Ugly LA Truths

Mar 16

I came out to Los Angeles when I was 22; just graduated from college and very excited to spread my wings in the big city. I was from North Carolina, and we all know the South doesn’t have many big cities - so it was always either New York or Los Angeles. I looked at the weather and decided this Southern gal could not weather the NYC winters so LA it was.

I knew very little about LA. I recall spending more time in San Francisco (it was cold, windy and foggy), and we visited LA but I had little to no memory of the city. Thus, I had no expectations other than what I saw on TV. I had grown up with a health amount of b-roll of Beverly Hills, Clueless, and anything that Hollywood portrayed in the 90s to 2000s which was a lot of paparazzi shots of celebrities dating other celebs.

It was right before the big recession of 2008-2009. I had no plan other than to find a job, find an apartment with roommates, and then start living! And that’s exactly what I did.

I’ve been asked a lot of questions and had some intense questions about the pros and cons of LA so read on for my honest opinion of some ugly truths.

It’s not like it is on TV

Read in my Spoilers for LA Tourist post for more details. The summary is Hollywood is not pretty at all. What is advertised as Hollywood (Palm Trees, mansions, pools, etc) is usually Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, and a few mansions along the mountain which are usually other neighborhoods. Hollywood is a place for tourists and locals generally stay away unless there’s a club, nightlife, or specific venue they’re frequenting.

My first observation of LA is, it was quite ugly. It was a plethora of cars, parking lots, smog, largely filled with ugly buildings. There were those pretty moments of hikes, vistas, sunsets and beaches - but there was a lot of ugly buildings and spaces as well. Compared to my visits to NYC, I found NYC significantly more pleasing to the eye. I honestly didn’t know what the fuss was all about.

People who dislike LA might say it’s ugly inside and out. I personally disagree, as I find and continue to meet a lot of great people. It’s true, the city does cause you to sometimes have a tougher shell. And it’s hard to connect with people, everyone in their car going about their lives. But if you make the time, people will open up. That and it helps if you live close to each other.

There’s a lot inequality, evidenced by the encampments

The Unhoused are everywhere. You go to Melrose, and you’ll see people asking for money, wandering the streets with a glazed look in their eyes, or camping across the street from a $$$ pricey restaurant where celebrities have been spotted. It’s a dichotomy. There are the people who have a lot of money, people who seem like they have a lot of money and then there are the people who live on the bare minimum and enjoy the freedom and flexible lifestyle on the street offers them. They’re willing to give up on that idea of living in a home with four walls, and instead move into a tent, a shanty, a temporary structure and call it home for the foreseeable future.

I’ve heard some people say, LA is surrounded by a layer of sugar. If you are struggling to make ends meet, you’re surrounded by the promise of wealth - you see it everywhere and the hope is you can make it too. It can be easy to forget that you’re struggling to pay the next bill, next month’s rent, the high price of gas, the high price of car insurance (and the list goes on and on).

LA has a lot of pretty views, and a lot of not-so-pretty views too

Generally speaking, LA’s sidewalks and streets are grimy. It’s not a nice, pretty sidewalk. It’s dirty - one that - you wouldn’t be caught laying on unless you were down on your luck.

When I worked along the Hollywood Stars Walk of Fame, I’d often see tourists sprawled on the ground, anything for a photo of a Hollywood Star emblazoned with a famous celebrity’s name! My coworkers and I would silently gag, wondering, why would anyone lay, much less, touch the filthy Hollywood Stars. To us, it was unimaginable. But to the tourists, they had probably had dreamed of that moment, and even if it was a let-down they were going to build it up and take the best darn, happiest photo they can and brag about it back home. I hope it worked out for them.

My favorite views are from higher elevations when I’m hiking, looking out on the ocean, or in front of my favorite historic neighborhoods and plazas. There’s a lot of history in LA but it’s often crowded out by the new which can rapidly turn into disrepair and then the ugly. Some are uglier than others. I find Downtown both hauntingly beautiful and incredibly filthy to the point where it’s scary. It’s the height of historic buildings like the Bradbury Building (where futuristic scenes of Blade Runner were filmed), but it’s also the pinnacle of the Housing Crisis as skid row bisects core areas and is impossible to avoid.

Are people shallow or fake?

I don’t know how to answer this one. Many people come to LA and say they experience a lot of fakeness. I don’t think LA turns people into false people. I don’t think that people are truly fake. If anything, I think there’s a lot of competition for our time and attention. So if someone says, I’ll be there, but then flake - I find it’s more that they overcommitted and then changed their mind. Isn’t it worse to show up to an event you don’t want to go to? That seems more disingenuine to me.

Let’s examine fake from the perspective of looks. Do people mean that people engage in a lot of makeup, and/or plastic surgery or ways to hold on to their youth? Don’t get me wrong, many people opt for plastic surgery. I think that’s more a statement on our culture and pressure people feel to look a certain way. My former friend, whenever she didn’t like anything about herself she changed it. She didn’t like her nose so she got a nose job. One day she decided to get breast augmentation. I felt bad for her, as she was truly perfect the way she was. It was sad because everyone would say she was so pretty, but she always felt (I think) that she wasn’t pretty enough. I don’t think she was trying to be fake. I think she had a vision, and wanted to fit that vision. And didn’t see that she was already enough — and didn’t need to be that thing she saw. I don’t think that’s fake, it was insecure.

Overall, the people I am attracted to and like to be around, no I do not think they are fake. And there are flakey people, but those are just people who talk and I don’t take their words seriously. So as long as you find your people, put in the work for those people who care about you (which does not happen overnight), you can surround yourself with genuinely great people.

Can be isolating and lonely

I would actually reframe this to say, it’s really hard to establish roots and feel like home. It took me a good two years until I felt at home. After year one, I remember feeling upset that I still did not feel at home. I felt like my friend group wasn’t where I wanted it to be. And I still felt, largely alone. But after two years, I was really hitting my stride. Things were exciting and I felt like I had found a good group of people.

Many people say LA is isolating and lonely in terms of, you really can go all day and no meaningful interaction with others. The cursory interactions at the drugstore, and the grocery store can be brief - as there’s always a line and all customer service reps are super exhausted by the time they get to you. Then you have your transaction and go back into your car and drive to the next thing. And it can seem dehumanizing - everyone in their bubble.

Other big cities have a greater feel of running into someone and spontaneity. LA is decisively harder to be spontaneous but yet LA never ceases to surprise me. Just when I think I have it nailed down, she goes and changes on me! When you live here long enough, you really do run into people you know and the world feels small.

Just today, I was walking back from the post office and ran into my General Contractor. He somehow recognized me from several yards away, honked at me, and called my name! Then promptly pulled over to have a ten-minute conversation with me. That’s not the only time I’ve run into people walking to do errands. It’s just what happens when you live here long enough and are a member of a smaller community.

It’s expensive, and some would say competitive

This is a fact: LA is very expensive. As I write this, a one bedroom, one bath unit in Silverlake / Echo Park area costs $1800/monrh. Over six years ago, I lived in a 1960s, simple and dated two bedroom, one bath unit for $1400 and that was a steal. Now-and-days, that unit will easily cost over $2000 and that is affordable by LA standards.

My friend recently returned to Miami - their hometown, and bragged about how much money they have since the move. When I asked, what made it easier to live elsewhere, they said - everything! LA has the most prohibitive sales tax, property tax, gas tax (and the list goes on). Everything is passed on from government, to the business, to the customer and we all just accept it.

Competitive could be a good descriptor. I think this means, it can hard to find a job that pays you well, and is in line with what you want to do. Some industries are just more lucrative than others. I’m in the tech world, so historically pay has been relatively solid and higher than other industries. But before I went into tech, I was early in my career and still struggling to find my niche and develop next-level talents. I don’t know if that was because I was junior and it was a world-wide recession or if it was a truly competitive world. I believe it’s just hard to find a job, and LA is not forgiving as it’s easy to burn through savings looking for the right job. I never experienced anyone personally being mean or competitive towards me (to my knowledge) in the work environment. If anything, I find it’s more common to have the worst manager on earth than it is to meet a competitive coworker! Most of my coworker are collaborative (good people are hard to find!).