Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Walking in L.A.

walkinginla.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 118 posts

Re: Walking in L.A.

#81

Post by dizzystar »

hbex5 wrote: post #5

So as somebody who lives in London, explain to me why Los Angeles always looks so featureless, so lacking in any kind of urban identity I'd expect to find in a city? It always looks to me no so much as a city, but rather merely some buildings that are connected by freeways.

There are a lot of beautiful places in and around Los Angeles, but you have to search for them. Los Angeles isn't a "wide open" city like other towns, where, as a tourist, you can drop in and just get it. It takes a lot of exploration to figure out.

As an example, you can find areas in Silver Lake that have staircases as streets. I'd hate to be the mail man for that area, but it's pretty interesting to see.

LA is huge, with a lot of different areas, ranging from terrible ghettos to Bel Air. Some areas are flat, some are steep. Korea Town and Beverly Hills has more and larger buildings than most city's downtowns, yet Griffith Park is the second largest park in California. Other areas are residential, others are rather rural. It's a huge mishmash of areas.

With all that said, you are sort of right. Los Angeles is a wide area divided into many smaller sections, each with it's own identity, but I'd hardly call it featureless.

Re: Walking in L.A.

#82

Post by rochellle »

colordrops wrote: post #79
JBlue42 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recommend "Los Angeles Plays Itself" to any interested in seeing the juxtaposition of what you see in movies/tv with the reality. There's also a much shorter, funnier one called "Vancouver Never Plays Itself" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojm74VGsZBU

At first I thought the title was a play on this meme: http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/056/730/597...

Actually, that's a turn of phrase that's been around since probably the 1970's, so it pre-dates internet "memes" by a few decades.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Symphony_(song) (1987)

  Big Daddy Kane’s famous line, “Put 
  a quarter in your ass 'cause you played 
  yourself,” pops up as a looped sample...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ82kNPgqpc&t=494

Re: Walking in L.A.

#83

Post by dima55 »

nether wrote: post #10
hbex5 wrote: post #5

So as somebody who lives in London, explain to me why Los Angeles always looks so featureless, so lacking in any kind of urban identity I'd expect to find in a city? It always looks to me no so much as a city, but rather merely some buildings that are connected by freeways.

Viewing it from a bike at night reveals more character: http://www.thepassageride.com/Photos

Whoa. Who are you?

Re: Walking in L.A.

#84

Post by mturmon »

jmulvi wrote: post #47
hbex5 wrote: post #5

So as somebody who lives in London, explain to me why Los Angeles always looks so featureless, so lacking in any kind of urban identity I'd expect to find in a city? It always looks to me no so much as a city, but rather merely some buildings that are connected by freeways.

I'm going to assume you have never been to LA. Just like London it is a collection of "villages". What were originally separate cities: Santa Monica, Hollywood, Pasadena etc have all been absorbed into the whole that is LA. I'm sure you can recognize the same process in london where Hampstead and Stratford have distinct personalities and yet are now both a small part of the whole that is London. Now LA, unlike London…

This is a perceptive comment that hits the salient points.

One thing I'd add is that the public spaces and monumental architecture of LA are indeed lacking compared to tourist destinations like London. To top it off, the OP has deliberately chosen to walk some of the widest, most commercial streets in the city -- that is his particular interest. Other walkers concentrate on stairways in the hilly neighborhoods, or the architecture of downtown.

I think it was Christopher Hawthorne, the excellent architecture critic of the LA Times, who said that some of the defining spaces in the city are the residential architecture, and the back yards. (The comment above already covered the larger outdoor spaces, like the beaches, the mountains, and Griffith Park.)

If you rent a car and get stuck in traffic driving on the 405, you will miss all of that, which is a pity. But that's ok, I get to live here, and read in my back yard, barefoot, eating oranges from my trees, in January.

Re: Walking in L.A.

#85

Post by greggman »

DonHopkins wrote: post #39
Mz wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it was developed in very large tracts due to being in the desert and needing to import water. So, the financing only made sense if you developed large, spawling areas. This was true before cars were popular, when there was a tram and people took the tram and then walked everywhere. Then cars became popular, I think the tram died and now you have to take the freeway to get anywhere.

The tram in LA didn't die, it was murdered. Who Framed Roger Rabbit: Judge Doom's Plot to Destroy Public Transit [1] My favorite thing about this movie is that the villain's evil plot is to bring about car culture in America. Watch and giggle/shiver. Read about Pacific City Lines, National City Lines, and the Great American Streetcar Scandal if you'd like to know more about its historical parallels. General Motors st…

According to this doco that's not true, or rather they died for other reasons. From 1929 until the last one closed they never made a profit. Partly because they had signed contracts to maintain the roads the tracks went down. As cars got more popular that became too expensive

https://www.amazon.com/This-Pacific-Electric-Stephanie-Edwar...

Re: Walking in L.A.

#86

Post by greggman »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #70
khazhoux wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it important to point out that Santa Monica isn't the same as the city of Los Angeles? If you live there, you probably know already. If you don't live there, it doesn't matter anyway. They're neighbors. And it's not like Santa Monica is any more culturally unique than the dozens of communities that make up L.A. proper.

LA is kind of a bad place to live, Santa Monica isn't. No one would confuse San Jose with San Francisco, Evans if they didn't live there.

Thats like saying living in the tenderloin is a kind of bad place to live but noe valley is not. Both are in SF just like both Santa Monica and downtown LA are considered part of the same "greater LA"

Re: Walking in L.A.

#87

Post by CalRobert »

nether wrote: post #10
hbex5 wrote: post #5

So as somebody who lives in London, explain to me why Los Angeles always looks so featureless, so lacking in any kind of urban identity I'd expect to find in a city? It always looks to me no so much as a city, but rather merely some buildings that are connected by freeways.

Viewing it from a bike at night reveals more character: http://www.thepassageride.com/Photos

About the only time I ever _liked_ looking at LA was when I did Critical Mass. It was amazing.

Re: Walking in L.A.

#88

Post by CalRobert »

bhauer wrote: post #45

Oh heck yes, El Segundo and Hawthorne: http://www.walkinginla.com/2016/Jul24/07_24_16.html My daily walking commute is between these two cities. El Segundo is home to several firms as it's a particularly business-friendly city. Meanwhile Hawthorne is best known as the home of Spacex. The In N Out that several of us go to more often than we should is in one of the photos.

Bizarrely, about the nicest commute I ever had was to El Segundo. I lived in Santa Monica by the beach, and worked in El Segundo by the beach (crappy job but that's a different story).

It was a 13 mile cycle down the beach, with the terrible exception of Marina Del Rey, where you had to go inland.

I saw bonfires every Friday after work; an episode of Wilfred being filmed; and once even a pod of Dolphins swimming along and jumping out of the water as I cycled along this unusual formation: https://goo.gl/maps/WXaZm1Kb5Lu (long and narrow with water on either side). I saw numerous beautiful sunsets, drum circles in Venice beach, homeless encampments waking up for the day (I always liked the idea that the homeless at least got to sleep with a ten million dollar view), and the occasional tallbike. Of course, my own recumbent got a fair amount of attention.

This all took about 50-55 minutes. The drive down 405 was 40-50 minutes by comparison.

All the while I inhaled loads of particulates, no doubt, and my rib still hurts from the crack put there by an inattentive driver for the 1 mile stretch between my apartment and the beach. I got screamed at the few times I tried to cycle down Lincoln, and one guy got out of his car and threatened to punch me. I was buzzed too many times to count by gigantic brodozer SUV's and lifted pickups.

Man, I usually say I hate LA but those 8 months of commuting were amazing. I really wish I'd gotten a helmet camera. Paradoxically every commute I've had since has been under 10 minutes and kind of dull. At the risk of being melodramatic I weep to think of the city it could've been.

Re: Walking in L.A.

#89

Post by CalRobert »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #14
tastythrowaway2 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is it has something to do with [1]. I remember growing up hearing that LA was planned by a large automotive manufacturer, hence it requires copious amounts of driving to fully experience the city. I couldn't find a reliable source with any cursory searching. Still, the linked article mentions LA specifically in one of the captions, so maybe there's a grain of truth to that. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik…

LA emphatically was not planned, especially not by an automotive manufacturer. The automotive industry simply colluded to destroy the metropolitis's mass transit system, to be replaced by automobile freeways. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_con... Despite this, and contrary to the stereotypes, the LA Metro is actually dead last in the US in freeway lane miles per resident. See http://frea…

Much of modern LA was inadvertently planned to be auto-dependent through parking minimums, single-use zoning, and before that, redlining. All of those shape neighborhoods and structures. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/10/housing-discrimin...

[edit: redlining didn't necessarily cause auto-dependence but it is an example of planning]

After all, if every structure has to have 2 parking spots per apartment, you'll get far, far fewer apartments in the same space, forcing things to sprawl.

https://www.portlandoregon.gov/bps/article/420062

I think they might finally be learning though. The Expo line goes to the beach now. And they spent $1 billion+ to widen Sepulveda pass and now it's slower than it was before. Perhaps next time they'll put rail in instead.

Re: Walking in L.A.

#90

Post by SandersAK »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #61
IvyMike wrote: post #58

A couple of years ago, I walked the entirety of Wilshire Boulevard, from One Wilshire in Downtown all the way to the beach in Santa Monica. It's about 16 miles, and it takes all day, but you can do it. Breakfast at Eggslut, lunch at the Food Trucks at LACMA, and dinner in downtown Santa Monica. Landmarks along the way include Downtown, Macarthur Park, Koreatown, LACMA, La Brea Tar Pits, Beverly Hills, Westwood, and o…

My dogs are barkin just thinking about it.

Now that is a thing I haven't heard since my grandpa was still alive.
Post reply on HN