People who have never been to L.A. really have no idea how insanely huge it is. Driving to my apartment from the start of city (before you even get to L.A. county) and having the city just keep going and going and going for two hours and not because of traffic jams is something you have to experience to truly understand.
LA seems to have so much amazing culture but it is drowning in an addiction to cars perhaps worse than almost any other US city and it totally turns me off from going. edit, I didn't mean this as a dig at the average person in LA I literally mean the city itself
I have flown over the endless sprawl and traffic jams on approach to LAX and like vomits in trash can nope. It looks like 1000% the kind of city where it takes at least an hour to get somewhere no matter how close on paper it is.
It is a phenomena of a place, and easily creates and does more to make the world better than all of those rural conservative states combined I just wish it wasn't a car hellscape so I actually desired to visit.
It seems like LA has been making serious progress on becoming more walkable, so I am excited to see where it goes though!
Holy hell the urban sprawl is insane
Just grid for hundreds of miles around
as an expert on the topic of los angeles (i spent 3 days there, many years ago), i can confirm that it is exactly the kind of city where every drive takes 1 hour. if you have to get on the highway to go somewhere, you better cancel your plans for the evening because your new plan is to sit in traffic forever.
It's nothing specific to LA, it's what any city with that population and a car centered infrastructure turns into.
I know that's probably what you meant, just wanted to add a bit o' clarity.
That's like saying people are addicted to food and water. There is no significant effective public transportation in Los Angeles. You have a a car, or you suffer immensely. It's not a desire, it's a necessity.
that’s exactly why it’s addicted to cars, correct….
there is a decent light rail system connected all the cities in socal, but the buses suck
Being able to travel from one city to another doesn't mean anything if you're not able to get to where you need to go within that city. These are not small, walkable cities.
No one said they were and no one disagrees with this. What’s your point? He literally said the trains between cities are good and the buses suck.
The phrasing is what bothers me. Saying they have an addiction makes it sound like they're abusing something they don't need, when in fact you do need a car if you're going to live in Los Angeles. It's like comparing food to cocaine, they're not equivalent.
You’re being shat on for something SO FAR beyond your control and they’re just not understanding… well they understand, but they’re disingenuous in their arguments.
Building your city so that you can't survive without a car is what a city having a car addiction means.
I think the idea is that the larger society/city/culture is addicted, not the individual people
I understand that reaction but I didn't mean to blame this on a mass addiction of the average person to cars nor did I intend a tone that implied any high horse from which I was trying to beat up on some cultural aspect of the humans who live there.
When I said "LA" is addicted to cars I literally meant the city in all its infrastructure, systems, and narratives allowed or not allowed to be repeated and canonized about the past, present and future by the rich who actually have a say on the trajectory of the city...
Believe me in my head I am chillin with Doc Sportello having a blast with how many amazing different kinds of humans LA contains. I didn't mean shade at the average person who live there only that LA exemplifies in many ways the tragedy of american car centric urban design because of the cities incredible vibrance and ability to imagine alternate futures.
Right on. Thanks for the response. Commuting is somewhat of a nightmare down there. It would be a much better place to live if they had effective public transportation. I used to live down there and I would spend 3 hours in my car commuting to and from work every day. It fucking sucked! Especially since my car was an old junker with no climate control, and no stereo. Eventually I got an old boom box and put it on my passenger seat to try to maintain some sanity.