Quote:
Originally Posted by krizta
What's it like there? Where are good places to go shopping and relaxing? How is the public transportation there? How expansive is living there minus apartment and utility costs? Just curious.
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L.A. and Northern VA are where I have lived in my professional career years. So I thought the question perfectly directed to me, although a little odd. A little odd not just because geographically and culturally they are opposite poles of the USA, but because just to put them in the same sentence sums up my feelings about this period in my life, which is odd. Also, Virginia obviously is a state, and L.A. is a sprawl. I am going to talk from the perspective of NoVA because other parts of the state are as different as L.A. and say, Topanga Canyon or Fresno.
But to start - transportation: L.A. is a car culture. In Northern VA and Washington, DC there is very good public transportation. But in L.A. there are so many alternative routes people just get behind the wheel and deal. Also, although traffic is heavy, everyone is going at 55 plus MPH bumper to bumper so being a good driver is a matter of life and death. In DC area, everyone who has to drive is on the same beltway and road rage and bad accidents result.
Cost of Living - High in both places, especially if you want to own a home. However, in L.A. you can find a small place to rent in a neighborhood or barrio that suits your economic class. We rented some nice houses, Caifornia bungalos with fruit trees in the yard. In the DC area, it is hard to find a cheap place to rent anywhere. However, if you have a job and steady income and plan to stay in your house for a very long time -- Fairfax County is buying up homes that people who had bad loans lost and providing good loans for first time buyers. These are not near DC and you might have to bus or drive to get to the good public transportation.
Utilities and food costs are high in both places, however, I didn't use air conditioning in L.A. even when we had it. In the DC area it is so damn humid in the summer, without air conditioning it can be miserable and even deadly. Gas is always a little higher in L.A. because gas additives are used to try to keep the smog to a medium. But gas prices are high everywhere.
Entertainment -- how can you compare L.A. to anywhere? For example, you can get Mexican food anywhere in L.A. that is almost as good as in Mexico. In the DC area, if you don't have a Mexican wife who can cook for you there isn't any good Mexican food to be had. I guess Ethiopian restaurants are better here in DC.
I have to drive 2 1/2 hours to the closest beach where the waves mostly break on the shore unless you are willing to surf in the depth of the winter.
Winter - it is cold in the Middle Atlantic in the winter. No matter what they say, it is never cold in L.A. The weather in L.A. is a predictable as a dial tone. Unless you count earthquakes as weather.
Culturally - both are pretty international and that is good. I consider the locals in L.A. to be Mexicanos and Indians since there were there first. Lots of Asians in big numbers, especially Koreans and Vietnamese in Southern Cali, as well as Japanese. But everyone can get into the relaxed style if they want to. And everyone can express themselves anyway they like and not be considered weird. I really liked that.
In the DC I consider the locals African-Americans because they actually live in DC and pay taxes, use hospitals and schools, whereas everyone else pretty much cycles in and out with what ever party is in the White House. Even all of us Virginians who earn our living in DC don't pay taxes there. Statehood for DC! There are more and more Central Americans in the DC area. Out three most concentrated Asian groups are Chinese (but more and more scattered in the Maryland), Vietnamese and Koreans. I think culturally, Vietnamese and Koreans have made the most important contributions to Virginia. I am so grateful to those two communities.
Weird factor -- L.A. has a personality that bothered me. On the one hand it was so relaxed and open, especially spiritually, and I had deep friendships with people. I always felt so relaxed. But violence was always around the corner - unpredictable violence between ethnic groups or police, and constant psychological violence from the ruling wealth class.
Virginia is the south, and there is throughout the state similar contradictions. But there are honest, sincere efforts to leave the shameful history of the past. There are still entrenched racists, but there are weird racists everywhere. The NoVA Greater DC area is always weird because it is where US politics originates. All those people you see in the news, they live here. And even though they live is secret gated places and travel in limos with tinted windows they just radiate weirdness and all their lawyers, staffers, and assistants take their weirdness out of the office everywhere they go. You can feel the tension in the air.
You can get away from L.A. to the Caifornia high desert and soak nude in a warm spring or a million other things in other places in a few hours of driving. In Virginia we drive to the mountains or to the beach. There are green forests which you don't find in southern California.
So that's a quick summary of what I think.
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