhere in NYC has become a zigzag puzzle. Good riddance!!!
3
Am I the only one who feels bilious reading phrases like "young creatives" and "influencers"? I'm so tired of monkey-see, monkey-do English.
22
Wayne: No.
1
I wonder if the lack of water came to mind on the plus and minus grid.
15
I was in New York last fall and was struck by the rudeness of everyone from the Uber drivers to the baristas. Customers at the deli yelling about who gets the last bagel. Nobody saying hello. Everyone rushing around. Extremely money-centric.
I was in LA the following week. Laid back, sunny, easy-going, polite, people taking their time, less focus on achievement/resume, more on how people truly are.
This might read like a strange sentence, but choosing to live in Los Angeles instead of New York is a very enlightened choice.
I was in LA the following week. Laid back, sunny, easy-going, polite, people taking their time, less focus on achievement/resume, more on how people truly are.
This might read like a strange sentence, but choosing to live in Los Angeles instead of New York is a very enlightened choice.
13
I really like LA. Similar could be said about Phoenix, AZ.
1
What a great country we live in. To be able to discuss the virtues of two completely different and equally amazing cities. Two cities where you do not have to cross borders, show passports, or speak another language. Shouldn't we be celebrating these differences instead of positing that one is better than the other? Isn't it simply amazing that both of these great cities belong to the same country and the same people? Juss sayin….
9
How about SLC? A growing dynamic downtown with a blue mayor and an easy going vibe. You will not find a mid sized city with better and easy access to outdoor activities. If you're willing to be part of an urban pioneer movement you may want to look into Ogden, UT. Several outdoor companies have moved into Ogden.
1
SLC isn't mid-sized. It's a tiny, tiny city with absolutely nothing to do. I went there last February to ski. The snow was great but it was so excruciatingly boring at night that I'll never go back.
1
Many of my friends have left or are leaving, Reminds me of the early 60s. And it's not just for LA this time... so many to Miami.
3
My Swedish grandparents on both sides settled in LA the 1930s. My sister and me were born in the same hospital as our parents in downtown LA. I've been in Portland for 17 years now, and it's a pretty special place. NYC, where my husband was born and raised, is a great visit for me, but my husband hates going back. Take away from the article is that if you're looking for something that fits your lifestyle go with it. That's why we're in Oregon.
1
The 9% state income tax and very high inheritance tax do not make Oregon special.
1
People have always been moving out of NY and CA, yet the rents and population of both places keep moving up.
2
This is a rather interesting article. NYC is an interesting place to visit, but I would not live there for millions of dollars. The "art scene" discussed in the article is the smallest part of LA, and most of what is produced by these transplants will never be recognized. I scarcely ever notice it. Most of the New Yorkers I run across are rude, pushy, and snobbish. We can certainly do without them. We westerners all know that everything good comes from the West, at least in this country.
4
Wherever you go, there you are.
7
Aside from not taking the expense & onus of car ownership into consideration, everything in L.A. seems a long drive from everywhere else. Every time I'm there I feel as though I'm living on Santa Monica Blvd. in traffic.
2
This true, pls stay away:)
I lived in San Diego while in grad school, and I fell in love with California. The space, proximity to nature, slower pace, and beautiful weather was a balm for my soul. It still holds a dear place in my heart and I visit frequently. But after 9/11, I knew that I had to return to my city, to the people -- yes the rude, inconsiderate, yet full-hearted, brave, stubborn people -- who have endured so many disasters yet have never been broken.
With California facing such a severe drought, I would not move back there, much as I love it. No, when I ever leave NYC I'll be downsizing to a smaller city that's easier to live in, with hopefully many of the same things I have loved about both coasts -- culture, walking, public transportation, natural beauty.
With California facing such a severe drought, I would not move back there, much as I love it. No, when I ever leave NYC I'll be downsizing to a smaller city that's easier to live in, with hopefully many of the same things I have loved about both coasts -- culture, walking, public transportation, natural beauty.
2
There's definitely a shift in the way NYers and the rest of the world view LA. It used to be that NYers complained about not having good pizza and bagels. With our expanding palates for international cuisine, you can't really say that anymore without seeming unsophisticated. There are now whole categories of cuisines lacking in quality in NYC that exist in abundance in LA. And there's a write-up about it every single month reminding people of this.
The other major complaint was about the lack of culture. And again, one can't make that complaint anymore without seeming unknowledgable. NYC still has the galleries and money, but the artists are now in LA. The city is also in an enviable position where great private collections are now staying in the city rather than going to an established east coast institution or straight to auction. It's the most exciting place for art right now.
It seems that, one by one, each NY complaint eventually gets retired what with the pace that LA is growing and changing. Or it's that NYers just eventually go LA-native. Like sushi in the 70s, organic food in the 80s, anti-smoking bans in the 90s. NYers love to ridicule it, but eventually they catch on.
The other major complaint was about the lack of culture. And again, one can't make that complaint anymore without seeming unknowledgable. NYC still has the galleries and money, but the artists are now in LA. The city is also in an enviable position where great private collections are now staying in the city rather than going to an established east coast institution or straight to auction. It's the most exciting place for art right now.
It seems that, one by one, each NY complaint eventually gets retired what with the pace that LA is growing and changing. Or it's that NYers just eventually go LA-native. Like sushi in the 70s, organic food in the 80s, anti-smoking bans in the 90s. NYers love to ridicule it, but eventually they catch on.
3
Blech. You can have them all. Do whatever you can to attract more of them.
The best part about living in Los Angeles as a transplanted New Yorker, is going to Dodger Stadium, and rooting for the boys in blue! You just can't beat it. Sandy Koufax is alive and kicking, Dodger Dogs, Peanuts, Beer, and, of course, the living legend, Vin Scully, announcing at every game. It doesn't get any better than that. Both sides of my family are from Brooklyn circa 1865. OG all the way. Recommendation - If you're considering a move to LA, and want to avoid the neophytes, move to the SF Valley, it's a hipster-free-zone.
2
Just don't come to New Mexico and we'll be cool.
4
Before I lived in LA my whole life I heard how awful it was, before we moved there I had nightmares, but when we got down there it was amazing and I loved it. I have only visited NYC, but found it also wonderful and friendly and fun. Funny thing is when I was in LA I never heard people there talk about other cities or denigrate them, it is as if dissing LA is a hobby in every other city.
Also many people just don't get to know LA well enough to see its wonder, and the part I lived in West LA we owned 1 car for a family of 5 and walked everywhere. LA is like many cities and one can even walk in some.
Also many people just don't get to know LA well enough to see its wonder, and the part I lived in West LA we owned 1 car for a family of 5 and walked everywhere. LA is like many cities and one can even walk in some.
1
If LA is such a big draw then how come everyone i know who moved out there wishes they lived here. Problem is this has been going on since the 70s when all my friends had wanderlust in their 20s. the West Coast was the place to be not the rotting East Coast. they all eventually moved back here.
I left NY in 1980. I left LA in 2011. I found Charlottesville, and then Virginia's Eastern Shore. For artists, I choose Charlottesville, where you really CAN afford to live, and where visual artists and writers and musicians truly do welcome newcomers, young and not-so-young.
4
Agreed. I've never been to Charlottesville, but if I were a young, starving creative, I'd choose someplace like Savannah or Charleston or Asheville. Cheap, decent weather, and a lot of artists. The internet makes it a lot easier to be discovered--or you could be a big fish in a small pond.
Someone please tell all the New Yorkers in LA that the law says you can turn right at a red light after you make a stop.
7
I do not agree with this article at all. LA is no where near better. I am a transplant from the Midwest and had the option of both NYC or LA for work. Ironically I picked NYC and my company sends me to LA every week. The difference between LA and NYC is the weather, how you get around and attitude of the people. NYC has seasons, LA does not. NYC everyone wants to be close to Manhatten, LA people just want to be in cool spots (echo park according to this article). NYC has public transit, LA everyone drives and pays for valet. The average commute distance for most people is the same in either NYC or LA is probably the same. At the end of the day it is preference. I feel LA is more laid back and slow, while NYC is energetic and fast paced.
In the 1980s, whenever the Mets played in Los Angeles, there was often a contingent of expat New Yorkers sitting high, high up behind home plate, many wearing Mets caps. One afternoon I happened to sit just below the pack, numbering around 80 that day. They were loud, cocky, disdainful of the Dodgers, and generally wouldn’t shut up. They argued incessantly about the big nosh in Manhattan, the best bagels, the best, the best. The chatter was tres snarky and got to be wearisome. They talked about NYC more than the action on the field.
Finally a local guy in a group of working men - he had a plumbing company’s T-shirt on - turned around and stared at them for a long moment, and said, “Hey! Show some respect to my home town, okay?”
One of the expats made a smart remark. The workman rose and confronted him. The expat apologized. The Angeleno took his seat and the game went on. That quieted the expats for the rest of the game, but until then I’d never experienced what’s described here. I lived in LA for 21 years, until recently. It’s vastly different from NYC. To each his own. Bon voyage, emigres.
Finally a local guy in a group of working men - he had a plumbing company’s T-shirt on - turned around and stared at them for a long moment, and said, “Hey! Show some respect to my home town, okay?”
One of the expats made a smart remark. The workman rose and confronted him. The expat apologized. The Angeleno took his seat and the game went on. That quieted the expats for the rest of the game, but until then I’d never experienced what’s described here. I lived in LA for 21 years, until recently. It’s vastly different from NYC. To each his own. Bon voyage, emigres.
6
Leaving New York for Los Angeles? Yes, there are some reasons to do that, but Southern California has its own unique unpleasantness, like earthquakes and a dearth of water. I think that's a wash. Six months in each place appeals to me.
4
I left NY in 1994 and arrived in LA that year and only started liking LA in 2008.
What critiques have been piled on about LA by NY? It's celebrities only. Coming from the city of Page Six, Donald Trump, supermodels, the art scene, the restaurant scene, the money scene, the advertising scene, the one-upmanship scene of everywhere, that's quite funny.
The factors of life in LA are changing. There is a lot of great public transportation now. The old neighborhoods and the old parts of town are now the new cool places. There are interesting places to explore, to eat, to live, to walk in.
And LA is quite the opposite of plastic. It's overwhelmingly poor, Latino, gritty, crowded, littered, sometimes dangerous, but mostly just a polyglot place of many millions trying to make it and survive. The real city, if it exists, is somewhere east of LaCienega and stretching for 100 miles into the desert. It encompasses artists, but also scientists, researchers, astronomers, pilots, truckers, bikers, students, whores, and families.
And just now I came from Santa Monica, and passed the new Expo Line, which will make it possible to ride by train from downtown to the beach by way of Culver City.
It will be glorious, because it will be new and fast and it won't involve driving.
And then the stereotypes can begin all over again about Lindsay Lohan throwing up on the train, or whatever they want to make up that is false and misleading.
What critiques have been piled on about LA by NY? It's celebrities only. Coming from the city of Page Six, Donald Trump, supermodels, the art scene, the restaurant scene, the money scene, the advertising scene, the one-upmanship scene of everywhere, that's quite funny.
The factors of life in LA are changing. There is a lot of great public transportation now. The old neighborhoods and the old parts of town are now the new cool places. There are interesting places to explore, to eat, to live, to walk in.
And LA is quite the opposite of plastic. It's overwhelmingly poor, Latino, gritty, crowded, littered, sometimes dangerous, but mostly just a polyglot place of many millions trying to make it and survive. The real city, if it exists, is somewhere east of LaCienega and stretching for 100 miles into the desert. It encompasses artists, but also scientists, researchers, astronomers, pilots, truckers, bikers, students, whores, and families.
And just now I came from Santa Monica, and passed the new Expo Line, which will make it possible to ride by train from downtown to the beach by way of Culver City.
It will be glorious, because it will be new and fast and it won't involve driving.
And then the stereotypes can begin all over again about Lindsay Lohan throwing up on the train, or whatever they want to make up that is false and misleading.
6
Maybe if enough of those frustrated artists and hipster creative types leave New York, rents there will go down and I can finally afford to move back home. A fantasy, I know, but a displaced New Yorker can dream. Can't he?
The mark of a true New Yorker is not how much you complain, or how rude you may seem to others, but how much you miss it after you've gone. Many of these defectors will learn that the hard way.
The mark of a true New Yorker is not how much you complain, or how rude you may seem to others, but how much you miss it after you've gone. Many of these defectors will learn that the hard way.
27
Well, now I feel better about living in Philadelphia.
7
Two thoughts on this article:
1. Almost all the transplanted New Yorkers in LA read the New York Times daily because, deep down, they still miss it.
2. Re- Moby- he may have been born on 148th street, but the man grew up in suburban Connecticut, which is more similar to LA than NYC. All of those "pool" shots reflect his love of the suburbs, not urban life. He was never really a city boy, just one of those B&T people that claim to be real NYers, and then go back to some form of suburban life.
1. Almost all the transplanted New Yorkers in LA read the New York Times daily because, deep down, they still miss it.
2. Re- Moby- he may have been born on 148th street, but the man grew up in suburban Connecticut, which is more similar to LA than NYC. All of those "pool" shots reflect his love of the suburbs, not urban life. He was never really a city boy, just one of those B&T people that claim to be real NYers, and then go back to some form of suburban life.
11
In the song (and truth) of Randy Newman, I love LA. I guess it's like being a Cubbies fan. You have no idea how it happened, but there you are. This city is in my blood. Would I rather be somewhere else? In February? Yes! Until I get there.
Just remember, nothing really exists until New Yorkers discover it. Even though the locals think it might have been there all along.
7
LA is an awful place. New York is amazing, but Seattle is a friendlier, cleaner, more 'environmentally diverse" location.
Pizza's not as good, but with tons of bars and fusion restaurants, and legal marijuana - who cares?
Pizza's not as good, but with tons of bars and fusion restaurants, and legal marijuana - who cares?
Lived in Seattle for two years. Couldn't get out fast enough. Worst place I ever lived including Germany.
"For $600 less than the $1,850 a month Ms. Turner was paying for her grim junior one-bedroom in Greenpoint, she found a charming two-bedroom 1920s bungalow in Echo Park with a gated yard, cactuses, a barbecue, a separate work studio and a garage."
Someone please tell me where in Echo Park you can find this. It does not exist anymore, maybe 10 years ago...
Someone please tell me where in Echo Park you can find this. It does not exist anymore, maybe 10 years ago...
19
I was thinking the same thing, M S! In fact, you can't find "a charming two-bedroom 1920s bungalow in Echo Park with a gated yard, cactuses, a barbecue, a separate work studio and a garage" for $1,850 either. More like $2,600 to $3000. And from where I sit in Santa Monica: No difference from NYC prices. If one includes entertainment, I'd say life is more expensive in Santa Monica than in NYC because there are not nearly as many completely free art and entertainment events around Los Angeles as there are in NYC.
1
Maybe some folks moved to SoCal because it is almost impossible to be depressed when it's 70 degrees and sunny virtually every day. The possibilities seem limitless and the sunshine almost compels you to engage endorphin pumping activities. Yes, we have traffic and our taxes are high and water levels low. Still, the magic of Southern California is real. There is simply no place like it.
5
How long can any city thrive if residency is motivated by selfish interest? Ask not what Los Angeles (or New York) can do for you, ask what you can do for New York (or Los Angeles.
1
Anyone who heads to LA to escape rising rents is not paying attention to what is happening in California, in general, and LA in particular. They are in for a rude awakening.
https://emcphd.wordpress.com
https://emcphd.wordpress.com
4
"charming two-bedroom 1920s bungalow in Echo Park with a gated yard, cactuses, a barbecue, a separate work studio and a garage." for $1250 - Hilarious
28
The article doesn't really deal with driving. That's a big difference: the last time I was in LA I drove and drove and drove, and kept feeling like I never got anywhere. I was so tired I almost fell asleep at the wheel. And the freeways! Tailgating at 60mph- I just stayed in the right lane because otherwise I had no idea how I'd get off.
New York is one of the few U S cities where you can totally get around by public transportation. I'm staying right here ( and I believe there will be a Second Avenue subway, she said, fingers crossed).
New York is one of the few U S cities where you can totally get around by public transportation. I'm staying right here ( and I believe there will be a Second Avenue subway, she said, fingers crossed).
14
That's 3000 miles away;
more distance than most of the
so called aliens travel to come
from Mexico to LA ?
more distance than most of the
so called aliens travel to come
from Mexico to LA ?
What is most frustrating about this article is that it reopens the NY vs LA debate, as if there are no other cities worth exploring in the USA. My mother fell in love with Minneapolis after attending an art conference there as did an oboist friend of mine who did some gigging there. I've never heard a bad thing about Austin. New Orleans, Portland, Seattle, Providence, Nashville, and even Pittsburgh all have culture to offer.
And how in the name of heaven does Chicago get left off any list of great American cities?
I am from Connecticut, and as a child spent lots of wonderful trips with my parents exploring NYCs culture. As an adult, I was fortunate to do some traveling abroad before winding up in Los Angeles for 6 years. Now, I am in New Zealand.
The verdict. Anywhere you live will teach you something and engage you if you bother to open your mind.
And how in the name of heaven does Chicago get left off any list of great American cities?
I am from Connecticut, and as a child spent lots of wonderful trips with my parents exploring NYCs culture. As an adult, I was fortunate to do some traveling abroad before winding up in Los Angeles for 6 years. Now, I am in New Zealand.
The verdict. Anywhere you live will teach you something and engage you if you bother to open your mind.
26
Traffic? How about that? Water? Have any water in CA. There is no place to go for all the looneys that keep moving west.
LA is not NY. Never will be. It is the mindless place where dumb tv and dumber movies are made. If the creative class is going to change the media industry then they can have the weather for free. Too bad the water.
LA is not NY. Never will be. It is the mindless place where dumb tv and dumber movies are made. If the creative class is going to change the media industry then they can have the weather for free. Too bad the water.
2
Bill,
Chill out. Let them go. What's the loss? Adios.
Chill out. Let them go. What's the loss? Adios.
Hey LOVE NYC, but that west coast life style is not just better then here, it's 10X better. And that is why friends are leaving for California, (water issues and all). In droves they are leaving, sure they'll be replaced by shinny new comers, but smart people are leaving town.
And these brave souls are not flakes, they are some of the most creative people I've met. And they should not be leaving town, they really shouldn't. It seems like NYC is committed to a long, drawn out self-suicide, I can't figure it out. Sure we have Greenpoint, and Bushwick, but the smart people are on their way out, they really are, and no one in NYC govt gets it, they really don't.
Bye, bye NYC, heading to the burgeoning (exploding!) Oakland tech community, This 5th generation New Yorker did not leave NYC, NYC left me.
NYC will survive of course, and tech is hot, but the "we make money the old fashioned way", it's too in-grained in our DNA now. Radical change from the top has to happen, but not seeing it. I'll wait and see __ and I'll keep an eye out on my home town, as I dip my toes in that pale blue pacific, with MacBook in hand. :-)
And these brave souls are not flakes, they are some of the most creative people I've met. And they should not be leaving town, they really shouldn't. It seems like NYC is committed to a long, drawn out self-suicide, I can't figure it out. Sure we have Greenpoint, and Bushwick, but the smart people are on their way out, they really are, and no one in NYC govt gets it, they really don't.
Bye, bye NYC, heading to the burgeoning (exploding!) Oakland tech community, This 5th generation New Yorker did not leave NYC, NYC left me.
NYC will survive of course, and tech is hot, but the "we make money the old fashioned way", it's too in-grained in our DNA now. Radical change from the top has to happen, but not seeing it. I'll wait and see __ and I'll keep an eye out on my home town, as I dip my toes in that pale blue pacific, with MacBook in hand. :-)
6
If only people would not keep moving to New York, the city would be a far better place.
But alas...
But alas...
All the debate about NY vs. LA misses the point. In NY and LA middle class people live like poor people because of the high cost of living. In the midwest you can live in a 5,000 square foot house and drive nice cars while working normal hours and not sitting in traffic all day. Whike we have fewer museums and restaurants than NY or LA, most people do not consume enough culture and restaurant food to exhaust our local supply.
I have lived in both NY and LA, as well as Boston and DC and Philly. The Midwest is highly underrated compared to the larger coastal cities.
I have lived in both NY and LA, as well as Boston and DC and Philly. The Midwest is highly underrated compared to the larger coastal cities.
4
Sorry, but the mentality that a 5k square foot house is desirable is why no one with any sense wants to live in the Midwest (except maybe Chicago or Minneapolis, where most people don't want McMansions).
Lauren, you may not want 5000 square feet or a McMansion -- but many (f not most) people DO, especially if they are married with kids. NYC has very few affordable apartments that are roomy enough for two adults and 2-3 children. And forget about a yard!
Your home is a pretty important part of where you spend time, relax and live your life -- unless you are a complete workaholic. In which case, it doesn't matter WHERE you live.
Your home is a pretty important part of where you spend time, relax and live your life -- unless you are a complete workaholic. In which case, it doesn't matter WHERE you live.
How come it's always "an" artist but "the" writer? As though I should know the writer, but not any other profession?
3
Because it's grammatically correct.
1
Just started the bi-coastal thing in September of 2014 and am loving it so far. I started out in NY and slowly migrated west and now I have a full appreciation for the love/hate relationship with both cities. I can't imagine living in either full-time anymore. When I get back to NY from anywhere else I always breathe a sigh of relief that I've left the flyover wasteland (Sorry I'm not sorry, America). When I get on the plane to LA I always get excited about great weather and the "new life" I have out there with its stress free, non-combative nature. When I get back to NY from LA I'm always jarred and miserable the first day or two (especially at the taxi line at JFK where everyone who works there seems insanely angry) until I go to an "only in NYC" type event like a concert at Radio City. The takeaway? Both cities are fantastic for different reasons and if you can swing living in both, DO IT.
1
I left the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn for Oakland, California in 1996..I love NYC but couldn't do another winter...I got into an MFA program near San Francisco and just went
1
I know my way around an espresso machine. I too will move to Echo Park to write a novel.
2
Writing as a native Brooklynite who long ago fled West, and having some familiarity with LA, I can say that the article might capture a very small minority of transplants. There's almost no comparison between the walkability and seamless (but tiresome) transit of NY, and the car-enslavement (and crawling traffic) of SoCal. The Hispanic immigrant monoculture of many areas of LA are also a world apart from the tower-of-babel diversity you find in NY. I've chosen to avoid both coasts, with some regret as I love the ocean, but they can't be compared as they fit very different types of lifestyle well. I personally prefer less dense parts of America, more reasonable real estate prices (yes, with pools), and simpler career ladders for those lacking elite networks or trust funds to fall back on.
32
"Hispanic immigrant monoculture" what the?
Los Angeles has great Korean, Filipino, Armenian, Sri Lankan, Iranian, etc. etc. communities, it just goes on and on.
Los Angeles has great Korean, Filipino, Armenian, Sri Lankan, Iranian, etc. etc. communities, it just goes on and on.
4
Pools in Las Vegas? In other words, in the middle of the desert? Just checking.
Wrong. In southern CA, we also have the "tower-of-babel diversity". Long Beach, CA, where I live has been named the most diversified city in the U.S., and boasts the largest Cambodian population in the U.S. as well. Other places here have throngs of Vietnamese, every other Asian group imaginable, and Africans, & Europeans, from every place on those two continents. You claim you have 'some familiarity with L.A.', but you either have very little, or haven't bother checking out other parts of S. California.
One of the major reasons LA seems more congenial to the sophisticates of today is that it fits much better the culture these sophisticates admire.
NY and the east coast represents a cerebral culture, one based in writing, serious thinking, with careful and deliberate artistic and intellectual achievements. LA represents the hedonistic, the ad lib, one based in the cinema, spontaneous "creativity", and entertainment.
And it's clear that it's in the direction of the LA culture that we as a society are tending.
Who in America society cares anymore about the cerebral in any of its forms? Not the Kool Kidz of today. When is the last time you heard of them listening to Bach or Beethoven, or reading Tolstoy or Dickinson, or pondering Aristotle or Darwin or Einstein? In their crowd, those names inspire no admiration, and are more likely to induce derision.
NY and the east coast represents a cerebral culture, one based in writing, serious thinking, with careful and deliberate artistic and intellectual achievements. LA represents the hedonistic, the ad lib, one based in the cinema, spontaneous "creativity", and entertainment.
And it's clear that it's in the direction of the LA culture that we as a society are tending.
Who in America society cares anymore about the cerebral in any of its forms? Not the Kool Kidz of today. When is the last time you heard of them listening to Bach or Beethoven, or reading Tolstoy or Dickinson, or pondering Aristotle or Darwin or Einstein? In their crowd, those names inspire no admiration, and are more likely to induce derision.
7
And then All the New Yorkers come to LA tell us how much better it is in New York and proceed to mess up our quaint little neighborhoods. I live in Echo Park and have for over a quater of a century, My Mother as a child lived in an apartment five blocks away from the home I live in now.
New Yorkers and other East coast snobs have driven all the mom and pops out. We have hipster joints and Subway etc. Thanks allot. I could go onand on, needless to say most Angelinos don't share your east coast sensibilities and find quite a few of you obnoxious and find it quite peculiar that you want to move to LA to get away from the rat race yet can't help but try to turn our city into something you couldn't wait to get away from. I just seems so stupid.
Come become an Angelino leave your old life behind and quit trying to tell us we need to be more like your home town, We love our home town just as it is. Laid back and comfortable.
New Yorkers and other East coast snobs have driven all the mom and pops out. We have hipster joints and Subway etc. Thanks allot. I could go onand on, needless to say most Angelinos don't share your east coast sensibilities and find quite a few of you obnoxious and find it quite peculiar that you want to move to LA to get away from the rat race yet can't help but try to turn our city into something you couldn't wait to get away from. I just seems so stupid.
Come become an Angelino leave your old life behind and quit trying to tell us we need to be more like your home town, We love our home town just as it is. Laid back and comfortable.
3
Honestly, this native Angeleno (and devoted NYT reader) looks forward to the regular, and regularly idiotic, stories about L.A. They're hilarious. I'm so happy that Hamish and Andi's "friend circle" doesn't include boring people with 9-to-5 jobs, and that no one talks about what they do for a living, but taking a quote like that from some pleased-with-themselves artists and extrapolating it out into a whole thesis is ridiculous. My "friend circle" includes lots of folks in Echo Park, Silver Lake, Eagle Rock, and Los Feliz, and many of us run businesses or have jobs , and we talk about our work all the time. And that an entire major metropolis was "once just a city of jeans"-- really? That's the same as all the earlier articles that reference how we all get plastic surgery and don't read books. There has been a big change in downtown and many east-of-Western neighborhoods, but news flash: It has nothing to do with New Yorkers.
41
Please stop. Just STOP. New York snobbery represents everything we happily reject here in southern California. We don't want any uppity NY transplants, thank you. We. do. not. need. them. We have already figured out the perfect lifestyle---not the perfect 'look,' the actual perfect lifestyle. If you weren't raised with Pacific coast sand between your toes and Santa Ana wind in your hair, if you can't imagine wearing cut-off jeans to Whole Foods or sandals to work, you will probably not fit in here, and you are not welcome to change a thing, so why even bother relocating?? Stay there, please.
12
San Diego is the most boring city that I have ever visited. Forget about mass transit, you can't even find a taxi. And do not atempt
to walk anywhere farther than 1 mile. You may be stopped and asked for ID. By very pleasant police.
to walk anywhere farther than 1 mile. You may be stopped and asked for ID. By very pleasant police.
5
#GentrificationBait
On close inspection, talent clustering provides little in the way of trickle-down benefits. Its benefits flow disproportionately to more highly-skilled knowledge, professional, and creative workers whose higher wages and salaries are more than sufficient to cover more expensive housing in these locations. While less-skilled service and blue-collar workers also earn more money in knowledge-based metros, those gains disappear once their higher housing costs are taken into account.
I'd post the source of this quote, but White people aren't going to read it, anyway.
On close inspection, talent clustering provides little in the way of trickle-down benefits. Its benefits flow disproportionately to more highly-skilled knowledge, professional, and creative workers whose higher wages and salaries are more than sufficient to cover more expensive housing in these locations. While less-skilled service and blue-collar workers also earn more money in knowledge-based metros, those gains disappear once their higher housing costs are taken into account.
I'd post the source of this quote, but White people aren't going to read it, anyway.
4
Is New York still a thing?
10
Always.
Because we set the pulse of the American culture, like it or not.
It's like London for the UK and Milan for Italy.
Because we set the pulse of the American culture, like it or not.
It's like London for the UK and Milan for Italy.
Dear New Yorkers: you are welcome to make the move as I have, but if you don't hate NY by now, you might not get LA.
2
NYC is not what it was in the 70s or 80s (what is) but it still has art and the theater and hey some of us like all four seasons and not having to water our plants with the water we used to boil our pasta.
But I'm glad LA is doing so well.
But I'm glad LA is doing so well.
2
Creative class? Is that anything like spin class?
16
You know... people who follow each other around and tell each other they are great. Educated, yes. Materialistic and competitive. Artistic? Artists mostly don't live inside a high rent TV shows filmed at either location.
2
People are complaining about the influx of young, educated creative folks to their city?
4
Yes. The ones who aren't educated or creative.
4
When I met an incredible woman in NY who was moving to Los Angeles for work, I knew it was a matter of time before I did the same. I had spent time in LA before, but my jaded NY mentality had not allowed me to really experience the beauty of this city. Now, with almost a year as an Angeleno (and engaged to the incredible woman!) I have grown to love this city. And within my year of living in the east side of LA, I have seen many of my closest NY friends make the same move. In July, my fiancee and I will take our first trip together back to NY since I moved. I definitely miss the NY pulse, but right now LA feels more like home than NY had in years.
1
Native Los Angeles residents are not happy to have you out-of-towners come here with your cars1
9
There are a lot of less stressful places than NYC or LA. NYC has cold winters but winter in a warm climate can take care of that. LA is going dry...literally. The shortage of water in Southern CA is real and will not be solved even with a return of more normal snowfall in the Sierra and Rocky mountains. Southern CA...the whole area... has enormous challenges ahead. The LA migration pattern is actually to arrive in LA as an immigrant and leave LA after becoming an American...if not sooner.
4
LA is affordable? Ha, only by NYC standards. By the way, real affordability is the flyover 98% of America between the two cities and there are a lot of creative places in those cities.
32
Listen, you're never going to have your cake and eat it. Hasn't this always been the essence of living in NYC? Perhaps the reason this article was written is because Brooklyn has become more expensive. Well, people, everywhere has become more expensive in this era of cheap money. Basic economics dictates that you live within your means. Pick up and leave NYC or Brooklyn if you cannot deal.
6
Is this the Onion? "Bearded young New Yorkers can snap up brioche tarts at Proof Bakery in Atwater Village, visit gallery shows at Shepard Fairey’s Subliminal Projects in Echo Park, or settle in over barrel-aged rye cocktails at Bar Stella in Silver Lake, and scarcely realize they are more than a stroll away from McCarren Park, except for the 70-degree sunshine tickling their cheeks in February."
33
The grass is always greener...
9
Except when it's kinda browner.
First, I read the article. I enjoyed it very much, but then I'm a West Coast person familiar with Los Angeles and understood the author's core point was the spirit of one city versus the spirit of the other.
Then I read the comments and was alarmed by the snarky responses mostly written by New York devotees. Your anger alone speaks loudly to your inner uncertainty that you may no longer worship at the knees of the queen of U.S. cities . . . which, in turn, simply sounds like sour grapes.
These are the primary differences between the two cities:
New Yorker's live in the most densely populated city in the country and everything you do to survive from day-to-day is a struggle. Much of your city is old and ugly and dirty. You spend 75% of your year dealing with unpleasant weather and most of you are confined to miniscule apartments without a spot of nature nearby without trudging along dirty sidewalks to get to Central Park. You are rats in a maze and don't seem to realize it.
Los Angeles, in contrast, is simply a healthier place to be for the mere fact you can be outside most days of the year where the air smells nice and sea breezes clear your mind. It is a youthful and inspired place where creativity and originality abound. And, most importantly, it has a lot of spirit not crippled by the endless struggle-to-survive so prevalent in New York City.
Then I read the comments and was alarmed by the snarky responses mostly written by New York devotees. Your anger alone speaks loudly to your inner uncertainty that you may no longer worship at the knees of the queen of U.S. cities . . . which, in turn, simply sounds like sour grapes.
These are the primary differences between the two cities:
New Yorker's live in the most densely populated city in the country and everything you do to survive from day-to-day is a struggle. Much of your city is old and ugly and dirty. You spend 75% of your year dealing with unpleasant weather and most of you are confined to miniscule apartments without a spot of nature nearby without trudging along dirty sidewalks to get to Central Park. You are rats in a maze and don't seem to realize it.
Los Angeles, in contrast, is simply a healthier place to be for the mere fact you can be outside most days of the year where the air smells nice and sea breezes clear your mind. It is a youthful and inspired place where creativity and originality abound. And, most importantly, it has a lot of spirit not crippled by the endless struggle-to-survive so prevalent in New York City.
19
What about Chicago?
If only the public transit was better, LA would be heaven on Earth for this ex-NYer.
2
I know I'm an outlier about this, but I relish the change of seasons and, yes, I enjoy winter with its blasts of freezing-cold air off the Hudson & snow & slush. I live a block from the Hudson River which is parkland. And since when is "old" equated with something negative?
3
As one born here and lived and worked all my life, I look forward to all of your new creative faces joining the masses I pass every day. Trust me, the only thing that may change for you might be the clothes you wear, but life still works the same here as it does there. However unique you may feel this new discovery will be for you, don't flatter yourself too much for making it, for we locals have realized it all along, only we just keep it to ourselves.
3
As a native New Yorker from Brooklyn who has spent the last 29 years in L.A. the last thing I would want is for L.A. to become anything at all resembling New York City. The way of life in L.A. is diametrically opposed to the way of life in N.Y.C. Whereas in N.Y. everyone rushes around like a chicken without a head, in L.A. reading in the garden bathed in warmth and sunshine can take up half a day. Whereas the streets of N.Y. are coated with dirt and graffiti, the streets of L.A. are filled with trees and plants and colors come from nature and not out of a stay bottle. When graffiti occurs, it is usually cleaned within a few days. Then there are the people. In N.Y.C. it would be hard to come across a pleasant smile or a courteous thank you. In L.A. it is an everyday occurrence. Sure L.A. has its problems, but the beauty and nature of the place has an affect on people that makes living more harmonious and civilized. I welcome all New Yorkers to come to L.A. Just don't try to change the city to your liking and make it just a sunnier N.Y. Be open to letting the city change you. I think you'll find that you'll be happy you did.
54
You can also spend half the day stuck in freeway traffic. The streets of many parts of the San Fernando valley don't match your description and look a lot like parts of the developing world.
I spent 13 months in LA back in the late '90s. Rather than laid-back, I found many Angelenos to be rude, petty and fond of braggadocio. Lots of talk and no substance. It's a shallow, plastic place that has fully embraced the ethos of show biz. No thanks.
I spent 13 months in LA back in the late '90s. Rather than laid-back, I found many Angelenos to be rude, petty and fond of braggadocio. Lots of talk and no substance. It's a shallow, plastic place that has fully embraced the ethos of show biz. No thanks.
1
"Coated with dirt and graffiti"? It's really been 29 years since you've been here!!
It's glaringly obvious that you haven't lived in NYC for 29 years...and you can keep your life in LA. Been there, happily left that. People love to stereotype NYers are rude and cold, but those who actually know this city and its environs know the truth. We're busy with fast paced, vital, colorful lives. Have you ever visited South Central LA? And you actually say that there's no filth, rotting buildings, graffiti? Come on. We New Yorkers are happily rid of people like you-methinks you doth protest too much. Stay in LA. Please.
I moved to Santa Monica about 6 months ago from Manhattan. Other than friends and family, I have not missed a thing back from NY. Had to move back 3 months later, as I couldn't find a well paying job there. I found the coffee shop(Phillz, better than anything in NY), food, and even bagels great, if not better than the city. Many people in Santa Monica and Venice Beach, very driven and interesting. The only thing that proved true, is the traffic being insane, every other stereotype was not. Can't comment on the prices in Echo Park, but the prices in Santa Monica are not much lower than the city, for rent and everything else.
25
Keep the NYers out of Northern California.
2
I've lived in at least eight of the U.S.'s great cities including LA and NYC. Every city has two stereotypes, the lovers' and the haters'. This story is a paean to LA haters for NYC lovers.
OK, but the most important thing I can do anywhere I live - and lots of other things too - is get over my own stereotypes and find a way to see what's around me.
BTW, I settled in San Diego. Our motto: "Not L.A."
OK, but the most important thing I can do anywhere I live - and lots of other things too - is get over my own stereotypes and find a way to see what's around me.
BTW, I settled in San Diego. Our motto: "Not L.A."
3
I, like so many readers hated Los Angeles. I was 18 and I hated it. Though I had never been there, nor knew anyone from there, I knew that it embodied everything that is awful about well, everything. I was 18 and I didn't anything about anything! But I find it amazing, looking back now that even at that age I had such a strong feeling of a place. And I think this is the thing about Los Angeles - it is a city that has a strong public image, so everyone thinks they know it. But really, most people know nothing about it.
New York similarly has a strong public image - one quite the opposite of LA, people who have never been there feel an affinity for. New York = hip, arty, challenging, intellectual. LA = well, everything opposite that.
Years later circumstances brought me to Los Angeles and I discovered that the thing about the city is that everything here is just below the surface. It isn't an easy city. You have to know where things are, know, or at least take a chance that the best restaurant you've ever been to is tucked away in some nondescript strip mall. Once you let go of your pretentions you will notice people riding horses down the river, hiking in mountains just a 10 minute walk from your house, coyotes walking down the street, and that you can travel to different areas of the city and feel like you are in a completely different world. If you let go, you will never cease to be surprised.
That said, NYers, you can keep your heightened sense of self-importance in NY.
New York similarly has a strong public image - one quite the opposite of LA, people who have never been there feel an affinity for. New York = hip, arty, challenging, intellectual. LA = well, everything opposite that.
Years later circumstances brought me to Los Angeles and I discovered that the thing about the city is that everything here is just below the surface. It isn't an easy city. You have to know where things are, know, or at least take a chance that the best restaurant you've ever been to is tucked away in some nondescript strip mall. Once you let go of your pretentions you will notice people riding horses down the river, hiking in mountains just a 10 minute walk from your house, coyotes walking down the street, and that you can travel to different areas of the city and feel like you are in a completely different world. If you let go, you will never cease to be surprised.
That said, NYers, you can keep your heightened sense of self-importance in NY.
57
Georgia has a point. Everything is just below the surface.
The difference is in New York you can walk and come upon it. In LA you drive to it.
Which is more satisfying is up to you.
The difference is in New York you can walk and come upon it. In LA you drive to it.
Which is more satisfying is up to you.
I grew up in NYC in the 60s and 70s, went sight unseen to California to college, and returned to Columbia to grad school only to discover returning felt like leaving the sunny Emerald City, full of fresh vegetables and backyard lemon trees and optimism without boundaries, for a grimy black and white city with plastic-wrapped produce and no self-respect. After 25 years in LA, I can attest that the art scene has gotten amazing and accessible, and the free-wheeling monthly Downtown Artwalk feels like the best of SoHo how it used to be, while Manhattan seems like one big strip mall of chain stores. I always have said LA is a terrible place to visit but a wonderful place to live, full of secret gardens and hidden amazements that you can only discover after years of residency. Actually, we don't need anymore people, though, so you New Yawkers who disagree, feel free to stay in freezing, overpriced, complaining bliss, and maybe venture 3 hours out of town next time you want to see a beach.
57
It's the difference between an outstanding black and white movie and a color film.
2
When the water runs out there won't be any more citrus trees and vegetables, of which there are plenty in NY anyway - from farms in Jersey, Long Island, Upstate.
1
3 hours out of town? Huh? You lived here and didn't hear of the Rockaways? Btw - the water quality at NYC ocean beaches actually equals or surpasses LA city beaches. No - Malibu is not an LA city beach - just like Robert Moses or Fire Island are not NYC beaches.
This phenomenon started taking place 15 years ago. Creative folks can spend more time creating in LA and are less reliant on having to have two or three day jobs as in New York. NYC is too expensive and has lost neighborhoods that afforded inspiration. Banker and hedge fund directors are great for tax revenue but they pushed everyone else out of the neighborhood. I live in Laguna Beach, south of Los Angeles where artists, freaks and their creative friends can simply be.
3
It's true that the bars close earlier here — but you'll get used to it, because people wake up earlier. It's that West Coast daily rhythm.
9
As someone who has lived bi-coastal for the last 3.5 years (last year 195 days in LA, the rest in NYC or traveling for work or pleasure to other cities--you have to keep track of this stuff for the taxman), I can attest that both cities are great places to live. I work at home, so LA's traffic is irrelevant. And I didn't move to LA for the weather or even because you can live more comfortably here than in Manhattan, where we still own a condo (although yes, the weather is icing on the cake). NYC is just getting too expensive, and people, although wonderful in so many ways, always seem on edge and stressed out when I go back there compared to Angelenos. The food is better here and fine dining is cheaper (where do you think all those vegetables come from--they lose a lot traveling 3000 miles east) and it's easier getting into a top restaurant on a few days' notice is way easier than in Manhattan.
And yes, the people are just more pleasant. One morning on a trip back to NYC I went to Starbucks the morning after arrival and ordered a coffee. Perhaps I was half awake at that hour, but I thought I heard the barista call my name and beverage choice and went to grab the drink upon which I heard a shrill voice behind me yell, "IS YOUR NAME GERRY?!" Surrendering the cup to its rightful owner, I thought, "Welcome to New York!" That just would not happen in LA.
Still, I love both cities. I miss NY when I'm in LA and miss LA when I'm in NY.
And yes, the people are just more pleasant. One morning on a trip back to NYC I went to Starbucks the morning after arrival and ordered a coffee. Perhaps I was half awake at that hour, but I thought I heard the barista call my name and beverage choice and went to grab the drink upon which I heard a shrill voice behind me yell, "IS YOUR NAME GERRY?!" Surrendering the cup to its rightful owner, I thought, "Welcome to New York!" That just would not happen in LA.
Still, I love both cities. I miss NY when I'm in LA and miss LA when I'm in NY.
42
Must be nice to be rich.
1
I'm from LA & live presently in NY, and as you do, miss the one when I'm in the other. I think the LA vibe helps me when I get the overkill objections in NYC. One night at the Met, I happened to sit in the correct seat but the wrong tier. When the rightful owner of this seat arrived, he took pains to loudly describe his outrage. In LA we would have said, Whoa, I think this might be my seat---let's compare tickets. My response to Mr. Rightful Owner? "I'm so sorry." And I actually felt a little guilty!
You complain about NYC being too expensive, but you own a condo here, work at home in LA, and travel "for pleasure" part of the year, like to "get into a top restaurant on a few days' notice". And then you go to Starbucks, of all places. Something doesn't add up here, dude.
I wish people got heir geography straight in this story. Los Feliz, Echo Park, West Hollwood, Hollywood, Larchmont Village, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, etc. are all west of downtown LA. Not on the Eastside. Eastside LA is still an enormous Mexican-American community awaiting gentrification.
Its no small accomplishment that the growth of downtown LA and close in area is closely related to the $1 billion+ investment in public rail transit since the 1980s. Still many more miles to be built but the face of LA in so many ways is being changed for the better.
Its no small accomplishment that the growth of downtown LA and close in area is closely related to the $1 billion+ investment in public rail transit since the 1980s. Still many more miles to be built but the face of LA in so many ways is being changed for the better.
4
A 2-bedroom Echo Park bungalow with yard, garage and separate studio, for $1250? In what universe? Maybe 15 years ago. You'd be lucky to find a studio with street parking for that.
14
Williamsburg was over a LONG time ago. These "hipsters" are more like followers than trendsetters.
7
Working in a big company in the Midwest, with colleagues in both New York and California, we all mutually laugh at one another. Californians laugh, how can you stand the winters? New Yorkers laugh, when will all you bumpkins make it in a real city? We laugh, why do you tolerate your grinding poverty lifestyles and your commutes from hell? We all have a point. There are plenty of to die for lifestyles, and plenty of art scenes, in this country.
1
I don't really find this article about NYC vs. LA, rather it's about artists finding a community they can afford to develop their work. As artists, whatever their stripe know, it takes time, like minded people, and money to become successful. It's not a 9-5 job, it's a life.
Sitting in an outdoor cafe recently with another designer friend, we both remarked that we didn't see our young selves in the crowd. What a loss for the city.
Sitting in an outdoor cafe recently with another designer friend, we both remarked that we didn't see our young selves in the crowd. What a loss for the city.
Another snark filled "there's nothing of any value west of the Hudson" piece. To all New Yawkas considering a move to my town: do us a favor and please stay home where you can keep your whiny, pompous, superior "center of the universe" attitude to yourself. It's tiresome, boring and says a lot more about you than it does about L.A.
6
Uptight, horn-honking abrasive New Yorkers are not a plus to SoCal.
Keep it to LA and dont ruin the other cities...
Keep it to LA and dont ruin the other cities...
There is more water in the Northeast, though. We'll see how it goes over the next 20 years in LA.
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-megadrought-risk-201...
http://www.lawaterrestrictions.net/current-water-restrictions/
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-megadrought-risk-201...
http://www.lawaterrestrictions.net/current-water-restrictions/
2
OK, another New York Times article about Los Angeles.
First off what is Echo Park East of as in eastern Los Angeles? When I look at the map it is north and a few degrees west of downtown LA. It is East of West LA where for the last 50 years or more is where most New Yorkers settle when they come to LA. Coincidentally it seems to be the part of LA most people talk about when they talk about the phoniness of LA. There is a whole part of LA east of West LA that is quite real. Unfortunately Echo Park is becoming more like West LA all the time.
Another clueless article condescending to LA. Thank god LA doesn't think as much about New York as New York does about LA.
First off what is Echo Park East of as in eastern Los Angeles? When I look at the map it is north and a few degrees west of downtown LA. It is East of West LA where for the last 50 years or more is where most New Yorkers settle when they come to LA. Coincidentally it seems to be the part of LA most people talk about when they talk about the phoniness of LA. There is a whole part of LA east of West LA that is quite real. Unfortunately Echo Park is becoming more like West LA all the time.
Another clueless article condescending to LA. Thank god LA doesn't think as much about New York as New York does about LA.
2
Moving away from the cities, and California in general, was the best move I've ever made. I've never looked back. The quality of life drastically improves with every mile you're out of a city.
"For $600 less than the $1,850 a month Ms. Turner was paying for her grim junior one-bedroom in Greenpoint, she found a charming two-bedroom 1920s bungalow in Echo Park with a gated yard, cactuses, a barbecue, a separate work studio and a garage."
You sure about that? I'm a LA resident. Maybe for $2450, but not $1250.
You sure about that? I'm a LA resident. Maybe for $2450, but not $1250.
9
Yeah, I know that girl, and this article fails to mention that she splits the charming bungalow, which is actually a 2BR apt in the bottom half of a duplex, with a roommate.
15
Plus the cost of a car.
The people moving from Williamsburg to LA are probably not even native NYers. Lol.
They came here couldn't handle it/didn't like it and want to move on.
Blah.
They came here couldn't handle it/didn't like it and want to move on.
Blah.
8
I used to love my apartment at 6th & 55th, and hopping in a cab to go find some den of iniquity at 3 am. I used to love walking my dog toward the cliff overlooking the ocean from my house way up Topanga Canyon. But now you can have both LA & NY. I pay 700 a month for a condo in Las Vegas, with a delightful landscaped lanai and its view of the National Wildlife Refuge north of the city (and mountains where I go camping & hiking 10 months out of the year). For my weirdo cultural fix I go online anyway so who needs the so-called Vie Bohème of pretentious overpriced cities, anyway.
As a gross oversimplification about three of America's most important cities, New York is all about money, Washington is all about power, and L.A. is all about fame. If you happen to live in one of those cities, but your fundamental motivations are different than the basic ethos, then you will have a hard time adjusting and will probably be happier someplace else.
2
One "cultural advantage" of Los Angeles, to use Woody Allen's phrase, itself a sign of philistinism, is that Woody Allen does not live here.
6
We welcome you but PLEASE bring your own water!
2
As someone who was born and raised in New York and lived in LA for 35 years, let me say that the so-called NY-LA rivalry has always been a one way street, a fantasy that exists solely in the minds of New Yorkers. Nobody in LA cares about New Yorkers and their odd anxieties; no one in LA bothers themselves having this conversation -- for Angelenos it's all about "live and let live." The part Angelenos do hate is the waves of New Yorkers who move to LA, settle in, then denigrate loudly, in public, the very city they themselves have CHOSEN to live in.
121
"The so-called NY-LA rivalry has always been a one-way street, a fantasy that exists solely in the minds of New Yorkers."
Which New Yorkers? Not this one. I never think about California. I've seen the giant redwoods and think they're beautiful, but then, I've seen the red clay of Georgia and like that too. Rivalry? There is?
Which New Yorkers? Not this one. I never think about California. I've seen the giant redwoods and think they're beautiful, but then, I've seen the red clay of Georgia and like that too. Rivalry? There is?
1
Except you are 35 years living in LA reading a NY publication (yeah it's a national paper - but that's my point).
Let's not forget the honking they bring with them.
It's a little arrogant for "culturally attuned" NYers to insist that LA was a wasteland prior to their arrival, as if the White Millennial definition of culture is the only one that matters.
8
Please continue the NYC/LA rivalry, so we in Chicago can continue to enjoy the best city in the country unimpeded.
5
This story is, however specious the premise, is doing a great job of exploring stereotypes. Not of LA though, of LA's view of New York and New Yorkers. Read the comments. New Yorkers are rude people who loudly discuss the inappropriateness of a person wearing a flannel shirt to Nobu. New Yorkers are idiots who try to cross Ventura Blvd. on foot in the middle of the block. And apparently we show up in LA with the express purpose of complaining that it's not New York.
Of course, the guy in the flannel has no idea if it was a New Yorker making fun of him. He just assumed it. The guy in traffic on Ventura Blvd. had no idea if the person crossing the street is a New Yorker. He just assumed it. And whenever someone says, "Everyone I meet from..." well, here comes a stereotype that's loaded with assumptions.
It seems that in LA, the term New Yorker is a stand-in term for rude and clueless. Whereas in New York, Californian and LA are stand-ins for nothing. I would never think, "See that person who's struggling with the subway, he or she must be from Los Angeles." It just wouldn't even cross my mind. Why? Because I don't think about California or compare my city to it. Ever. Call me rude, that's fine. But you know what I think is rude? Piping off about people who you don't know and a city that is foreign to you. Mellow out LA. You'll be much happier if you just accept yourself and stop worrying about New York and New Yorkers.
Of course, the guy in the flannel has no idea if it was a New Yorker making fun of him. He just assumed it. The guy in traffic on Ventura Blvd. had no idea if the person crossing the street is a New Yorker. He just assumed it. And whenever someone says, "Everyone I meet from..." well, here comes a stereotype that's loaded with assumptions.
It seems that in LA, the term New Yorker is a stand-in term for rude and clueless. Whereas in New York, Californian and LA are stand-ins for nothing. I would never think, "See that person who's struggling with the subway, he or she must be from Los Angeles." It just wouldn't even cross my mind. Why? Because I don't think about California or compare my city to it. Ever. Call me rude, that's fine. But you know what I think is rude? Piping off about people who you don't know and a city that is foreign to you. Mellow out LA. You'll be much happier if you just accept yourself and stop worrying about New York and New Yorkers.
89
Nope. Soon as a New Yorker opens his/her mouth, a New Yorker comes out. We can all tell who is a New Yorker. Go home or stay home and we'll all be happier.
I wish everyone had the opportunity to live for awhile in Hong Kong as I did 10 years ago. Everything that is great about NYC is there plus cleanliness and politeness. Alway very happy to return to New York. There is something else in NY that is no where else.
I wore the flannel. The reason I knew he was from New York was his thick brooklyn accent.
I moved from LA after decades of living there to NYC. Why? Because I got tired of never knowing what anyone really thought. Everything was all too pleasant. Not that I want unpleasant but I'd prefer people to be comfortable with who they are. That's what I find in NY. Even people on the streets or in stores. In LA, it always felt like there was this vast disconnect. People glided through days not having to interact w/ anyone at all.
That and the air. It might look nice on Facebook but try living for years in smog. Really life sucking. And there's something that happens when you don't have to deal w/ weather I think. It makes you less able to grow emotionally. That, for many is a relief and why it's so easy to live there. Let's talk in 10 years and see how everyone's doing.
That and the air. It might look nice on Facebook but try living for years in smog. Really life sucking. And there's something that happens when you don't have to deal w/ weather I think. It makes you less able to grow emotionally. That, for many is a relief and why it's so easy to live there. Let's talk in 10 years and see how everyone's doing.
3
Been here 15 years now...smog's not so bad. It is not the '70's anymore with the attendant polluting cars.
2
Smog, no water, no seasons - these things are kinda important and, as you say, let's talk in ten years.
Why is it that every 5 years or so The Times insists on running stupid articles like this one. Some people prefer LA others prefer NYC. Personally not really interested in being surrounded by people whose main concern in life is warm weather.
5
Hilarious article about smug, self-important hipsters arguing about how many angels can fit on a pinhead. It would be even funnier if not for the hoardes of Californians fleeing to Colorado.
13
I'm born and raised southern californian girl. Grew up in the desert about 45 minutes east of downtown Los Angeles. As a kid and teenage I craved to venture to los angles. I didn't get into a top school in LA so ventured to New York State to attend a good private school. I moved down to NYC after graduation and I still crave Los Angeles.
Whenever people ask me which city I love more it's like comparing apples and oranges. I love all the diversity in different area in LA. I love how easy it is to network, meet people, take classes in NYC. I love natural beauty of California. I love how small you feel when in a rooftop way up high in Manhattan and looking down at half of the city. Downside every hot girl or guy you meet in LA is an "actor/model" in NYC people have "no time" to date when trying to work 60-80 hours a week, or can't be in a serious relationship when their rent takes up half their monthly pay.
I don't believe LA is really that cheaper when you factor in having a car. But I do believe LA is the land of the creatives, when NYC is land of a he bankers/lawyers.
I'm thankful for the education NYC has provided me career wise in fashion/retail, my hobbies photography's, TV/film and dating experiences, giving me the skills to bust my butt so I don't starve. But I'm tired of it all. I'm ready to relax under the sun, host dinner parties, create more projects and call Los Angeles home.
Whenever people ask me which city I love more it's like comparing apples and oranges. I love all the diversity in different area in LA. I love how easy it is to network, meet people, take classes in NYC. I love natural beauty of California. I love how small you feel when in a rooftop way up high in Manhattan and looking down at half of the city. Downside every hot girl or guy you meet in LA is an "actor/model" in NYC people have "no time" to date when trying to work 60-80 hours a week, or can't be in a serious relationship when their rent takes up half their monthly pay.
I don't believe LA is really that cheaper when you factor in having a car. But I do believe LA is the land of the creatives, when NYC is land of a he bankers/lawyers.
I'm thankful for the education NYC has provided me career wise in fashion/retail, my hobbies photography's, TV/film and dating experiences, giving me the skills to bust my butt so I don't starve. But I'm tired of it all. I'm ready to relax under the sun, host dinner parties, create more projects and call Los Angeles home.
4
I lived in LA, sadly only for a year, in 2011 and thought it was spectacular. I couldn't understand why New Yorkers always put it down (but then I didn't know it in it's Anti-Woody-Allen 70s days).
What the article doesn't mention is the stunning number of small theaters that exist all over the city, and the ability to hop in an Uber ride to get back and forth without too much trouble (certainly going home). The Times wrote a nice piece on the transformation of downtown: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/02/fashion/how-uber-is-changing-night-lif...
The other thing is the excellent public transportation. I lived two blocks from the Vermont and Sunset metro and got almost everywhere I needed to go (Downtown, West Hollywood), and I would sit on the Sunset Avenue Bus watching TMZ tours going by thinking I got more or less the same ride with my TAP card (PLEASE BRING SAME TO NYC!). Although, I confused Angelinos when they asked me how I got to Westwood and I would say the "2" and wondered if that was a new highway or just a fifth of the I-10.
I found prices for places pretty miserable. A two bedroom house in Los Feliz, where I rented, go for about a million dollars and my rent was $1,500 for a one bedroom (not too bad).
But that town is worth every penny. I miss jazz nights at LACMA and the lemon tree in the back yard. Apologies to Randy Newman, he was right.
What the article doesn't mention is the stunning number of small theaters that exist all over the city, and the ability to hop in an Uber ride to get back and forth without too much trouble (certainly going home). The Times wrote a nice piece on the transformation of downtown: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/02/fashion/how-uber-is-changing-night-lif...
The other thing is the excellent public transportation. I lived two blocks from the Vermont and Sunset metro and got almost everywhere I needed to go (Downtown, West Hollywood), and I would sit on the Sunset Avenue Bus watching TMZ tours going by thinking I got more or less the same ride with my TAP card (PLEASE BRING SAME TO NYC!). Although, I confused Angelinos when they asked me how I got to Westwood and I would say the "2" and wondered if that was a new highway or just a fifth of the I-10.
I found prices for places pretty miserable. A two bedroom house in Los Feliz, where I rented, go for about a million dollars and my rent was $1,500 for a one bedroom (not too bad).
But that town is worth every penny. I miss jazz nights at LACMA and the lemon tree in the back yard. Apologies to Randy Newman, he was right.
4
How funny it is the seventies all over again like a scene from Annie Hall
4
New York and LA are not the only two options. There are alternatives, waiting to be "discovered". One of them is called Chicago. Great theater, restaurant and cultural scene. Yes, the weather is bad before it gets beautiful. The corruption is over-covered and overrated. Oh, yes, and we have plenty of water.
5
I feel like I've read this article before, but maybe it was "SF" and "Seattle" or something like that -- two places between which people are probably always moving. Anectdotal evidence does not make a strong case for demographic shifts, and for every argument of which is better, there's a reasonable-sounding counter-argument. I've moved around a lot, and have observed in myself that in any new place there is an initial period of wonder and a feeling of personal reinvention, but eventually I realize that the biggest obstacles to success and happiness are the demons I take with me wherever I go. (or I could flip that sentence and talk about the angels)
4
What a boring, childish view it is to have such a binary concept of what a "good" place to live means. NYC was apparently great until it became a Disneyland for the uber-rich. LA will be great until rents go up following demand, and the environmental impacts like the increasing drought make it not so great. Where will all these hipsters go then?
39
San Francisco. It's a land by itself. Not really California and 1/8th the size of NYC...plus incredible northern coast and the wine country nearby. Perfection.
Grew up in New York, live in L.A. (just back from seeing the thrilling NYCB).
IMHO, nothing, anywhere, compares with NYC's vibrancy, the friendliness and authenticity of its residents, and its cultural and artistic plenitude. The physical city itself is beautiful, too, with incredible light, and structures everywhere infused with history.
LA is great for living amidst live oak trees, views of the mountains, close proximity to the beautiful coast and deserts, fresh air (smog levels are vastly improved), incredible light, and wonderful weather. It's possible to remain unaffected by the shallowness if its everyday culture. When all this wears thin, it's time for a trip to the upper west side.
IMHO, nothing, anywhere, compares with NYC's vibrancy, the friendliness and authenticity of its residents, and its cultural and artistic plenitude. The physical city itself is beautiful, too, with incredible light, and structures everywhere infused with history.
LA is great for living amidst live oak trees, views of the mountains, close proximity to the beautiful coast and deserts, fresh air (smog levels are vastly improved), incredible light, and wonderful weather. It's possible to remain unaffected by the shallowness if its everyday culture. When all this wears thin, it's time for a trip to the upper west side.
45
Having grown up in the upper midwest, and having lived in both CA and NYC for much of my life since, I concur wholeheartedly on the "friendliness and authenticity" of NYC's residents.
That said, I'm back in CA - the greenery and fresh, sea & tree scented air are a powerful draw. But I am always aware of a slight cultural, "human" disadvantage. Californian's are nice, and fine, but as long as some born and raised New Yorkers still live in that city, New York will be unbeatable for "the humanity!"
That said, I'm back in CA - the greenery and fresh, sea & tree scented air are a powerful draw. But I am always aware of a slight cultural, "human" disadvantage. Californian's are nice, and fine, but as long as some born and raised New Yorkers still live in that city, New York will be unbeatable for "the humanity!"
Los Angeles can't claim the Cheaper argument: I've lived in both cities, and by the time you factor in the upkeep of a car the cost of living is relatively equal. Los Angeles CAN claim the Weather argument, though if the cost is water rationing then that argument diminishes, too. I live in New York because I like to walk, and because I don't like the creepy feeling that every other woman at a party has just had a boob job.
61
Maybe you haven't spent much time in downtown LA where I get in my car *maybe* once every two weeks, and there are scant boob job sightings.
Well, when was the last time you checked out LA? Between the Downtown option, and Uber, less people are driving anyway (especially at night when they want to socialize with adult beverages). I guess I don't have a rebuttal for the boob job thing, but I feel like they are "out" these days anyway?
I live in Downtown LA, because I like to walk, and because walking is easier without a boob job, I didn't get one of those either...
I pay around 2k/mo between mortgage, HOA, and property taxes on an 800sf loft style historic building remodeled condo. Not cheap, but about a third of what it would run me in NYC!! (that said I love the city. I also love my friends with extra bedrooms in the West Village).
I live in Downtown LA, because I like to walk, and because walking is easier without a boob job, I didn't get one of those either...
I pay around 2k/mo between mortgage, HOA, and property taxes on an 800sf loft style historic building remodeled condo. Not cheap, but about a third of what it would run me in NYC!! (that said I love the city. I also love my friends with extra bedrooms in the West Village).
completely incorrect and ignorant on the finance argument. I lived in Astoria for 34 years. I pay less for a 5 bedroom home with a pool and 2 car garage, car insurance, and car payment in North Hollywood, than i paid in rent in QUEENS. There is no upkeep on a car in LA because the weather is such that the roads are in great condition. Bad weather and bad roads keep mechanics busy. Which is why in NYC, my barely used Nissan, was always getting fixed. For what I was paying in Astoria, I could have a 2 bedroom apt on the beach in Santa Monica. I chose the valley to have a home. You can't compare LA to NYC. It's unfair to NYC. It just can't offer the quality life LA can. And now that NYC is too expensive for artists in all facets, all the artists in music, dance, culinary etc, are living in LA. Not NYC. If you use facts, and not opinions, LA has more to offer these days.
I am a vintage example of this movement. After 15 years in New York, I have spent 16 in Los Angeles with never a single impulse to move back. Between the Giuliani and Bloomberg administrations, New York has become a hostile soul-diminished environment dominated by ruthless predators of every stripe.
1
Nothing has changed. This east vs west article about migrating New Yorkers could have been written in the mid-1980's (when I moved to LA). Having been a resident of LA, Malibu, Chicago, Manhattan, and Tokyo… I can say without a doubt that NYC is the best city in the world. I'm happy to be back in Brooklyn and wish all the mid-westerners who couldn't shake their suburban roots and adjust to life here, "good luck out west".
1
I grew up in NYC in the 50s, 60s and 70s when cities were simply cities, not self-advertising theme parks. I'm an artist and I've lived in LA for a long time now. They're 2 different cities, always have been. It's good they're so different. Why would you want 2 New Yorks or 2 LAs? The snobby notion that LA is full of mindless bores is nonsense. The WORLD is full of money-seeking bores. So when you move anywhere you surround yourself with people you like, people like yourself. NY snobbery stems from the fact that NY has always been the most provincial city in the country. All great capitals are. Moscow, London, Paris. And the most parochial citizens in those capitals are usually those who've come there from some hinterland. We have the foreign monied folk coming here, too. But LA's large enough to find places where you don't need to see them and have their garishness rubbed in your face every day. Thank God. But the drought here in CA is a serious issue. I'm not sure these young transplants, who like all Americans, have never experienced much want realize how serious it is. But, finally, I welcome the new generation of artists. Viva LA. Viva NY.
144
You said this so well! Provincial snobbery is for those who do not travel. I've been fortunate to spend time in NYC (from CT originally) live in LA, London and Moscow. All different, all full of culture, and all with a subset of fools who think they live in the center of the universe. The world is too big for their small minds.
Thank goodness there are as many open-minded folks with whom you can discuss, create, debate and engage.
Thank goodness there are as many open-minded folks with whom you can discuss, create, debate and engage.
1
Thank you!! You Nailed it.
Los Angeles is currently one of the most expensive cities in the U.S. in which to rent or buy a home, condo, studio or loft. I have many, many friends, most of them artists, who can no longer afford the cost of housing in Los Angeles. They are having to leave for smaller cities and towns. It makes me wonder: who is this new booming creative class that is all all a-titter over moving from one insanely expensive city to another? Perhaps creative class sounds so much better than privileged upper class? BTW: A light-filled two bedroom apartment in Echo Park? Or anything in Los Feliz? If only.
11
The TV shows "Friends" and "Seinfeld" were instrumental in advertising NYC as the place to be when you are young. Of course, the apartments were huge, everyone was good looking, and sex was rampant. It was not just loving New York, it believing the lie.
3
"Creative class?" What can the people described in this article actually do?
And would anyone miss them or it if they ceased doing it?
And would anyone miss them or it if they ceased doing it?
1
As someone who has spent half of her life in LA and the other half in NY, I can say that neither city is very interesting anymore. Unless you think marketing is art and social networking is real conversation.
The Italian filmmaker, Antonioni, once wrote about LA that it was like "being nowhere and talking to nobody about nothing." Sadly, this is how NY feels as well today. In general, thanks to too much money and too little substance (and a shockingly corporate view of the world which seems to be considered the norm, now), the two cities have been gentrified into oblivion. Anyone who thinks either city is "happening" is surely part of the problem.
The Italian filmmaker, Antonioni, once wrote about LA that it was like "being nowhere and talking to nobody about nothing." Sadly, this is how NY feels as well today. In general, thanks to too much money and too little substance (and a shockingly corporate view of the world which seems to be considered the norm, now), the two cities have been gentrified into oblivion. Anyone who thinks either city is "happening" is surely part of the problem.
130
Bloomberg ruined it for everyone. Times Square used to be a genuine if seedy urban phenomenon. Now it's a sanitized Disneyland. The shows are horrible. Lion King? Really?
1
It depends a bit on age and eras. I've lived in NY for 22 years, starting in the dangerous, gritty, glorious late 70s all through the mid 90s (in cheap Chelsea). Then I moved to LA which I always loved as much as NY. I always felt that LA was underrated, and misunderstood, like every mysterious beauty. I always looked for strangeness (and found it), breathtaking nature and wonderful architecture (Union Station, what a glorious place! Frank Lloyd Wright, Lautner), enjoyed the fab museums and impossible but then intriguing downtown LA (now overran by fake-hipsters and NYers), and of course, as a movie buff, I always channeled the noir locations of some of the best movies ever (Double Indemnity). What I (as an immigrant) always liked most about having had the luxury (because of MY hard work) of having moved to 2 of the world's greatest cities: that I felt very strong love and affection for both, and had no need to "decide" which one is "better". As it turned out, Chelsea became a nightmare (in spite of the wonderful high line), my crappy, dark apartment (which I had sublet) a depressive quarter as compared to light and beauty a la LA. I'm still in LA - it changed, but so did I. I visit NY, still love it, find my former self in some locations. And when I'm gone, visiting Europe - I miss them both with the passion of a girl in love. Silly, but true. But maybe it is age and nostalgia....
2
Times Square in the old days was reserved for seedy degenerates who liked to watch people engaging in sexual intercourse. Thank goodness for the internet; now they can jerk off in their own homes.
I don't like Times Square in its new incarnation either, but I'd rather be accosted by a guy in a mouse costume than some of the other talent that used to hang out there.
I don't like Times Square in its new incarnation either, but I'd rather be accosted by a guy in a mouse costume than some of the other talent that used to hang out there.
1
I can't speak for underemployed hipsters looking for a cheaper place to never grow up, but I can speak for someone who "made it" in NYC in the finance world and then moved reluctantly to California only to realize over the first six months that my wife was right -- too much of being a New Yorker is the false sense of security your identity claims, simply by living in the Greatest City on Earth. To be clear, NYC is the Greatest City on Earth, but that doesn't mean you have to put up with living there. I will spare you the list of all the daily sacrifices New Yorkers convince themselves makes them tougher, cooler, more urban, more urbane, etc. When I first got to California, I left my Metrocard in my wallet, such that any time I opened it everyone within sight could see it, in the hopes that another NYer would strike up a conversation and I could feel "home" again. It never happened. As time went on and I stopped missing every little thing about The City, I realized I had been wrong when I used to tell family and friends that "if you could afford to live in NYC, you wouldn't choose to live anywhere else." It isn't just the swimming pools in February, the endless year round Farmers Markets of fresh delicious food, the laid back attitude -- wait, yes it is. "REAL NEW YORKERS" will proudly beat their chest and insist "we'll be back." We won't. Enjoy your winters, dorm rooms, and co-opted third world toughness; we'll be in California enjoying life.
67
"...we'll be in California enjoying life..." And, uh, how exactly do you plan to do that when you run out of water?
1
Well, I've known numerous people who left New York for California and they were back inside of a month—even after giving up their apartments and pulling up roots.
(For the record, I don't even consider myself a New Yorker, maybe because I wasn't born here. I just figure, leave the "New Yorker" tag for Taylor Swift and all her cronies.)
(For the record, I don't even consider myself a New Yorker, maybe because I wasn't born here. I just figure, leave the "New Yorker" tag for Taylor Swift and all her cronies.)
3
New York is amazing, but it is not, and never was the greatest city on earth. No city is. It is ONE of the greatest cities, but will never be THE greatest. Anyone who says otherwise has never spent time in Chicago, London, Paris, and yes, even developing world amazing cities like Bangkok!
There is a much larger world out there than just NYC and LA.
There is a much larger world out there than just NYC and LA.
1
Find the place that feels like home and you'll be happy and productive. If that's NYC, a place I find unbearable after 36 hours, then good on you. If that's Missoula, MT - cheers to you! If it's LA, so be it and I get it! The fool is the person living where they are unhappy, complaining about how bad it is and espousing the greatness of somewhere else. If the other place is so great, move and find your happiness.
90
I have always thought that the place to live is the place where you have th most like minded people no matter where that is.
If you happen to find yourself in a place where there is no humor no matter the weather, leave.
If you happen to find yourself in a place where there is no humor no matter the weather, leave.
You are trying to deny people one of the pleasures in life - complaining.
Having been to both, I'd actually prefer living in SF, which beats them both. Very cool, beautiful city, much more open minded and relaxed than NY, but not needing the cars like LA. Not cheap, but a lot of great restaurants, interesting people, and awesome weather - not too hot, not too cold, and always changing.
If only it were closer to NY so I could visit more often, what a great city.
I'd probably put Chicago behind SF as the next most appealing place to live; I know, the weather is terrible but a huge number of inexpensive, very good restaurants and a downtown club/bar night life scene that simply dwarfs anywhere else (check out the lines outside the club Paris on a Saturday night there). Third would be Philly as a place with a lot of very good, very inexpensive restaurants, a much cheaper place to live than NY.
See you soon, SF....
If only it were closer to NY so I could visit more often, what a great city.
I'd probably put Chicago behind SF as the next most appealing place to live; I know, the weather is terrible but a huge number of inexpensive, very good restaurants and a downtown club/bar night life scene that simply dwarfs anywhere else (check out the lines outside the club Paris on a Saturday night there). Third would be Philly as a place with a lot of very good, very inexpensive restaurants, a much cheaper place to live than NY.
See you soon, SF....
50
Life is more than just inexpensive, good restaurants. I am a Bay Area native, lived in Portland before it was cool, lived in NYC (UWS) in the 70's and back to the Bay Area in the 80's. Philly after that and now southern california, which I NEVER thought I would do. So you get that I have a point of view based on years of experience. Returning to SF after a decade in NYC took me two years to get over. In spite of the beauty and weather. Of course, Brooklyn was a no-go during those days, and you couldn't get a cab at 2am in 1980 SF to save your life. It was utterly provincial.
But very place has its charms and its tribulations. The contrast between the two coasts, heck - the contrast between Northern CA and Southern CA - has been discussed to the death. Philly has become home to many Brooklyn hipsters who have been priced out of NY. So that can only be an improvement to a city that didn't even connect to I-95 until relatively recently. Bottom line: you can be happy anywhere once you know what your real needs are and are willing to make the trades that life demands. BTW Seattle should be mentioned as well - a Terrific City with horrible (for me) weather.
But very place has its charms and its tribulations. The contrast between the two coasts, heck - the contrast between Northern CA and Southern CA - has been discussed to the death. Philly has become home to many Brooklyn hipsters who have been priced out of NY. So that can only be an improvement to a city that didn't even connect to I-95 until relatively recently. Bottom line: you can be happy anywhere once you know what your real needs are and are willing to make the trades that life demands. BTW Seattle should be mentioned as well - a Terrific City with horrible (for me) weather.
Articles such as this must be tedious for readers across America not favored with a NYC or L.A. zip code.
When all is said and done--apparently something we'll never quite reach in the vaguely neurotic NY-LA debate--we're basically the "people we are" no matter where we choose to live. After all, "geographical cures" exist only for the naïve.
I enjoy visiting both NYC and L.A. but prefer living in Bisbee, Arizona, a small (6,500) alpine burg in the middle of nowhere. My neighbors, by the way, include quite a few ex-residents of NY and L.A .-- many of whom are quite creative and into all manner of 'art' -- and who, amazingly, appear quite happy to be here.
But, hey, good luck to both sides in this pseudo-debate.
When all is said and done--apparently something we'll never quite reach in the vaguely neurotic NY-LA debate--we're basically the "people we are" no matter where we choose to live. After all, "geographical cures" exist only for the naïve.
I enjoy visiting both NYC and L.A. but prefer living in Bisbee, Arizona, a small (6,500) alpine burg in the middle of nowhere. My neighbors, by the way, include quite a few ex-residents of NY and L.A .-- many of whom are quite creative and into all manner of 'art' -- and who, amazingly, appear quite happy to be here.
But, hey, good luck to both sides in this pseudo-debate.
20
I recently fled Los Feliz and Los Angeles for Charleston SC. Yes, the neighborhood is hopping but all the businesses that made the area worth living in are being swept away. For many years, the area was mixed ethnically and culturally. No more. It's becoming as homogenized as a gallon of milk.
12
I live in Los Feliz and I'm a nice brown color. Did you miss the largest and first Sikh temple in Los Angeles which happens to be smack in the middle of Los Feliz? What about the Catholic church up the street from the temple, in which many Filipino and Hispanic families worship in? Perhaps you also missed the many Armenian, Hispanic, Asian, and Black families that live in Los Feliz. I think its a pretty diverse neighborhood, head to the neighborhood public schools, it's quite obvious that Los Feliz is quite diverse. Perhaps you lived up in the fancy hills where it is less so...
As someone who lived in Williamsburg/Greenpoint for 10 years before moving out to LA 2 years ago, I can agree with some of this article. It is cheaper here, but not that cheap - definitely not on the west side of LA, which is the side most people would be familiar with. You do get more space for your rental dollar though, and of course you get the weather. If you can get over driving everywhere, bars closing at 2am, and an air of artificiality, I'd highly recommend trying LA out. Just don't get here and spend all your time talking about the ways New York was better.
8
At long last, the The Old Gray Lady has caught up with reality!
I, too had the New York stereotype - that the superficiality of New Yorkers was genuine but the superficiality of Angelenos is merely on the surface. Or maybe it was the other way around.
But when I noticed the job for which I was paid around $40/hour in 2004 was gradually reduced to $13.50 as my rent quadrupled, I realized that things might have to change.
Then I actually stayed in L.A.. a few days longer than my expiration date, and discovered the fact that there is more innovative theatre happening on Ventura Boulevard than there is in the former shell of Off-Off-Broadway.
That well might be the tipping point.
I, too had the New York stereotype - that the superficiality of New Yorkers was genuine but the superficiality of Angelenos is merely on the surface. Or maybe it was the other way around.
But when I noticed the job for which I was paid around $40/hour in 2004 was gradually reduced to $13.50 as my rent quadrupled, I realized that things might have to change.
Then I actually stayed in L.A.. a few days longer than my expiration date, and discovered the fact that there is more innovative theatre happening on Ventura Boulevard than there is in the former shell of Off-Off-Broadway.
That well might be the tipping point.
11
I lived in NY for 15 years, and in LA for the last 15. All the things I loved about NYC are gone. Family shops > franchise chains. Parties where you never knew who you would meet > grasping white professionals. Artists > finance professionals. Walkable low-rise downtown streets > new high rises.
LA has changed remarkably in my 15 years. Three major new museums, new world class concert hall, dozens of new galleries, feasible public light rail, amazing variety of bars and restaurants.
And LA is the juncture of three great civilizations: Latino/moseoamerican, European and Asian.
And, BTW, the tech industry is migrating down to LA to take over the entertainment industry.
The city is evolving at a terrific rate of speed. NY just seems to be getting more expensive, with hundred year old architecture destroyed for more generic glass towers.
The great main line of civilization in commerce runs from London, to New York to LA. And LA is where the main line is running forward into the future
LA has changed remarkably in my 15 years. Three major new museums, new world class concert hall, dozens of new galleries, feasible public light rail, amazing variety of bars and restaurants.
And LA is the juncture of three great civilizations: Latino/moseoamerican, European and Asian.
And, BTW, the tech industry is migrating down to LA to take over the entertainment industry.
The city is evolving at a terrific rate of speed. NY just seems to be getting more expensive, with hundred year old architecture destroyed for more generic glass towers.
The great main line of civilization in commerce runs from London, to New York to LA. And LA is where the main line is running forward into the future
31
I forgot to mention: Since 2000, 45,000 people have moved to downtown LA, living in dozens beautifully renovated 100 year old, 8 story loft buildings, whole new neighborhoods of Dwell-modern loft buildings. Three Rockefeller-Center scaled high rise complexes are under construction.
The tech industry migrating to take over the entertainment industry. That's two really well-adjusted groups of people merging into one.
Well if tech is the future then LA can't be the future. After San Fran - comes NYC-London-Boston-Haifa. San Fran is in a league by it's own right now. LA is not in that league of those second rung cities named.
As a lifelong resident of Michigan (who loves it here), I'm not about to weigh in on this. But I do have a question for those in the know: Aside from one brief comment, I don't think I saw any reference to LA's notorious smog. Has that improved over the years?
6
Yea the smog is gone. Its the water crises that is of major concern and I wonder if all the people moving to Los Angeles just think that will fix itself.
9
you can see clearly now that the smog is gone
It took 50 years of emission control
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/03/04/health/ap-us-med-california-a...
It took 50 years of emission control
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/03/04/health/ap-us-med-california-a...
1
The smog is has gotten better, but its not even close to being gone. Lived in CA for 30 years and recently moved. The only time its not smoggy in L.A. is after a storm comes through and blows all the smog away.
The Echo Park bungalow rent sounds extremely cheap and difficult to find and let's not forget the cost of having a car . Each person needs their own car you cannot walk anywhere ! There also are way less jobs there..and salaries are often way less as well.
26
I found that suspicious, unless she is renting from relatives. That is NOT typical rent in the area, which (like most of LA) is very expensive -- maybe not quite NYC expensive, but still VERY costly. The bungalow like that would cost from $600K to $750K and so only a moron would rent it out for $1250 a month. Try closer to $2500 a month.
1
sorry, unless you live in the adorable hills where streets are so tiny and winded, you need a map to find an address - there IS transportation, it's called buses and Metro and Light Rail. No, it's not the NY subway, which could be seen as delightful, but with some good will (and time, yes) it can be done. I don't have a car - which is indeed unusual but I live in Hollywood - and I DO get around...
New York is a state of mind.
Prioritize.
Punctual.
Effective.
Efficient.
Goal oriented.
You can be in London, Hong Kong, Singapore, Istanbul or Milan and still be a New Yorker.
And so possibly in Los Angeles, too.
Prioritize.
Punctual.
Effective.
Efficient.
Goal oriented.
You can be in London, Hong Kong, Singapore, Istanbul or Milan and still be a New Yorker.
And so possibly in Los Angeles, too.
1
I'm a born and raised SoCal who has spent the last 20+ years in New York. A friend of mine spent the first 35 years of his life on the UWS; now lives in LA and loves it. It doesn't have to be either/or. It's possible to appreciate the attributes of both cities and love both. I know I do. Goodness knows both cities have their downsides and challenges. The whole thing where some people feel a need to affirm their "loyalty" to one by trashing the other has always seemed to me to be a bit sophomoric.
26
Whatever happened to being "bi-coastal"? I live in Washington, DC and Paris, France. Maybe "bi-continental."
If I could change Washington for another place in the US it could be NYC or LA.
Years ago, I hopped out of a LA-DC plane and my friend said, "You're wearing orange tennis shoes!" When I went back to LA on the DC-LA flight, my friend at the LA airport said, "Hey, man, how ya doin'? How about lunch?" (Sorry, DC!)
If I could change Washington for another place in the US it could be NYC or LA.
Years ago, I hopped out of a LA-DC plane and my friend said, "You're wearing orange tennis shoes!" When I went back to LA on the DC-LA flight, my friend at the LA airport said, "Hey, man, how ya doin'? How about lunch?" (Sorry, DC!)
After reading the comments from LA I ask: if NYC is so awful, why are they reading the New York Times? Answer: it is the only newspaper in the world to publish many articles on culture and art, everyday. And NYC still has the best museums and galleries in the world.
23
Angelenos don't read the NYT out of habit. This story is being shared via social media. There is an archetype in LA of the whining NY transplant and a sense that there are "more and more of them". This story plays into that.
No is doesn't! It's a fact.
1
Oops! I read the NYT for the national and world news and opinion. The art and culture articles are kind of in the way. So I live half time in Southern Mexico where the deep culture is alive and thriving and I don't need to read about it in the papers, and half time in Southern California where housing can be quite inexpensive and great jobs are easy to find. In both places, the sun shines through the year, I speak English and Spanish daily, and there is no frantic pace. We all love New York but for many of us, it hasn't been the center of the planet for a long time. I'm not sure LA is or will be either. Earth has gotten smaller and more accessible with the gains made over the past hundred years in transportation and communication. Is the end of big cities nearing? Maybe we'll all move to Wyoming, Arkansas or Nicaragua and still be in perfect touch with news, friends, art and culture.
3
The real point of this article is that faux-hemian hipsters feel better in LA than in New York. An unmentioned assumption is that their parents have to come up with less financial support when they choose to live (the real word should be "vacation") in LA. One feels good driving a battered old Honda Civic home to a small but sunny "cottage" in Echo Park...so much better than taking the subway home to dark and dreary basement apartment in Bushwick.
22
The real issue to any New Yorker is that it is not a pedestrian-oriented city, it is actually the suburbs, so you need a car.
Nobody walks in LA.
The Onion said it best:
http://www.theonion.com/article/84-million-new-yorkers-suddenly-realize-...
Nobody walks in LA.
The Onion said it best:
http://www.theonion.com/article/84-million-new-yorkers-suddenly-realize-...
18
Hi,
Despite being a native New Yorker I found the Onion article pretty funny.
Despite being a native New Yorker I found the Onion article pretty funny.
So CYCLE in L.A.
I do. And it works out just fine.
I do. And it works out just fine.
Yeah, I'd love to move to LA, but I have a hard-won academic job that allows me to make my art, albeit in a freezing suburb of Boston. Do any of these people have jobs? (Don't tell me blogging and writing novels is paying the rent in Echo Park.) I wish the article has delved a bit further into the likely off-camera role of trust funds and wealthy parents in this great migration west.
122
As the Trustafarians migrate West, it is a win-win for New York City.
11
Needless to say, you can't make any more money writing blogs or novels or designing websites in LA than NYC or anywhere else. You certainly don't get a health plan or 401K.
So logically, we must accept these "stay-at-home" folks enjoying their sunny patios are Trustafarians.
So logically, we must accept these "stay-at-home" folks enjoying their sunny patios are Trustafarians.
1
I moved to Los Angeles in 1999 (and was there until 2005). I had a hard landing and it took a while to find work, but I did. Everyone I knew who went out there found cheap apartments and worked hard and many thrived, some did and moved onto other things. But, none of them were the trust-fund hipsters you see in this article.
1
It's unfortunate that NYC abandoned the artists that revitalized the city in favor of uncultured developers who took advantage of their ideas. I was very fortunate to live in NYC during the 80s.
I still love the density of culture that continues to exist in NYC, though. Since I cannot afford it, in the meantime, I'm camping in the backwoods of Georgia. This is a middle ground between NYC and LA. And the Atlanta airport is very efficient with frequent 2-hour flights to NYC.
I still love the density of culture that continues to exist in NYC, though. Since I cannot afford it, in the meantime, I'm camping in the backwoods of Georgia. This is a middle ground between NYC and LA. And the Atlanta airport is very efficient with frequent 2-hour flights to NYC.
3
Why would I want to live in a place that thinks movie stars are important people?
17
People in Peoria, Ill. think movie stars are important. Thinking movie stars are important isn't limited to LA.
4
The adoration of movie stars and reality show show-offs is an American cultural disease endemic in every state of our spiritually bereft union.
1
Probably for the same reason us few remaining native Angelenos don't want more trust-fund babies and self-important, blinkered East Coast wannabe snobs living here. Who wants to be surrounded by all that delusion and empty posturing?
1
If all the New Yorkers in Brooklyn move to LA, how could that possibly be a bad thing?
And, for the record, odds are good that few of them are native New Yorkers in the first place, so hardly surprising that they eventually move back to the car-laden suburbs from whence they came?
And, for the record, odds are good that few of them are native New Yorkers in the first place, so hardly surprising that they eventually move back to the car-laden suburbs from whence they came?
12
I moved to LA ... Twice. And each time I came crawling back to NYC. It's not that I don't like LA. I do. But, as a creative person, I crave the unlimited human and cultural contact of NYC. And there is nothing more depressing than a dead but lovely Sunday evening driving down Sunset Blvd wondering about how everyone behind their fancy car windows and bungalows has some secret you will never know. In New York we know. Our monsters and Heroes are across from us on the subway.
122
Blair - where are you originally from? just curious - I am from NYC and still live here - i go frequently to LA and always marvel at how people live there. i enjoy my time there - and have made many good friends there who have lived there from elsewhere for over 30 years - they have mixed feelings on the changes they see happening there.
My hero is the person who looks across the car and says, "if one of your fingernails flies over here and hits me, I will clip YOU. Knock it off."
"Avengers: Age of Giving Your Seat Up for That Pregnant Woman"
"Avengers: Age of Giving Your Seat Up for That Pregnant Woman"
After reading this revealing article, I wonder how long it will take for the elite real estate agencies and their clients to realize that the original reason that New York was once the "center of the world" (and the reason they are still willing to pay $100 million to live in their "billionaires' projects") was the perfect balance of big money and great artistry.
Sometimes the rich are the last to know.
Sometimes the rich are the last to know.
32
Most of the time, not sometimes, the rich are the last to know. It's because they focus on money. They forget that money is not the center of Universe.
Beauty is.
The believe that wealth attracts beauty is very much flawed. Wealth always seeks beauty.
Remember Michaelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael? How many kings, queens and pontiffs jockeyed relentlessly to have them in their courts? And it was simply because they produced ever-lasting beauty.
Beauty is.
The believe that wealth attracts beauty is very much flawed. Wealth always seeks beauty.
Remember Michaelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael? How many kings, queens and pontiffs jockeyed relentlessly to have them in their courts? And it was simply because they produced ever-lasting beauty.
12
Yes! The biilionaires in NYC watch the artists and creative types as a form of entertainment. They follow the artists. But now that the creative types are forced out the billionaires will get bored, because the flying monkeys have left the room. Now, they will only have each other to look at.
7
Nice snap shot of L.A.; but one wonders why there is no mention that L.A. is the largest market for TV commercials.
My "L.A. Decade, i.e., 70's-80's" gave me an appreciation for its sub-tropical climate, its outstanding museums, but with a dread of rush-hour traffic.
As a resident of Wilshire Center, an increase in crime also contributed to the mix of urban life. Oh, yes: a corrupt LAPD also didn't help in the least.
My "L.A. Decade, i.e., 70's-80's" gave me an appreciation for its sub-tropical climate, its outstanding museums, but with a dread of rush-hour traffic.
As a resident of Wilshire Center, an increase in crime also contributed to the mix of urban life. Oh, yes: a corrupt LAPD also didn't help in the least.
2
I am a long time resident of Greenpoint, Brooklyn. All I can tell you is I must have bumped into hundreds of people who were transplants from LA, just about every state and every western European country, Russia, Japan, Austr. and NZ.
Greenpoint ain't dead yet....if one leaves, ten more come..there are countless
condos and hi rises going up here...too numerous to count.
Greenpoint ain't dead yet....if one leaves, ten more come..there are countless
condos and hi rises going up here...too numerous to count.
11
Countless condos and hi-rises are the problem.
Every New York transplant I've met here in California spends most of their time complaining. I get that complaining is habit for them--it's what New Yorkers do best--but believe me: no one here wants to listen to that. Please don't be swayed by this article. Stay in New York.
173
And why stay in NYC again?
Just another baseless ad hominem rant perpetuating the tired old stereotype of the angry complaining New Yorker.
I'm a NYC transplant, been in CA over 25 years and have many, many native CA friends. And guess what.......they complain all the time just like New Yorkers......just about different things. You need to get out your mind bubble more often.
I'm a NYC transplant, been in CA over 25 years and have many, many native CA friends. And guess what.......they complain all the time just like New Yorkers......just about different things. You need to get out your mind bubble more often.
1
Been there. Went to college there. Many pluses to speak of. Monday night football starts at 6pm. You can actually watch the whole game without worrying about staying up too late. Traffic is an issue but it's no worse than here.
3
One very big difference Bill: in LA I *must* own a car.
Were it not for that, I might have moved to Santa Fe, NM years ago. Whatever I might save on housing costs would have been eaten up by the car costs.
LA is about the movie/television industry: everything revolves around that locus. New York certainly has that element, but I can ignore it if I chose to. And still make a living. While Off Off Broadway in NYC is not what it once was decades ago, there is still no equivalent to it in LA.
Movies, movies and more movies. Some music, some good music, but mostly movies.
Were it not for that, I might have moved to Santa Fe, NM years ago. Whatever I might save on housing costs would have been eaten up by the car costs.
LA is about the movie/television industry: everything revolves around that locus. New York certainly has that element, but I can ignore it if I chose to. And still make a living. While Off Off Broadway in NYC is not what it once was decades ago, there is still no equivalent to it in LA.
Movies, movies and more movies. Some music, some good music, but mostly movies.
1
Oh please. Welcome to 1986.
15
We'll always be #1.
All I read here is LA has a new emerging demographic - quitters.
All I read here is LA has a new emerging demographic - quitters.
17
Draught, smog, terrible traffic, banal architecture - nightlife suppressed by the need to drive and the risk of DUI - and the long overdue 8 point earthquake .....
No thank you.
No thank you.
20
Constant noise, the smell of trash rotting on the sidewalk mixed with urine, overpriced closets passing as apartments, miserable winters followed by sweltering summers... yeah, no thank you.
PS. there's this awesome thing called Uber (or Lyft...or taxis) eliminating any risk of a DUI. A concept that holds true regardless anywhere.
PS. there's this awesome thing called Uber (or Lyft...or taxis) eliminating any risk of a DUI. A concept that holds true regardless anywhere.
"For $600 less than the $1,850 a month Ms. Turner was paying for her grim junior one-bedroom in Greenpoint, she found a charming two-bedroom 1920s bungalow in Echo Park with a gated yard, cactuses, a barbecue, a separate work studio and a garage."
I don't know how Turner got that deal, but that is not typical for Echo Park. A two bedroom bungalow would normally rent for $2000 or more. My experience is that you don't save money on rent in Los Angeles, but you do get more space.
I don't know how Turner got that deal, but that is not typical for Echo Park. A two bedroom bungalow would normally rent for $2000 or more. My experience is that you don't save money on rent in Los Angeles, but you do get more space.
53
New Yorkers have totally destroyed my home town - now LA! Spare us! GO HOME!
4
I am a native Angelino and a working fine artist who has lived on the East side of LA for 16 years, so I can assure you all, that there is no way on earth that anyone is renting a "two bedroom bungalow in Echo Park with a yard, a separate work studio and a garage" for 1250$ a month ! That is simply not real. Just do a little digging and you will see that those kind of properties rent/lease for 3k - 4k. Its hard to find a bachelor/studio for $1250 these days...maybe, just maybe, the writer intended to indicate that someone is renting a bedroom in a two bed bungalow, but then the real rent is $2600 which is still very very hard to find and prices increase daily. Just my educated native two cents lol. There are many great things about LA but after living in NYC - in the Village and Williamsburg - in the early 90's, I spent a few weeks in Brooklyn last fall and I know there are great things there too...LA is still chock full of awful plastic fakers and flaky fly by night wanna be's AND NYC is still full of snobby credit card slingers with a banal uber boring East Coast myopic (c)rude tude, but there are great folks doing cool things everywhere, you just gotta ignore the idiots and focus on the rad ones...
158
Alex Williams suggests the cost of living in LA will strike people from Brooklyn the way traveling in Spain and Greece used to be many decades ago. Not only are rents (and house prices) MUCH higher in LA than the writer pretends, many transplanted non-single New Yorkers who could live without cars there will have to buy and maintain two of them. If the NY migrants actually have children, they will discover that the public schools are of as poor quality in LA as they are in NYC and that private schools are expensive. There are many undoubted pleasures in living in Los Angeles but low cost of living is not one of them.
3
Agreed, that $1250/month price is an hallucination.
There is no right place to be if you're in a creative career. The idea of showing up in a magic city of opportunity (i.e. LA/NYC) and having everything easily fall into place simply because you are there is such a joke and deception. Success starts with you. Where you are is never going to be more important than that. There is an undeniable advantage to being in either New York or LA, but if you're not going to make the gigantic effort required everyday to accomplish what you want to accomplish you might as well be living in Canute, Oklahoma (no offense meant to Canute, it's a lovely place, I drove through it, and enjoyed all ten minutes of that drive)
Articles like this make me puke.
All this:
"In New York, she said, she was so busy working to pay the bills that she often toiled from 5 a.m. to 10 a.m. as a production assistant for “Good Morning America,” then from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. as a cocktail waitress. Los Angeles, with its slower pace and cluster of young artists, has proved to be fertile ground for her artistic ambitions.
I couldn’t believe how collaborative everyone out here was,” Ms. Price said. “Want to shoot a music video? Just put up a Facebook message and within hours you’ll have 15 responses from incredibly talented, passionate people who want to work for free, because they believe in you and your art.”
is pure garbage and so cringe-worthy I'm still not over it as I type this.
Thanks for reading though.
Articles like this make me puke.
All this:
"In New York, she said, she was so busy working to pay the bills that she often toiled from 5 a.m. to 10 a.m. as a production assistant for “Good Morning America,” then from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. as a cocktail waitress. Los Angeles, with its slower pace and cluster of young artists, has proved to be fertile ground for her artistic ambitions.
I couldn’t believe how collaborative everyone out here was,” Ms. Price said. “Want to shoot a music video? Just put up a Facebook message and within hours you’ll have 15 responses from incredibly talented, passionate people who want to work for free, because they believe in you and your art.”
is pure garbage and so cringe-worthy I'm still not over it as I type this.
Thanks for reading though.
115
It is sickening, the misconception that any creative person wants "to work for free."
11
Another article about insufferable hipsters.. what exactly do these folks think is going to change?
For starters, L.A. has no culture. It's not notable for any great human achievement. It's not the birthplace of anything admirable.
The real problem is that these people are moving from one bland, gentrified neighborhood to another. Whatever rent deal they're getting today, they'll be priced out just as quickly. And whereas you can at least get a tolerable train ride from Queens, just try commuting from an L.A. suburb.
You'll be back.
For starters, L.A. has no culture. It's not notable for any great human achievement. It's not the birthplace of anything admirable.
The real problem is that these people are moving from one bland, gentrified neighborhood to another. Whatever rent deal they're getting today, they'll be priced out just as quickly. And whereas you can at least get a tolerable train ride from Queens, just try commuting from an L.A. suburb.
You'll be back.
99
We create movies, TV, and animation, entertaining the entire world. Immigrants from every country bring enormous diversity. Give me a break.
5
Spoken like a true insufferable Seattle hipster, cloudy-brained and flat-out ignorant.
"It's not notable for any great achievement."
Here's one little obscure industry plucked out of the many in two centuries of Los Angeles and Southern California history: AEROSPACE.
The stable good weather of the region made it a natural place for not only motion pictures but aerospace as well. Just a few notable accomplishments off the top of my head: the world's first geo-synchronous communications satellite from Hughes Aircraft (founded by eccentric motion-picture mogul Howard), the Apollo Command and Service Modules from North American Aviation, rocket engines from Rocketdyne, the Space Shuttle Orbiter from Rockwell International, and nearly every major American unmanned space mission from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (managed by California Istitute of Technology, that academy of slackers and 34 Nobel Prizes). Why do you think NASA gave a Space Shuttle to Los Angeles for its Science Museum? It wasn't because of its movie industry.
That "Pale Blue Dot" made famous by Carl Sagan? It's a final one-pixel snapshot of Earth from Voyager I, the first man-made object to reach interstellar space manufactured and continuing to be managed right here at JPL. That's right, a bit of L.A. creative dynamism is on its way to the star Gliese 445.
So, what's your definition of "great achievement"?
"It's not notable for any great achievement."
Here's one little obscure industry plucked out of the many in two centuries of Los Angeles and Southern California history: AEROSPACE.
The stable good weather of the region made it a natural place for not only motion pictures but aerospace as well. Just a few notable accomplishments off the top of my head: the world's first geo-synchronous communications satellite from Hughes Aircraft (founded by eccentric motion-picture mogul Howard), the Apollo Command and Service Modules from North American Aviation, rocket engines from Rocketdyne, the Space Shuttle Orbiter from Rockwell International, and nearly every major American unmanned space mission from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (managed by California Istitute of Technology, that academy of slackers and 34 Nobel Prizes). Why do you think NASA gave a Space Shuttle to Los Angeles for its Science Museum? It wasn't because of its movie industry.
That "Pale Blue Dot" made famous by Carl Sagan? It's a final one-pixel snapshot of Earth from Voyager I, the first man-made object to reach interstellar space manufactured and continuing to be managed right here at JPL. That's right, a bit of L.A. creative dynamism is on its way to the star Gliese 445.
So, what's your definition of "great achievement"?
11
Not the birthplace of anything admirable. This statement is shows astonishing ignorance about industry, culture and art.
I was a resident of NYC in my 20s in the 80s and had the time of my life, and always enjoy returning.
I also lived in SF for over a dozen years following that. A truly beautiful and cultural city.
I've also lived in Silicon Valley ... don't get me started. A dreary one-note extended suburb if ever there was one.
When I moved to LA in 2002 I arrived harboring many stereotypes. But after working proudly for the Caltech (um 30+ Nobel Prize winners) the LA Philharmonic (one of the hippest, greatest symphonies on the planet) and creating true and honest friendships with scientists, musicians, film composers, writers and other artists well, I've had to eat my hat.
I've lived in a lovely little 1916 Bungalow for the last 13 years with neighbors, and strangers (!) who stop and say hello when I'm elbow deep in my garden.
Why compare? Every city has its pluses and minus. Learn a little more about a city before you dis it.
I was a resident of NYC in my 20s in the 80s and had the time of my life, and always enjoy returning.
I also lived in SF for over a dozen years following that. A truly beautiful and cultural city.
I've also lived in Silicon Valley ... don't get me started. A dreary one-note extended suburb if ever there was one.
When I moved to LA in 2002 I arrived harboring many stereotypes. But after working proudly for the Caltech (um 30+ Nobel Prize winners) the LA Philharmonic (one of the hippest, greatest symphonies on the planet) and creating true and honest friendships with scientists, musicians, film composers, writers and other artists well, I've had to eat my hat.
I've lived in a lovely little 1916 Bungalow for the last 13 years with neighbors, and strangers (!) who stop and say hello when I'm elbow deep in my garden.
Why compare? Every city has its pluses and minus. Learn a little more about a city before you dis it.
5
This article got me thinking about my avoidance of certain parts of this city because of the stereotypes. I live in Los Feliz and work in DTLA. I avoid Beverly Hills and the Westside like the plague. I'd rather explore Koreatown, Little Tokyo or Pico-Union than Culver City. Does this make me a hater? I don't think so, I just feel more at ease here on the Eastside. I'm able to walk everywhere, from the subway station to the store, library, post office, restaurants, etc. It certainly does feel like I'm not living in the LA that the rest of the world pictures it as. The best thing to do if you visit our lovely city is to explore our diverse neighborhoods, it truly is an eye opening experience. Grab a bag of delicious mixed fruit with salt and lime from the lady at the corner, have dinner at a Korean BBQ, walk into a bar where they only speak Spanish, LA is more than just freeways and plastic Barbie parts. I love the city that I was born and raised in. Good night as I look outside my window and admire the gorgeous Griffith Observatory, I am a lucky girl.
54
Part of why I love LA is that everyone can find a place that suits them. Some people are beach people, some like suburbia, some like being in the middle of the hustle and bustle of the city, some like a hippie commune vibe, some like a condo with an HOA. Whatever your gig is, LA has a neighborhood that will fit you like a fine suit.
1
Yes, this makes you a hater. Eastside gentrifiers are more snobby than NYers
vis-a-vis LA. Do you think the patrons of "bar where they only speak Spanish" are happy to see you and your hipster friends stroll in? They see you guys and read the writing on the wall: "here they come to take our neighborhood". Keep telling yourselves how "authentic" you are on the eastside and how vapid we are on the eastside, but you guys are driving up rents and homogenizing the city just like everyone else.
vis-a-vis LA. Do you think the patrons of "bar where they only speak Spanish" are happy to see you and your hipster friends stroll in? They see you guys and read the writing on the wall: "here they come to take our neighborhood". Keep telling yourselves how "authentic" you are on the eastside and how vapid we are on the eastside, but you guys are driving up rents and homogenizing the city just like everyone else.
Koreatown has gentrified and is as crime ridden as ever, how about Alhambra and Monterrey Park for great cheap restaurants, lower prices, walkable, etc... Or even, gaps, go below the Orange curtain to Little Saigon. I liked living in West LA, but went to all the places you mentioned, plus the Inglewood Costco, one of the best kept secrets in LA. Also the Inglewood DMV is the best.
New York is a state of mind which can be transported elsewhere.
8
Didn't I read this same article about New Yorkers heading to California about 1970?
45
In reference to the reference to Woody Allen's movie "Annie Hall," it was biographically inspired by Diane Keaton (real name: Hall) who was born in, and lived for some of her childhood, in Highland Park, an eastside suburb of Los Angeles. So, when in the film they refer to her "Americana" childhood home of Chippewa Falls, it is in fact standing in for Highland Park. In Los Angeles. (Apparently they decorated the Easter Dinner set with actual photos (which Diane shot), and decorations from her grandmother's Highland Park home.) Not quite irony, but even in that old movie, the eastside of Los Angeles was happening to New Yorkers. So there... ;)
6
WHAT???????????????
The only reason a New Yorker would ever go to Los Angeles is because someone is holding a gun to their head.
FYI.........The only good thing about LA is leaving it.
The only reason a New Yorker would ever go to Los Angeles is because someone is holding a gun to their head.
FYI.........The only good thing about LA is leaving it.
6
That's what everyone I knew in the Bay Area said to me when I left Berkeley--voluntarily, quitting my job and selling my house with a Bay view--to move to Los Angeles in 1989. It wasn't easy, but 26 years later I can say I've never been bored. None of the things I've accomplished could have been done there, or for that matter in New York. Btw, James F. Barry, the war between NY and Los Angeles is being fought entirely by your side. We Angelenos couldn't care less what a bunch of provincial New Yorkers think of our city.
I enjoy visiting NYC and other areas on the East Coast (and lived several years there) but IMHO, I've always thought that, short of family and other ties that compel people to stay there, the West Coast's weather, innovation, and laid-back culture trumps the East.
14
Actually - when it comes to innovation - the only place on the West Coast that is more innovative is the San Fran Bay Area. Comparing other locales - the East Coast actually has more.
Having lived in Manhattan, Brooklyn and L.A., I'll take L.A. any day. Beautiful, more livable, nicer people.
New York is about money and power. L.A. is about the future. California has always been about the future. Even people who love New York complain about New York constantly. I've never heard an Angeleno complain about L.A. - except the traffic. In my experience, very few people move to L.A. and hate it and can't wait to get away - kind of the opposite of the NYC experience.
New York is about money and power. L.A. is about the future. California has always been about the future. Even people who love New York complain about New York constantly. I've never heard an Angeleno complain about L.A. - except the traffic. In my experience, very few people move to L.A. and hate it and can't wait to get away - kind of the opposite of the NYC experience.
32
Not sure how much future there can be with no water. Trust me, that situation is not going away anytime soon. And more people are pouring into the state daily.....
The future until the water runs out.
As a Denver friend of mine likes to say, "Wherever you go, there you are." I say we all gotta live somewhere. Transitions are hard, but transition is life. Transition starts when one emerges from the womb screaming and continues when one dies. . . .
8
L.A. is fine if you have a car. But this article doesn't mention the awfulness of gridlock on the freeways and how this sprawling city has no real center. It's just a collection of residential areas, and the glitz that greets you at LAX is enough to make some delicate souls run shrieking in the opposite direction. That said, Los Angeles now has better public transportation than the city had when I left it many years ago for New York. L.A. has a subway system now, nowhere near as extensive as NYC's, and sometimes the buses will get you where you want to go. The robocops of LAPD, however, are a horror story, and may scare you back to the Apple.
8
L.A. is just fine without a car if you don't make your life revolve around it. I've never had a car or a driver's license in my life and that's been just fine by me for almost 30 years in L.A.. The beach is a 15 minute walk away, all kinds of restaurants, bars, movie theaters, bakeries, butcher shops, supermarkets, farmer's markets, within walking distance. The Getty Villa, the Getty Center, the Hammer Museum, the Fowler Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art are all short Rapid Bus rides away. Why does there need to be single center? Los Angeles County contains 88 different cities, the City of Los Angeles is only one of them and it, too, has many different neighborhoods, each with their unique character. I like that.
Thank you! I've loved this city over New York for a very long time. I used to seethe when those from out of town complained there was "no culture" here. It's not an "insta-like" city (like NYC or Vancouver) -- it won't wow you in five minutes with its pomp, ambition or antiquity. At first you'll think, hmmm, heck of a lot of fallow parking lots and fro yo. But stick with it.
For every strip mall there is an independent film theater or comedy club; for every British car garage there is a writing group; for every farmer's market (a joy unto themselves), there is someone handing out fliers for their cooking program/painting workshop/poetry meet. And for (almost) every pothole there is someone working on their craft in one creative discipline or another -- you're just as likely to encounter them by the bananas in Ralphs as you are in a Century City meeting.
Oh, and, when in need of inspiration, be sure to go to the Santa Monica air museum... you're welcome!
For every strip mall there is an independent film theater or comedy club; for every British car garage there is a writing group; for every farmer's market (a joy unto themselves), there is someone handing out fliers for their cooking program/painting workshop/poetry meet. And for (almost) every pothole there is someone working on their craft in one creative discipline or another -- you're just as likely to encounter them by the bananas in Ralphs as you are in a Century City meeting.
Oh, and, when in need of inspiration, be sure to go to the Santa Monica air museum... you're welcome!
8
Uh, sorry but REAL New Yorkers (i.e. those born here) will NOT leave NYC for that land of guacamole, earthquakes and tinsel. If you have any empirical proof to the contrary I'd like to see it. The example of Moby taunting friends with photos of himself "by the pool in February" or Lena Dunham buying a $2.7 million home of a dead movie star fail to convince me that serious people are make the transfer. Is NYC as great as it has been previously? No. Is LA the answer to NYC's current malaise? That's not even a question worth answering.
140
Bet those millionaires kept their NYC apartments though.
1
So true! The people who love LA are all born in the suburbs and really just do not like a true urban existence.
Earthquakes?? Check the fracking map for those, friend. They are far rarer here.... Aside from that not-minor detail, I hope you share your POV with as many as possible there in NY. Do. not. come. here. You will ruin it, or it will "ruin" you.
2
hey,
have fun with all that water you don't have.
have fun with all that water you don't have.
30
Well, at least this time it's not the real estate section ruining a neighborhood in Brooklyn, er LA, by writing about it. cue the influx of wall street financiers into Echo Park.
7
This is nothing new. The weak have always fled west after failing in NYC.
38
Yes....let's talk to Barbara Streisand and David Geffen about that.
I'm sorry but there is no freaking way that person is paying $1250 for a 2BR with yard, garage, and work studio in Echo Park. Seems off by about $1000 to me--was that a typo? Calling on Style section fact checkers and proofreaders to please confirm that that sentence shouldn't actually read "For $600 less than the $2,850 a month Ms Turner was paying..."
Rents are cheaper in LA, but not THAT cheap. Please don't come expecting $1250 two-bed apartments unless you are driving cross country in a time machine that can drop you in the 1990s.
Rents are cheaper in LA, but not THAT cheap. Please don't come expecting $1250 two-bed apartments unless you are driving cross country in a time machine that can drop you in the 1990s.
143
My daughter has one, but someone died there so they dropped the rent
I for one am happy to have the New Yorkers move here, while overlooking their cliched notions of creativity. They at least have urban inclinations and will support transit projects. But this article is very late. Los Angeles turned the corner way back when the Rodney King riot frightened all the aging suburbanites out of staid but conveniently-located neighborhoods such as Los Feliz. The new denizens rejuvenated the city socially and culturally over the next decade and it's been on a constant upswing ever since.
14
As someone who lives in the area under discussion, I'm pleasantly surprised to find out that I'm trendy.
Mr. Williams makes two key errors of fact, though, one which is a little sloppy and one which is ethnocentric.
The first error is his reference to McCarren Park. There is no such park in Los Angeles; he was obviously referring to MacArthur Park (which, according to Jimmy Webb, is melting in the dark). McCarren was a red-baiting senator from Nevada in the 1950's; the Las Vegas airport is named after him.
The second error -- although to be fair to Mr. Williams, he's simply reflecting what locals told him -- is to describe the Los Feliz/Silverlake/Echo Park area as the "East Side" of Los Angeles. We aren't, although we're east of Beverly Hills, Bel Air and Santa Monica, which are more Pacific-Ocean Adjacent.
The true east side of Los Angeles, is East LA, a traditionally low-income Mexican-American neighborhood east of downtown Los Angeles. If your'e an ethnocentric white hipster, it makes sense to refer to Los Feliz et. al. as the "East Side:" if you're not, it doesn't.
Mr. Williams makes two key errors of fact, though, one which is a little sloppy and one which is ethnocentric.
The first error is his reference to McCarren Park. There is no such park in Los Angeles; he was obviously referring to MacArthur Park (which, according to Jimmy Webb, is melting in the dark). McCarren was a red-baiting senator from Nevada in the 1950's; the Las Vegas airport is named after him.
The second error -- although to be fair to Mr. Williams, he's simply reflecting what locals told him -- is to describe the Los Feliz/Silverlake/Echo Park area as the "East Side" of Los Angeles. We aren't, although we're east of Beverly Hills, Bel Air and Santa Monica, which are more Pacific-Ocean Adjacent.
The true east side of Los Angeles, is East LA, a traditionally low-income Mexican-American neighborhood east of downtown Los Angeles. If your'e an ethnocentric white hipster, it makes sense to refer to Los Feliz et. al. as the "East Side:" if you're not, it doesn't.
29
McCarren park is in Williamsburg, Brooklyn...as in "drinking at this spot in Silver Lake will remind you of Brooklyn."
2
Bluewombat, I've been to Brooklyn NY once in my life but from the context it was obvious McCarren Park was in New York. Highlight and right click search = A park equally valued and cherished in Greenpoint and Williamsburg, McCarren Park is the site of endless games of kickball, soccer, baseball, bocce, handball ...
There was a mistake and that was the ridiculous $1,200 a month bungalow with artist studio and garage in Echo Park. $1,200 is the rent for one of the bedrooms.
I adore NYC, that means Manhattan. I love L.A. I live in the OC.
There was a mistake and that was the ridiculous $1,200 a month bungalow with artist studio and garage in Echo Park. $1,200 is the rent for one of the bedrooms.
I adore NYC, that means Manhattan. I love L.A. I live in the OC.
At heart, the article is the tale of gentrifiers' eternal search for affordable real estate to colonize. The resulting banality is well known, whether Williamsburg, or "a grown up Williamsburg". Arriving in Brooklyn in 1991... the changes I have seen! There seems to be some natural law that unclaimed cultural space will, 25 years later, be a mall.
113
"Arriving in Brooklyn in 1991... the changes I have seen!"
Arriving in Brooklyn the day of my birth, in 1954, I entered a pretty bucolic world. Still old trolley tracks on some avenues, ditto cobblestones. Nobody locked their doors. On summer nights, our apartment house neighbors and my parents left doors open for a cross breeze. That was the way it was for many decades before I was born, too.
Fast forward to the early 1970s. A very large difference. Streets once pristine turned filthy and littered. Where we had heard birds, we heard police sirens. Schools like Erasmus Hall High School, once among the city's best, became scenes of violence.
Fast forward to the late 1990s. Things getting a little better. Pffff.
Arriving in Brooklyn the day of my birth, in 1954, I entered a pretty bucolic world. Still old trolley tracks on some avenues, ditto cobblestones. Nobody locked their doors. On summer nights, our apartment house neighbors and my parents left doors open for a cross breeze. That was the way it was for many decades before I was born, too.
Fast forward to the early 1970s. A very large difference. Streets once pristine turned filthy and littered. Where we had heard birds, we heard police sirens. Schools like Erasmus Hall High School, once among the city's best, became scenes of violence.
Fast forward to the late 1990s. Things getting a little better. Pffff.
Yes, people have a way of discovering great, charming places, moving there, and ruining everything that was great about it. I like the Orlando native response: Don't come here. Mail us the money! Or, Welcome to wherever. Now, go home!
1
In terms of cultural acclimation, the other afternoon in Encino, after picking my high-school son up from a bus-stop, we were delayed in leaving a parking lot by the near random movements of a well-dressed woman, attempting to cross Ventura Blvd. on foot, mid block., against the onslaught of traffic. He sighed and said "She's a New Yorker."
68
FMike--Hilarious! :-D
1
"In some quarters, the scorn that New Yorkers once piled on Los Angeles is now sounding like envy."
It has always sounded like envy. No one talks down about New York or really cares about it at all. I hear all the tired stereotypes from NY transplants, though. I was at Nobu Malibu when a likely-visiting New Yorker called me "trashy" for wearing a flannel there. He said it to his friends as I was walking by. You know, as opposed to the obligatory east coast uniform of a plain button down, blue jeans and black shoes. Stay classy, you cavemen.
It has always sounded like envy. No one talks down about New York or really cares about it at all. I hear all the tired stereotypes from NY transplants, though. I was at Nobu Malibu when a likely-visiting New Yorker called me "trashy" for wearing a flannel there. He said it to his friends as I was walking by. You know, as opposed to the obligatory east coast uniform of a plain button down, blue jeans and black shoes. Stay classy, you cavemen.
101
Hey, that's great that based on no evidence whatsoever you decided that the person who called you out for wearing flannel at Nobu was a "likely-visiting New Yorker." So you have no idea who the person was, but you're applying a New Yorker stereotype to feel better about someone ragging on your clothes? And about this supposed New Yorker "uniform" you describe, I don't know anyone who dresses like that. New York is the home of the fashion industry, so there really isn't a uniform, unlike in California where every tech guy I meet is wearing khakis and a button-down or polo and every supposed creative type is in sneakers.
It's also great that people in California don't care about New York - although that seems to be kind of untrue if your first reaction to someone questioning the appropriateness of your clothing is to shout "New Yorker." But I can assure you that it's the same here. Beyond the questionable premise of this trend story, I don't know of a single person in New York who would say, "I can't take it anymore. I'm moving to LA." Of course there are plenty of people in New York who say they can't take it anymore, the city isn't for everyone. It's just that no one I know would ever think that moving to LA was the solution.
It's also great that people in California don't care about New York - although that seems to be kind of untrue if your first reaction to someone questioning the appropriateness of your clothing is to shout "New Yorker." But I can assure you that it's the same here. Beyond the questionable premise of this trend story, I don't know of a single person in New York who would say, "I can't take it anymore. I'm moving to LA." Of course there are plenty of people in New York who say they can't take it anymore, the city isn't for everyone. It's just that no one I know would ever think that moving to LA was the solution.
1
He had a thick brooklyn accent. It wasn't hard to tell. I said likely-visiting as in he almost 100% did not live in LA, not that he was likely a new Yorker - he definitely was. Is that not the uniform? That along with some pastels? Maybe boat shoes? Why is it that 20 year old frat boys on the east coast dress like dads?
What are you talking about? "Boys on the east coast"?
1
Ugh.
Are we STILL doing New York vs. Los Angeles? I lived in LA since 1975 until, for reasons only a good therapist might uncover, I moved to NYC in January. I had worked for 20 straight years in and around local TV stations writing and editing promos.
It's not art but it pays surprisingly well.
I lost my job last August and, despite my obvious talents and fun baseball caps, no one in LA came calling. On a whim, I applied for a part-time job at a local New York TV station inside one of America's most iconic buildings, seven floors above the country's most famous ice skating rink, nestled in the exquisite energy and spotty charm of midtown Manhattan.
They offered. I couldn't resist.
So, if you want to talk about NY vs. LA, I'm your guy. But really, who wants to talk about it anymore? Since you bring up "Annie Hall," please at least notice that Alvy stayed in New York and Annie found what she wanted in LA.
And there you have it.
Go ahead and make your list, but you'll never solve this puzzle. Weather. Transit. Art. Used clothes. New clothes. Sunshine. Parks. Food trucks. Seasons. Just depends on what you're looking for, doesn’t it? Since September, I’ve had four months of each. The verdict?
You can make yourself happy or miserable anywhere.
You want to talk “Annie Hall”? Here’s the quote you’re looking for: “A newspaper column is like a shark. It either has to move forward or it dies. I think what we got on our hands is a dead newspaper column.”
You’re welcome.
Are we STILL doing New York vs. Los Angeles? I lived in LA since 1975 until, for reasons only a good therapist might uncover, I moved to NYC in January. I had worked for 20 straight years in and around local TV stations writing and editing promos.
It's not art but it pays surprisingly well.
I lost my job last August and, despite my obvious talents and fun baseball caps, no one in LA came calling. On a whim, I applied for a part-time job at a local New York TV station inside one of America's most iconic buildings, seven floors above the country's most famous ice skating rink, nestled in the exquisite energy and spotty charm of midtown Manhattan.
They offered. I couldn't resist.
So, if you want to talk about NY vs. LA, I'm your guy. But really, who wants to talk about it anymore? Since you bring up "Annie Hall," please at least notice that Alvy stayed in New York and Annie found what she wanted in LA.
And there you have it.
Go ahead and make your list, but you'll never solve this puzzle. Weather. Transit. Art. Used clothes. New clothes. Sunshine. Parks. Food trucks. Seasons. Just depends on what you're looking for, doesn’t it? Since September, I’ve had four months of each. The verdict?
You can make yourself happy or miserable anywhere.
You want to talk “Annie Hall”? Here’s the quote you’re looking for: “A newspaper column is like a shark. It either has to move forward or it dies. I think what we got on our hands is a dead newspaper column.”
You’re welcome.
199
Hey, its a drag to think that one city exists to put down the other. They are different and also similar and the twain do meet. Take your pick, it's a free country, and live your life to the fullest.
18
I always laugh when I hear that godawful song, "New York, New York" and it gets to the line,"....if you can make it there you can make it anywhere..." and my transplanted New York friends moan in unison, "Yeah, except in LA!"
Truth is, LA is a much tougher town than New York ever was or will be. The prizes are bigger in LA and thus much harder to land. Just wait until you try to break through in Hollywood. NY will seem like a giant cushion when you go running back, tail between your legs, beaten and exhausted.
But hey. The beaches are great.
Truth is, LA is a much tougher town than New York ever was or will be. The prizes are bigger in LA and thus much harder to land. Just wait until you try to break through in Hollywood. NY will seem like a giant cushion when you go running back, tail between your legs, beaten and exhausted.
But hey. The beaches are great.
9
"...LA is a much tougher town than New York ever was or will be..."
This is an unbelievably cringe-worthy and inaccurate statement. I can't fathom how or why someone actually thinks this (News flash: no major metropolitan area is going to be a cakewalk, handing out jobs willy nilly, especially in the midst of a recession recovery).
I can let the West Coast homer statement slide, since I know there's plenty of East Coast pride that would lead to a nearly identical and equally ignorant statement about New York being that much tougher. But bashing Sinatra? You've gone too far. Pump your brakes, kid. That man's a national treasure.
This is an unbelievably cringe-worthy and inaccurate statement. I can't fathom how or why someone actually thinks this (News flash: no major metropolitan area is going to be a cakewalk, handing out jobs willy nilly, especially in the midst of a recession recovery).
I can let the West Coast homer statement slide, since I know there's plenty of East Coast pride that would lead to a nearly identical and equally ignorant statement about New York being that much tougher. But bashing Sinatra? You've gone too far. Pump your brakes, kid. That man's a national treasure.
1
High hopes for this article.
Alas. Vapid, shallow, cloistered Nyer who thinks they have a finger on real pulse type take on this.ironic.
Alas. Vapid, shallow, cloistered Nyer who thinks they have a finger on real pulse type take on this.ironic.
4
Unfortunately, I've observed many times that New York often looks like nothing more than a big parking lot; it used to be that people here could live without cars, but more and more people move here and insist on keeping the car.
Having been here over 30 years, I honestly don't know where I'd go if I left NYC; almost everywhere outside of the city requires a car.
Having been here over 30 years, I honestly don't know where I'd go if I left NYC; almost everywhere outside of the city requires a car.
16
As a native and lifelong NYer I agree with this. You can't imagine how much lighter the vehicular traffic was when I was a kid. Riding bikes down the middle of avenues. It really is like a giant parking lot now. You may as well live in LA if you're going to be surrounded by cars. Unless you love winter.
4
I think the problem in New York is the whole, ridiculous Brooklyn thing... kids from Oshgosh or wherever flocking to a few places in Brooklyn (you want hardscrable?), driving up rents in areas that by rights should have been affordable, and turning them into a Disney-like Portlandia East.
But I agree, the foreign uber-rich who own but don't live here are also very much a part of the problem too.
But really... Los Angeles? Isn't that west of the Hudson?
But I agree, the foreign uber-rich who own but don't live here are also very much a part of the problem too.
But really... Los Angeles? Isn't that west of the Hudson?
27
As the crow flies.
I've seen this same article 27 times over the years. Enough already. Lots of NYers move to LA and love it. Lots move to LA and move back.
27
And I know plenty of people here in the Boston area who are from California and would never move back.
I know a ton of Bostonians who live here in LA and would never move back.
1
The article fails to mention another obvious difference between the two cities which makes LA that much better and that is the cheap high-end marijuana sold out of dispensaries that dot the city.
19
It could be that this has something to do with the recent trend toward long arctic winters in the North East and increasingly dry tropical winters on the West Coast. LA is OK, but can you get anywhere on foot?
6
Yes, I've been doing it for close to 30 years, Ray Bradbury did it his whole life. It's easy if you let go of your preconceptions.
4
I do not even want to pass through LA.
On the way to Australia or Asia, I will go through San francisco.
I like to not want "see" the air I am trying to breath!
On the way to Australia or Asia, I will go through San francisco.
I like to not want "see" the air I am trying to breath!
6
Nothing new under the sun. I remember the early 70's, when a wave of New Yorkers came to LA because this was where the work was. New York was a hellhole of crime and grime, TV shows were in LA and the craft unions had driven movies out of Manhattan. I remember the plaintive cries of the transplants, so used to a loose social life in bars and cafes, discovering that Angelenos tended to stay and entertain at home. "Where do you go to meet people?!?" they cried. Now, LA is full of bars and restaurants, plenty of street social life. I guess that makes me another old codger saying, "You kids, don't know how good you have it!"
6
I'm sorry, but doesn't the N.Y.Times recycle this same article about the N.Y.C. to L.A. migration every ten years?
42
Love LA, would move there, but oh, the traffic has become a nightmare. What ever neighborhood you are in, it's hard to leave it! As for Echo Park, yeah, it's been where "artists" live for decades now. Ditto Silver Lake and Los Feliz. It's nice to see that all that hasn't changed.
1
But the idea of what an "artist" is has changed. Silver Lake, Los felix and Echo Park are mostly gentrified now--and expensive on a par with the gentrified parts of Brooklyn. The "artists" are movie industry folks with good incomes, who can't afford or don't want to commute to the sick monoculture of uber wealth of Santa Monica and the west side.
1
I wonder when people will actually start taking the whole water might run out thing seriously?
34
there goes the neighborhood.
7
The weather is nice. But LA has crime and urban problems too.
2
I love drought and fires.
14
I am originally from Los Angeles. For me it is synonymous to living in Hell.
LA is a city where if you change jobs you must move to avoid a 2 hour commute. Its a cultural void sans Mexican culture .. so, its not that diverse ethnically ... Yeah, there is South Central with African Americans. But, go walk around Santa Monica ... and you won't see any. Once the glean of the sunshine wears off, one realizes you are in this vapid cesspool. New strips malls next to old strip malls surrounded by a plethora of congested freeways interspersed with miles of ugly track housing. BORING!!!
LA is a city where if you change jobs you must move to avoid a 2 hour commute. Its a cultural void sans Mexican culture .. so, its not that diverse ethnically ... Yeah, there is South Central with African Americans. But, go walk around Santa Monica ... and you won't see any. Once the glean of the sunshine wears off, one realizes you are in this vapid cesspool. New strips malls next to old strip malls surrounded by a plethora of congested freeways interspersed with miles of ugly track housing. BORING!!!
15
For the rest of us out here in the provinces -- this is insularity within insularity.
9
New Yorkers. Stop them at the California border.
3
This is a funny article...to say that New Yorkers are No. 1 again. I just laughed so much. Why do we have to be number 1 everywhere?
2
I spent four years in LA before moving back to NY. I decided I had gone to college so I wouldn't have to live in a car.
7
having lived in Manhattan for 12 years and Tucson for the last 20, I can say without a doubt that Jim Morrison was right: "The West is the Best."
33
People from New York and elsewhere have been slamming LA and then moving here for decades. Since LA is where I choose to live, it always used to bother me when people would slam it. Although I tried many times over the years to discuss these slams against LA with other people who live here, I could not find anybody who was at all bothered by these slams. As best as I can tell, the people who live in LA couldn't care less about how LA is perceived by others. The slams simply do not register here.
40
"It's redundant to die in Los Angeles.” ― Truman Capote
9
I agree with you with the exception of taking flak from Texans. You just gotta smack that 'stuff' down, as any comparison or complaint from them is ridiculous on any level. On the other hand its an honor to be razzed by New Yorkers, and the migration described above is healthy for LA.
2
Not true... You all wouldn't be on here commenting if you really didn't care.
Spot on. One example of more interesting creativity is the wide range of local output from 99-seat theaters in LA compared to the comparatively narrow range of output from the 100s of non-profit theater groups, more like self-regarding cliques, in NY, whose boards are top heavy with corporate & Wall St execs. Not much cutting edge left in NY.
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New York is a giant urban cliche. So are "real New Yorkers". New York was cool about 30 years ago. Financial considerations aside, Los Angeles and, more broadly, the West Coast are much more relevant than NY is today. The West Coast is easily more environmentally friendly, more creative, more technologically innovative, and more beautiful than the East Coast.
Case in point: New Yorkers posting about their cliched "tough minded" attitude (more of a complex if you ask me) How many of you are under fourty years of age? How many of your are with the times?
Case in point: New Yorkers posting about their cliched "tough minded" attitude (more of a complex if you ask me) How many of you are under fourty years of age? How many of your are with the times?
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