r/geography • u/villehhulkkonen • 1d ago

La is a wasted opportunity Discussion

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Imagine if Los Angeles was built like Barcelona. Dense 15 million people metropolis with great public transportation and walkability.

They wasted this perfect climate and perfect place for city by building a endless suburban sprawl.

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u/Actual-Ad-2748 1d ago

I love visiting LA. I would however not like to live there.

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u/DBL_NDRSCR 1d ago

it's not hard to live carfree if you pick the right neighborhood, lots of people do

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u/SparksWood71 1d ago

Yes - I did it for years in Hollywood.

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u/drgreenair 1d ago

I did WeHo without a car was manageable for like 6 months but doing the mental math of Ubers when making plans got out of hand. This was in 2015ish so it wasn’t crazy I’d be able to Uber to the valley to visit family for $30-40 which isn’t bad

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u/CrypticDemon 1d ago

Unfortunately, Ubers are now 2-3 times what they were in 2015. I Uber from Burbank Airport to Santa Clarita every few months and those are running $75-100 a pop now.

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u/Agent_Eran 1d ago

Depending on the time of day I wouldn't do that drive for $200

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u/Qorwynne 1d ago

as a foreigner, it's always so shocking to hear about american prices. that's half of my monthly salary spent on one taxi trip 🥲

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u/Action_Maxim 1d ago

It's relative

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u/Crazy-Somewhere6561 1d ago

Not actually tho

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u/SolSparrow 1d ago

I could not believe how expensive Uber was in LA! I’m in Spain. Don’t have a car so use Uber or other local services all the time. I can go similar distances for 1/4 the price and don’t have to tip. I was there and wanted to go to target to get stuff to bring home, $20 min! How does it stay in service there?

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u/Cool_Firefighter7731 1d ago

You’re comparing a growth market with the original market?

If anything you should start prepping for alternatives for when the Spanish govt enforces labor laws on uber drivers and the prices jack up 40%

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u/SolSparrow 22h ago

I am just surprised the LA market (or others) can afford to use them at all these days. Salary’s are stagnant and the cost to go anywhere there with them is absolutely outrageous, I’ve used them all over the US, but LA was crazy expensive, also Seattle. That’s all :)

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u/Cool_Firefighter7731 18h ago

Gas in the state or routinely above $7 and the registration of the vehicle costs upwards of $300 a year.

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u/NecessaryPen7 11h ago

Spent 6 months in West LA the last 3 years, thankfully never really needed to get anywhere, longest drive an hour (20 min at 4am). Loved how empty it was Sunday mornings.

Anyways, I'm in Phoenix the last 4 winters and occasionally uber to work, 8 miles or so and it's always $7-$12 one way.

Probably what the cost should be but I'm always like how am I getting away with this????

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u/bukowski_knew 1d ago

I lived in LA without a car on two different occasions. Once in WeHo and once in Santa Monica. Very doable. People posting about how it's not walkable have probably never lived in LA proper

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u/SparksWood71 1d ago

That's exactly right, these are people who don't live in LA, or live in places like Irvine and Pacoima.

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u/PincheVatoWey 1d ago

Pacoima is within LA city limits. It is LA. Irvine is a different city in a different county with a different vibe.

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u/theamathamhour 1d ago

ironic way to reach this point given that neither WeHo nor Santa Monica are "LA proper"

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u/Super-History-388 1d ago

You can be walkable in small pockets of L.A. but if you’ve ever lived in a proper big city you know how bad it is here.

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u/teraechopuff 1d ago

Being walkable/carless in select parts of individual cities is doable in a LOT of places. There’s just very few cities where you can easily get anywhere within city limits in the US like NYC or Chicago. LA is nowhere near as easy to do carless as those 2 cities

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u/samirbinballin 1d ago

I live in the upper east part of the San Fernando Valley and work in West Hollywood and sometimes South Central, I don’t see how on earth I’d be able to manage with no vehicle, I’d have to quit my job if I had no car.

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u/CABucky 10h ago

Yep and pic OP posted looks like the 110/105 interchange, not exactly best example of a walkable area

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u/SparksWood71 1d ago

I'm impressed that you were able to do WeHo without a car!

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u/drgreenair 1d ago

I was Santa Monica/Crescent heights which was amazing since I was pretty much center between sunset strip which isn’t bad of a walk uphill and Melrose. Walking down to Beverly and 3rd was a stretch but i did those frequently. It helps they cut through quiet residential streets. Can you imagine doing that in ktown man I would have been shanked. I never even got a bike if I had a bike I probably would have been fine longer than 6 months.

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u/SparksWood71 1d ago

That's the crazy thing about Los Angeles, it could be one of the best places in the country for walking and cycling, it's flat, and always sunny. Actually, I think it kinda is, I lived on Sunset and Western and Griffith Park was a mile away, I could, and often did ,walk for miles down sunset into the heart of Hollywood, or east into Los Feliz and Silverlake. I lived not far from Koreatown, it's changed quite a bit in the last ten years. Hollywood is unrecognizable, I watched SOMA gentrify when I lived in San Francisco and Hollywood gentrified so much faster. That's the LA trendy thing, once something gets popular, everyone wants to hang out, and then live there.

Are you old enough to remember when half of West Hollywood was the ghetto? Before Target went in on Santa Monica and La Brea?

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u/windnsea00 1d ago

Weho is easy to walk from end to end, I have a car but walk a lot around here.

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u/Different_Ad7655 1d ago

But it's still sprawled to make it really efficient without good mass transit. I live in New England and always thought that Los Angeles was the poster child of everything wrong until I started going there for extended stays during the winter. It's as you say you must pick your neighborhood. But unfortunately even in Hollywood, because it's largely single-family or two-story, you cannot have the density built into the area that you need for really good mass transit. But Hollywood is the place you want to be to downtown to Chinatown. I found that you still really need a car to get around although one year I was the only guy on a bike, yeah I never saw another biker in the winter. But if you're in the right place everything is relatively at hand and if the density build up increases then there will be better opportunities for mass transit and then that will make a lot of sense

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u/SparksWood71 1d ago

Los Angeles is building more subways right now than anywhere else in the country ;-) also keep in mind that even San Francisco is low density outside of downtown. The avenues look exactly like the picture above.

Edit: this is false, Hollywood and Koreatown are two of the most dense neighborhoods on the West Coast. It's very easy to live in Hollywood without a car, you can take the subway downtown, and the light rail all the way out to Santa Monica. With respect, if you don't live here, it just looks like you've visited once or twice in the last 30 years.

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u/PossibleElk5058 1d ago

The avenues has the largest city park in the country that shoots down the middle that everyone has access to as well as the beach at the end. There's light rail and busses there that are pretty snappy

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u/SparksWood71 1d ago

And? Almost every single home there is a single-family home. Griffith park, in the middle of Los Angeles, is four times the size of Golden Gate Park, and gets four times as many visitors a day.

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u/Different_Ad7655 1d ago edited 1d ago

I know I know I'm there for 3 months a year. But the subways take you to far-flung areas and then you still have to hoof it for miles or use rideshare. That's not mass transit. Mass transit means you get within walking distance of your spot and that's the end of it. The city is too fucking large it's the problem

Koreatown is one of my favorite areas and if you're lucky enough to work right there or close enough and have a nice apartment or a house and one of those side streets then life could be golden indeed.

As I said it has its pockets, just its pockets.

I am not knocking the city, it is what it is. The US is what it is. And especially when you have been lucky enough to index yourself in 20 years ago with a house, what a deal. There is a small street, almost a forgotten the street off 3rd near koreatown where I always park and walk a mile or so to wherever I want to get there. This Little Street on the edge has 1920 houses and has one Spanish colonial revival beauty on an incredible half acre lot, unheard of downtown. I always dream about this house out probably 20 years ago was pretty cheap. The street is slightly beat up few homeless, and some garbage but overall would respond to cleaning. But it's the land of lala where you can grow anything or be outside at all times that by finding credible and to have that right there so close to everything else. LA is pretty cookie cutter everywhere with smallish lots. This is a real strange survivor and has a vacant city lot next to it as well as more buffer.. Just a fantasy lol. And has a classic back house as well for more income

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u/SparksWood71 1d ago

Far flung places ? Like downtown? Koreatown? Santa Monica? North Hollywood? with respect, I don't really think you know Los Angeles or what it's like for those of us who live here.

Cheers.

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u/Different_Ad7655 1d ago

Yeah yeah I'm sure I know the city as well as you lol But that's not my point. North Hollywood to Santa Monica is probably 23 mi lol. To downtown from Santa Monica is probably 16 mi.. But whatever. I have no idea what kind of experience you have where you have lived in a real walkable place but LA unfortunately will never be that.. It is what it is.. But if you're lucky enough to find your pocket and your spot it can be sweet, That was my only point..

The Subway only works in conjunction with something like rideshare at the other end. Unless you're extremely lucky but anyway I'll be there in a week

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u/beastwork 1d ago

I don't know why people are in here trying to pretend that LA is not the epitome of urban sprawl. Yes certain parts or the city are walkable but that is far from the norm.

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u/SparksWood71 1d ago

There are worse cities in this country than Los Angeles for sprawl, Houston, Dallas, Phoenix. Los Angeles at least has a functional subway system and is building more subways than anywhere else in the country right now.

I'm not arguing that the region isn't sprawl Central, but you talk about the LA basin as if nothing has changed in the last 30 years is a pretty good indicator that you haven't been to the city in decades, or worse, you came here and stayed in Pomona or Riverside.

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u/beastwork 1d ago

Your assumptions make you look like a tool, because you're dead wrong. But please continue telling me about myself. And what parts of LA I stay in.

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u/SparksWood71 1d ago

You sound angry.

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u/beastwork 1d ago

And you sound stupid. Agree to disagreement

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u/SparksWood71 1d ago

Stupid is as stupid does. Speak English much?

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u/Different_Ad7655 1d ago

Because there's no American city that's walkable. None of them and I've lived in New York and Boston in the south end and all of them have 18th or 19th century cores that are now heavily gentrified and walkable, and that itself means different things to different people.

But when I lived in Boston my entire universe was 3 miles south end, across the river to Harvard square or downtown. But if you look beyond all of that to the ends of Brookline or West Roxbury or out towards Revere you're fucked as you are with every American city. Yes there's actually better options to take the train even to those places but if you have wherewithall You drive. So it's all about cherry picking neighborhoods everywhere and the East Coast cities probably especially Philadelphia as the largest potential area that you can get around easier want a bike or a train,. But that's contestable..

The point remains the same even LA has areas but I don't think we're you can easily live your entire life without a car and this is what walkable truly means to me. If you can go to work shop and do all the stuff you like to do either walking biking or easy offer to afford easy connection with a train then you're all set. . But there's nothing like Vienna in the US lol so all of this is kind of a just a pendantic exercise.. The US endorses, believes hook line and sinker in the car sprawl and continues to endorse it. I'm in Louisiana at the moment heading west and everywhere you look The infrastructure extends with absolute zero intent on controlling the growth.. The business model in the US is just fundamentally different everywhere..

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u/beastwork 1d ago

False. I live in NYC and it's plenty walkable, I have no idea how you can say it isn't. I also lived in Boston. Brookline and Roxbury to be exact. Absolutely walkable. So either you didn't live in those cities or you have no clue what walkable means.

Neither of those cities compares to several European cities I've been too, but they get an A for walk ability, especially by American standards

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u/Different_Ad7655 1d ago

You're missing the point, parts of New York or walkable and New York is not the best example. I lived in New York too in Manhattan in Chelsea. America believes in and endorses sprawl. This is the part of the message you're missing. I'm not arguing that there are large sections of New York in particular that are livable and desirable to live without a car. But there's a huge part of the city too that you have to be dependent on a vehicle to get where you're going The father out you go.. Boston Brookline and Roxbury are exactly the gentrified neighborhoods that I'm talking about that are serviced but the father out you get you're fucked. I lived in the south end as well for years.

Once it was all serviceable by transit all of it, largely like a city like Vienna is or even Rome for that matter with a bus system. An America you fucked as I sit in the middle of Houston now, this is the poster child of the other direction

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u/beastwork 1d ago

Wait...What part of New York isn't walkable? I live in Manhattan, I used to live in Brooklyn. I walk everywhere. You're just saying things that aren't true. My friend, obviously as you leave the city center the situation becomes less walkable. That's true everywhere on the planet. Walkability is a relative term, not absolute. Relative to NYC, LA is NOT walkable, you need a car because of inadequate public transpo.

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u/Different_Ad7655 1d ago

No it's not true everywhere on the planet lol There are cities that are efficiently designed to the outer edges and then there's villages in farmland beyond that. I'm not arguing that Manhattan in New York in general probably has the most efficient system in the US This is the worst place to be arguing that case but New York is an anomaly. We can just move over to Philadelphia it already we start seeing problems and in Boston, go beyond Newton or left or right when you're fucked. I get it I get it. America's older city chorus were designed with mass transit in mind but once you get to the development of the 1920s it's gone. If you move north or south of Boston you can't get anywhere but yet there are hundreds of thousands of people that live there that's the point. This is into remote village farmland setting that we're trying to get to sprawling sprawling the suburbs that's the point. You've been Long Island serviced by the railroad but good luck you on that track. Jesus he can't even get to the JFK with a direct route and that's a travesty

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u/beastwork 1d ago

So i agree with what you're saying here. There are some cities that are very old and are naturally more walkable further out, and there are reasons for that which we both understand. What I don't understand is why you're saying LA is walkable relative to NY and some of those great European cities.

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u/biddily 1d ago

I have some friends who flat out refuse to take public transportation when we're in LA.

We're from NYC and Boston, we're used to taking busses and trains every day - but they flat out won't even try when we're there. It drives me up a wall.

I do when I'm not with them, and it's fine. If the busses go where I need to go, it's fine. It works.

But my friends are like 'we'll get murdered'. Guys. Guys. You suck at this. It's not like you're from fucking Nebraska. Get on the fucking bus. We're not going to Compton.

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u/Hunter_S_Thompsons 1d ago

Same, but in Korea Town, and used the red line train to go to Hollywood for work. It was awesome. 15 minute ride.

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u/KillMeNowFFS 1d ago

tbf Hollywood and Westwood are walkable af

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u/Prestigious-Shine240 1d ago

and disgusting

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u/KillMeNowFFS 21h ago

what a privileged ass comment.

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u/Prestigious-Shine240 3h ago

you like poop and needles on your sidewalks?

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u/KillMeNowFFS 1h ago

i just come from a place you’d trade for poop and needles in a heartbeat, as would millions of other people who aren’t that privileged would.

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u/missharvey 1d ago

👍🏼 I'm in Culver City city and I walk everywhere for almost everything (even work)

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u/jaskmackey 1d ago

Same, live in Los Feliz and hardly ever get in a car. Everything I need or want to do is within half a mile.

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u/YoungPappysZombie 1d ago

Ive been scrolling to find this comment! i want to move to LA and i love walking and im looking at los feliz so thank you for easing my worry

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u/jaskmackey 1d ago

I’ve lived in the same apartment 14 years! Dream neighborhood

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u/YoungPappysZombie 1d ago

I hope im able to move to la 😢 its like 23⁰ rn smh

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u/ZlatansLastVolley 1d ago

Los Feliz apt so nice looking with the retro aesthetic

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u/vera214usc 1d ago

Yeah, when I lived in Santa Monica, I'd walk to work, the grocery store, bars, restaurants, and even the beach.

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u/UnderneathTheBottle6 1d ago

Lol this is the most Culver City-sounding thing I've ever read. Would've given bonus points if the "thumbs up" emoji was replaced by the "index finger up" one, like if it was pointing at your username while announcing your physical health habits. (j/k)

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u/FranklyDevious 1d ago edited 1d ago

I think you meant to say, "have the right amount of income."

Edit: anyone else’s brain read “carefree” instead of “carfree?” 🫣

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u/poilk91 1d ago

no not really lots of low income people rely on the bus system, its just not great obviously. To live well car free you need to live and work along the subway, not all those neighborhoods are nice or expensive but they are gentrifying quickly because people are realizing more and more that driving sucks balls

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u/unskilledplay 1d ago edited 1d ago

It's dense and you don't understand unless you live there. Low income people live often in neighborhoods where you can use a bicycle to get anywhere you need to go. That's the reason why there is a bicycle culture in low income neighborhoods. It's useful.

Of course people without cars in the low income neighborhoods find most of the city closed off to them but the point is it's not just the gentrifiers who can live without a car in LA. It's the middle class who can't live without a car.

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u/poilk91 1d ago

I'm from there I'm there right now but I moved to the east coast a few years ago. If you dont have a car in LA your trapped in your little urban island unless your on a good public transit line. Yeah a bike extends your island and if you have a nice island with all the things you need within walking/biking distance youre probably fine I just suspect the amount of places like that isn't very high because much the city just isn't set up with that in mind unless your in the expensive urban centers

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/jmlinden7 1d ago

It's gentrifying because we've run out of room to sprawl, which means that land is inherently worth more

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u/Chendii 1d ago

We definitely have not run out of land. Not even close. It's just that travel times from one side of the sprawl to the other are getting prohibitively long.

If it takes me 3+ hours to get somewhere why is it even called the same city.

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u/jmlinden7 1d ago

We've reached the limits of sprawl due to commute/travel times. For all intents and purposes, we've run out of land. The land we have left is not useful for housing purposes because it's too far from places where people want to go to.

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u/poilk91 1d ago

I dont know what you want to argue about really. High income young people are moving into the parts of town with subway access in large numbers because they want to drive less its going to gentrify things

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u/unskilledplay 1d ago edited 1d ago

LA is different. High income people are LEAVING parts of the city whenever train stations get built. When the EXPO line expanded to Santa Monica, it provided access to a formerly nice area to people without other means to travel there. 3rd and Promenade used to be one of the premier pedestrian malls in the country. Today, about half the shops are now closed. You can no longer visit without seeing addicts and mentally ill people everywhere.

Things in LA don't work like Chicago or New York.

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u/poilk91 1d ago

Well its not LA, I'm in north hollywood right now on the red line and theres tons of new buildings here with a bunch of young professionals who work in the city. I can't speak to santa monica cause I never lived ther but I do think all malls across the country have been having a hard time for the last 15 years

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u/unskilledplay 1d ago

NoHo has seen a tremendous influx of homelessness and drugs in the last 3 years precisely because that's where the red line ends. You said you moved to the east coast a few years ago. That's more than enough time to see the difference. North Hollywood is nothing like it was 3 years ago .

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u/poilk91 1d ago

I am staying at my friends house right now which used to be where a flop house was but junkies burned it down 5 years ago and they build luxury condos here... I dunno man it not great but it used to be worse

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u/CommentsOnOccasion 1d ago

Yes it’s the wealthy Angelenos who ride the bus and metro systems and walk to their jobs 

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u/FranklyDevious 1d ago

Nah, I’m just a dyslexic goof who read “carefree” instead of “carfree” 🥴

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u/teddy5 1d ago

You wrote carefree instead of carfree in your edit.

Edit: anyone else’s brain read “carefree” instead of “carefree?”

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u/FranklyDevious 1d ago

Damn autocorrect got me

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u/contextual_somebody 1d ago

Greater Los Angeles has the second highest population density of all US metros. This isn’t surprising to people who have actually lived there. It’s walkable. There’s a subway. Etc

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u/vivekadithya12 1d ago

That's a ranking of metropolitan areas, not the cities themselves.

Most metropolitan areas mentioned on that list have dense urban cores (downtowns), suburbs, satellite cities that stretch over a very very big area.

Los Angeles is a very very very populous city that's distributed much more evenly across the entire metro region compared to the other cities. It's much more like a 1000 little towns collectively identifying as LA. So on the whole, it does feel a lot less dense except for a few pockets like Downtown, Hollywood, Culver City, Santa Monica etc.

Secondly, the subway barely covers a decent chunk. Walkability isn't just "the ability to walk around" - it's more about getting to everywhere, do everything by foot and public transport. You may walk to your local groceries and handful nearby places but you can't make it to the other end of the city or the airport without a car.

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u/Vin4251 1d ago edited 1d ago

(Not directed at you specifically, but at a common sentiment I see from east coast suburbanites): I really never understood and will never understand how people from say, the Philly suburbs or DC suburbs think that their metro areas "feel a lot more dense" than LA's just because they have a tiny city proper that's denser than DTLA. Those metro areas are basically like 95% of the USA: no sidewalks outside of the city proper, every road is either a cul de sac or a high speed arterial, and amenities are not just far from home but far away from each other and from workplaces. That makes them overall worse for car dependency, because they might have commuter rail, but on average 75% of vehicle miles traveled in the US are for non-commuting errands, and suburban areas of east coast cities tend to be way worse for those than LA's suburbs.

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u/PolarBearJ123 1d ago

Exactly this

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u/Yotsubato 1d ago

the airport

I mean they’re working on that one.

Sucks that they couldn’t shell out for a direct single metro train ride from LAX to downtown though. And instead opted for people mover bullshit

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u/poilk91 1d ago

no its not, its horrible for walking no one who lives in LA would tell you otherwise and the subway coverage is an absolute joke. And I say this as someone who grew up there and made a point to live on the redline after highschool so I wouldn't have to drive as much. As far as density goes its low-medium density really consistently and packed fairly tightly over a huge area that makes the overall area dense, but it has very very little of the urban density you see in east coast cities

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u/AllAboutGameDay 1d ago

I lived in DTLA for years. I walked and biked to work, the grocery store, the movie theater, and to bars, restaurants, distilleries, museums, parks and more. I used the metro to get outside of DTLA often. About the only time I'd need to drive was to get to the mountains to hike.

Same thing when I lived in Ktown. Heck, I was even able to take the Metrolink to work in DTLA when I lived in Fullerton.

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u/poilk91 1d ago

there are some pockets of LA where you can get away with it but its a big sprawling place and the vast majority of its residents aren't in downtown. Fullerton is OC not LA and I really like it, but you would have to be really disingenuous to call it walkable there are a couple blocks near the train you could argue it but again thats a few hundred units an a tiny part of the population/area. In OC the experience of walking to any grocery store at minimum includes hiking across a football field sized parking lot with 0 shade, I mean its physically possible to walk places but thats not really what we mean when discussing walkability

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u/AllAboutGameDay 1d ago

No disrespect, but if you think walking across a parking lot alone makes something not walkable then we are just have very different definitions of the word. I've also lived in Lake Forest and Huntington Beach - in both I was able to walk to a grocery store in under 10 minutes without crossing a major intersection. That is walkable to me. 

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u/poilk91 1d ago

If you dont ignore 90% of what I'm saying I think it will make a lot more sense to you

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u/AllAboutGameDay 1d ago

Or maybe you just consider relatively short distances unwalkable? No, that can't be it - only your perspective has value. 

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u/poilk91 1d ago

Yeah except that was literally the best case scenario which 99% of people don't have but yeah if you only considered able bodied people ages 18-55 it's fine except for summer.

As of this moment I am driving past a highschool with no sidewalks and the only way to the neighborhood across the street has 4 lanes of 50mph traffic and there are overpasses across the highway with barely 2 foot wide side walks with no protection from the 50mph traffic and are currently obstructed by cars park on them. So yeah it's not just that you have to walk short distances actually

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u/AllAboutGameDay 1d ago

In Lake Forest I could walk to multiple Highschools within 20 minutes, plus a grocery store, my doctor, and my dentist. 

Clutch your pearls harder I guess. Have a good one. 

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u/contextual_somebody 1d ago

Lived there for years. You need a car to get from Santa Monica to Fairfax, but Santa Monica and Fairfax are both very walkable. Try living in Kansas City, or Jacksonville.

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u/deathbyvote 1d ago

Depends on where on Fairfax but a train can take you to Santa Monica but you might need to transfer via bus

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u/poilk91 1d ago

I just dont think you know what walkable means. I'm in a relatively quiet part of LA right now visting family. The closest grocery store is 1.5 miles away across 2 6 lane intersections one of which is a feeder into the 91 and I would have to walk all the way around a shopping center or cut across several parking lots to get there. It's not the least walkable place in the country obviously no one is trying to say that but the reason everyone drives is because walking anywhere for your necessities is dangerous unpleasant and unrealistic unlike actually walkable places where you dont have to risk your life multiple times sprinting across a suburban freeway just to get a gallon of milk

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u/contextual_somebody 1d ago

I have lived in LA, NY, and Britain also cities in middle America. When I lived in LA, I lived in the Fairfax District, Hancock Park, and West Hollywood. When I wasn’t working, I seldom drove unless I was visiting someone on the West side or Pasadena. I have lived in cities where you literally couldn’t do anything without driving.

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u/DecisionDelicious170 1d ago

Nobody is saying it’s as bad as somewhere like OKC.

We’re saying for it’s supposed density and population it’s atrocious compared to European or New England cities.

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u/poilk91 1d ago

Well good for you theres certainly walkable parts of LA I dont think anyone would argue that, but its just not within reach of most of its residents. Its certainly more walkable than rural Iowa but when looking at other similar sized cities around the world almost all American cities are very very poor in terms of walkability and LA is just bad when compared to other American cities like NY DC Boston Chicago and even other west coast cities like SF Portalnd Seatle etc etc. So I just have no idea what kind of curve we would have to be grading LA on to say its not unwalkable

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u/contextual_somebody 1d ago

Here you go, bub.

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u/poilk91 1d ago

Here you go honey bun

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u/contextual_somebody 1d ago

LOL. Did you read it? Los Angeles is 12th out of 141 cities. ROFL

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u/Educational-Rice4058 1d ago

its only walkable if your standard is cities in the us. Otherwise it's dogshit lol. That's so funny, la has a higher rate of violence towards cyclists and pedestrians than other cities, and the fucking sidewalks are garbage with cars going by you 50 miles an hour in major streets like sunset. Even koreatown, the best part is still like this btw. Absolute Dogshit, but decent by American standards I guess.

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u/TrynnaFindaBalance 1d ago

Aren't they also massively expanding the metro in advance of the 2028 Olympics?

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u/contextual_somebody 1d ago edited 1d ago

They are. When I first lived there, there was no subway or light rail. It’s amazing how much they’ve built since they first committed to it.

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u/beastwork 1d ago

Yes it is a highly populated city. Certain parts are walkable, but the public transpo and bike options are poor. Without that piece of the puzzle you simply end up DRIVING and not walking very much.

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u/Low-Tree3145 1d ago

Unfortunately, LA's population density is so evenly spread out that it doesn't lend itself to being served by a transit system. NY's density is structured around the subway system.

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u/DecisionDelicious170 1d ago

Yea.

Bologna.

Trying to get across to different towns that aren’t technically LA city?

Way faster to just ride a bike.

Anyone who says LA has decent public transport has never been to Frankfurt, Paris, Berlin, etc etc.

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u/contextual_somebody 1d ago

Who TF is talking about Europe?

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u/thrutheseventh 1d ago

Go visit any european country please. Or japan

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u/contextual_somebody 1d ago edited 1d ago

I’ve lived in Europe and NYC. We’re talking about America.

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u/freebird023 1d ago

Same with SD(to an extent). WAYY better public transport system than most US cities and San Diego is pretty dense(due to the mountains mostly pushing it all together) which makes it feel far less like a typical American city until you get farther north. Yet the metro is usually filled with crackhead n stuff and is even pretty unsafe depending on your demographic and what time of day you use it

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u/holytriplem 1d ago

I lived carfree in Pasadena for 6 months. I tell people you can survive without a car but can't live without a car. The main annoyances were:

  • Needing to come into work late e.g. because you have to do some sort of errand, and having to take an Uber because the last bus has gone

  • Wanting to do several errands at a time just isn't efficient without a car

  • Wanting to go anywhere that isn't Highland Park, DTLA or Hollywood. I think the furthest I went on the metro was Culver City. You have to be very patient to go any further than that by metro.

  • Getting ingredients from any kind of speciality supermarket (e.g. 99 ranch, Super King).

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u/AmbitionEconomy8594 1d ago

Then you are stuck and cant leave your neighborhood

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u/DBL_NDRSCR 1d ago

we have a good bus system and an ever expanding rail system, and it's all a flat $1.75, with a cap of $15 per week

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u/Affectionate-Case499 1d ago

Translation: LA is nice if you have rich parents to pay for all your shit

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u/Nawnp 1d ago

Now that they're building an actual transit system. Still too many NIMBYs fighting it.

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u/SLODavid 1d ago

When people here say they live happily without need of a car in this or that (expensive) neighborhood there is a slight implication that without a car they are virtually confined there.

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u/Rightintheend 1d ago

If you can AFFORD the right neighborhood.

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u/TroglodyneSystems 1d ago

I moved downtown and was able to take the train to just about everywhere I worked (freelance VFX). It’s was perfect and it finally felt like I was living in a functional city after having lived elsewhere in LA for years before.

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u/KUKC76 1d ago

How do you carry $300 worth of groceries to your home? Serious question

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u/Castles23 1d ago

What neighborhoods do you recommend?

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u/DBL_NDRSCR 1d ago

these. my personal favorite is long beach, has density which is rapidly increasing, great local buses, great bike network, a line access, and the most affordable of any place like it because some of it is still ghetto

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u/Castles23 1d ago

Nice, I actuality have family in Long Beach, I never knew it was that walkable. Thank you!

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u/wannabe0523 1d ago

Yeah if you have the money to pick where you want to live

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u/Super-History-388 1d ago edited 14h ago

Those people are gluttons for punishment. This is an awful place to live without a car, but if you’ve never lived elsewhere you’ll think it’s great.

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u/joelingo111 9h ago

Idk if you've seen the housing market in LA these days...

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u/DBL_NDRSCR 8h ago

i live here i understand housing is stupid expensive, once you can afford it you can enjoy it, i figured it would be obvious

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u/[deleted] 1d ago edited 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/redditsuckscockss 1d ago

California and LA have millions of people with money and good incomes.

The real world isnt Reddit where everyone is struggling in their parents basement

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/redditsuckscockss 1d ago

Who do you think makes up all of the desirable cities?

You realize there are multiple cities within LA that have massive economies and a robust high income economy

You are just salty

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/redditsuckscockss 1d ago

That’s like comparing Laguna - not part of LA

You honestly sound like you have no idea what you are talking about

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u/InclinationCompass 1d ago

San Bernardino is not in LA County

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/InclinationCompass 1d ago

I grew up in Long Beach. High crime rate.

But there are soooo many cities and neighborhoods. You dont have to pick Compton or East LA.

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u/Suchafatfatcat 1d ago

Gang activity? The affected areas area extremely small in relation to the rest of LA county. Most people in LA county (and SoCal) do not live in gang infested neighborhoods.

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u/DBL_NDRSCR 1d ago

that's the problem, but if you can afford la there's plenty of options. you could live downtown, or anywhere west of it all the way to santa monica, that whole region would be the best. pasadena is doable, as is glendale. long beach for sure, same with the south bay beaches. the harbor area (subset of the south bay) is alright too. anywhere else that's built before about the 80s is harder but still possible, but once you get to irvine and the west hills it's just not worth it

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u/infinitezero8 1d ago

You have no idea and that's okay

Maybe educate yourself next time before making an ignorant comment for all to see