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Photo by sesshin via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr
Travel + Leisure came out with their America's Favorite City 2008 guide with lists shows how visitors and residents voted. For visitors (and well, residents), we came in last for--no big surprises here--traffic. And well, we also hit the bottom of the list for public transportation and pedestrian friendliness. And maybe we can blame these woes on our friendliness and intelligence, both of which ranked last too. All of this adds up to a trip to our fair city being one of the least relaxing ones (however, a wild weekend was our highest rating).
On the good side, visitors think we're attractive, have style and carry some of the best luxury boutiques around.
Take a gander around the visitor and resident side and tell us what you think.
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So basically when people visit LA they go to Beverly Hills or Santa Monica and that's it.
But this will still be an opportunity for some East Coast haters to crow about their particular city's superiority....
You know what? Fuck these lists. If they had any credibility whatsoever they'd rank nightlife lower than anything due to everything closing at 2. And in terms of intelligence, where are these people hanging out, the Coffee Bean on Robertson? These people have absolutely no perspective.
Allright its friday, no more rants.
big metrolink crash in chatsworth.
http://www.cnn.com/
HAHA! Love the headline...
WTH, the SF Bay Area has WAY worse traffic than LA. Try the 280/880/101/85 junction at 4:30pm and then tell me you wouldn't prefer the 405, which has 5 lanes and at least moves. The double standard places on LA for its traffic is just a result of bad image, it has no relationship to reality.
People simply don't realize how BIG LA is, looking at a map, they don't realize that it's the size of the entire SF South Bay, just without the city borders. They get a hotel in Long Beach and expect to have lunch in Beverly Hills in 20 minutes.
Screw this list.
The bad rap that Los Angeles gets from the rest of the world is party its own fault. One thing LA could do to lessen this type of slander is get real about what is and what is not Los Angeles.
Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, West Hollywood, Long Beach, Pasadena, Culver City, etc are not Los Angeles. We need to make this distinction more sharp, more focused, and work to develop a stronger identity for Los Angeles that emphatically excludes these other cities, which are primarily suburban and give us a bad name.
When San Francisco is considered, it never includes Oakland or Palo Alto. Consider New York, does Yonkers or New Jersey count?
Then consider Los Angeles proper. It has a good transit system, a growing rail network, and is second only to New York in population and cultural power. It has more galleries, museums, music, and fashion than any other city except New York. It's still affordable by world standards.
Travel + Leisure spent time in Beverly Hills and missed the city proper. Pretty sad.
For classical music we get #14? So having the most exciting orchestra in America puts us below San Diego? And apparently we are less diverse than San Diego as well.
It has to do with more than individual ratings. It has to do with accessibility. If people are stuck in traffic, having to drive everywhere and transverse this huge city to go from one museum to another, visitors get frustrated with the whole city and mark the city down undeservedly in every other category. If/when we get our act together and expand on public transit and walkability and reinvest in our city centers, you'll see a spike in every single category. It all revolves around accessibility.