Would have to say (apologies to anyone who lives there) probably the grimmest city I’ve ever visited. And I’ve been to both Sunderland AND Middlesbrough.
Even after 20 years, when I smell stale urine I’m reminded of downtown LA.
Current Affairs The Would Be Emperor Has No Clothes (aka POTUS 47)
- Thread starter RAFUH
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Even after 20 years, when I smell stale urine I’m reminded of downtown LA.
I used to live there. I quite liked it if I'm being entirely honest. I lived in Oakwood 20+ years ago, before it really got gentrified. Downtown is grim, mind. I used to be able to see the smog blanket hanging over the basin as I came over Sepulveda Pass on my way home from work.
I was travelling round the states. Flew into LA. Hadn’t done much research to be fair. Thought it would be just like a UK city and it would be easy to get about and the city centre would be the place to be.
Stayed in Santa Monica and getting the bus to downtown was one of the maddest experiences. Closely followed by getting the greyhound to San Francisco.
75,000 homeless. It's a disgrace, and apparently a lot of them are veterans. That olympics tom cruise and the chili peppers are pushing is going to take some delivering.
TN Toffee
Player Valuation: £25m
It’s the same situation in Florida. A huge portion of the state is nothing more than reclaimed swampland that was never fit for civilization.
LA is like 40 different cities with no real centre, and getting around without a car is a bit of a mare tbh. You can live there without ever visiting most of them, they're just signposts on the freeway.
It was higher 20 years ago. LA is a relatively easy place to be homeless, there are lots of tourists, the climate is warm most of the time, and there's quite a bit of money sloshing about. A lot of them had made their way to LA for this reason. I used to spend a bit of time just chatting to some of them when I lived there, I used to get my weed off a homeless Mexican dude who used to sleep on a sofa at the back of a shop, and there was a cafe nearby on Venice boardwalk I used to like, and would see the same homeless people all the time when I would go there. I'd buy them a coffee and sit and listen to their stories for a bit. I can most vividly remember Hank, a veteran with PTSD, who used to carry a US flag with him on a pole over his shoulder. He loved his country so much and it had treated him like crap. Some very sad tales.
Was there last spring in the downtown area for a conference. I don't get the allure at all. And we drove to Disneyland (for our 6yr old) and the highways are totally crazy. Though in fairness a lot of downtowns in large American cities can be pretty grim with respect to homelessness and commercial blight.
Aye this was a massive surprise to me. In the UK we tend to shift people out of the centres, although rough sleeping is common, it’s on a totally different scale.
Do you have any good reading recommendations for the cause of this?
Been trying to find something and people I speak to give different answers.
Tommy.
Player Valuation: £30m
Good for you, mate. A nice, yet simple, touch of humanity and compassion most of the poor souls would rarely experience.
TN Toffee
Player Valuation: £25m
Because all the “city centres” used to be where the minorities tended to live. In the 50’s, when we went to build the interstate network, it was the cheapest land to buy up and people easiest to displace. We don’t really do “ring roads” in the US, instead the highways go right through the center of the city, and the intersections of these roads tend to be derelict land underneath massive spaghetti junctions.
Only very briefly visited LA, stayed over a night before heading north into the green hills for a wedding. No opinion of it really as it was literally drive in, stay over, went for a quick drink with my brother-in-Law and his then to be soon husband and left the next morning.
They still live in LA, they are nowhere near the fires at this time but my brother-in-law can't get to work because of it.
What I don't understand (among the 1000 things I don't understand about MAGA followers) is how they can see tweets/comments using this kind of thing as a tool to be petty and childish. The name calling, especially at this time, should be the reddest of red flags for anybody thinking this guy is anything but psychotic/sociopathic and not fit to run a corner shop, never mind a country.
They still live in LA, they are nowhere near the fires at this time but my brother-in-law can't get to work because of it.
What I don't understand (among the 1000 things I don't understand about MAGA followers) is how they can see tweets/comments using this kind of thing as a tool to be petty and childish. The name calling, especially at this time, should be the reddest of red flags for anybody thinking this guy is anything but psychotic/sociopathic and not fit to run a corner shop, never mind a country.
If we’re not gonna rejoin the EU, then the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, we need to join forces.
UKCANZ.
The marketing slogan writes itself. “UKCANZ do anything together” etc.
I like America, I’ve been, I just don’t like Trump’s America. I’ll visit again once he’s gone. I’ve nothing against Americans and I don’t go for all the cheap insults thrown around on the interwebz, it’s just him and his cronies I abhor.
UKCANZ.
The marketing slogan writes itself. “UKCANZ do anything together” etc.
I like America, I’ve been, I just don’t like Trump’s America. I’ll visit again once he’s gone. I’ve nothing against Americans and I don’t go for all the cheap insults thrown around on the interwebz, it’s just him and his cronies I abhor.
TN Toffee
Player Valuation: £25m
It’s easier when you view it through the filter of these people having crafted their entire personalities around nothing more than wanting to own the libs at any and all cost.
A significant proportion of them voted for him three times, and when they didn't get their way second time round, decided to engage in some sort of civil war. Ordinarily this would be fairly normal in some tin pot republic in middle Africa, but it seems somehow the Americans such as they are are even more brutally armed.
In god they trust indeed.
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