California Dreaming? 1 in 5 Americans want to live in Los Angeles, new survey says

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

Originally Posted by urban_encounter

Because, L.A. is heavily dependent on Northern California water. How many of the trees in the L.A. basin would survive without imported weather. L.A. is (obviously) a very dry area and without water from the north, L.A.’s tree canopy would look very different. Hell, we’re pivoting in Sacramento to plant trees that tolerate dry/drought conditions.

The LA beaches to basin get about 15 inches of rain per year, with the valleys and foothills getting up to 25 inches per year. Hardly dry. Also, a not so insignificant amount of our water comes from local sources (San Gabriel mountains) and that number is going up every year. Would like not to drain the Eastern Sierra / Owen's Valley in my lifetime.

Also, we don't get our water from northern California, we get it from the eastern Sierra in Central and Southern California

[craigs]

Like Los Angeles, San Francisco would wither and dry up completely if it did not have a huge aqueduct system importing water from far away. Granted, it's coming from farther away in LA, but neither city could exist as it is only on water sources immediately nearby--at least not until we can figure out large-scale desalination. And correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't New York City also import its water from upstate? This is not uncommon.

[sentinel]

I love LA, I visited recently again after a long hiatus, and it's always a blast. I love the weather, the landscape and how developed it is. But it's a very specific type of landscape that appeals to certain people, specifically, older, whiter suburbanites with lots of money, who want to maintain a certain lifestyle in an environment that is optimized to cater to that.
While LA is very urban, my gut feeling is that people in that 19% who want to move there most, like the urban/suburban blend that LA+environs offer, with the ability to have navigate by car anywhere they want.

[ChrisLA]

Originally Posted by LA21st

LA's/California trees (not just palms) stay green throughout the winter as the rest of the country is brown and dead.

I didn't really know that until I came to LA for the winter the first time. I was living in Chicago at the time, and I took the gold line to Pasadena. Everything was really green.

Yes I can imagine it looks weird to someone who isn't from this part of the country. I had only lived in Chicago for a very brief time back in 1990, but when I flew back in the month of November for job interview I kept thinking something looks kind of odd to me. I then realized everything here is green and the trees are full of leaves. Everything was already barren in Chicago by this time of the year and it was such a contrast from where I had just left. Living in Los Angeles all of my life I never really thought much about how different the landscape changes in the fall/winter months in other parts of the country.



I just took this picture today coming back from Trader Joes, same street as previous photo but several months later. Here the trees are mostly barren.




My street I took today with my cell phone, this is just one street over from the first photo above, it's alive with evergreens that don't change.




Notice here some trees in the winter lose their leaves and others don't, this is looking out my upstairs window back in January.

[ChrisLA]

Originally Posted by craigs

Like Los Angeles, San Francisco would wither and dry up completely if it did not have a huge aqueduct system importing water from far away. Granted, it's coming from farther away in LA, but neither city could exist as it is only on water sources immediately nearby--at least not until we can figure out large-scale desalination. And correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't New York City also import its water from upstate? This is not uncommon.

I find it interesting people use this argument over and over as if they own the water. It's not like we live in the desert such as Las Vegas. Even some of the central California cities north of us don't get as much rain as southern California.

When I lived in Fresno the winter months would get very green, and much of the rolling hills north of the city looked like something out of Ireland. Yet they didn't get as much rain as LA. Granted it very dreary and lots of fog, I did missed the heavy downpours we get in LA, as Fresno would only get just a light rain when it would come down. Anyway the city of Fresno population I'm guessing is close to 500,000 residents now and no where near as big as LA and yet being a much more arid city, they still pull their water from aquifers. I also understand that parts of the Inland Empire gets it's water from under ground sources as well. LA can probably provide enough water locally from the rain we get instead of letting it run into the ocean, but I could be wrong.

Edit: I just read Fresno averages the same amount of rain as L.A, but I questioned this because I have never experienced heavy storms in the five years I lived there like we get here in southern California. But our averages here can be all over the place too, depending on where you live in the metro.

[dktshb]

Originally Posted by LosAngelesSportsFan

The LA beaches to basin get about 15 inches of rain per year, with the valleys and foothills getting up to 25 inches per year. Hardly dry. Also, a not so insignificant amount of our water comes from local sources (San Gabriel mountains) and that number is going up every year. Would like not to drain the Eastern Sierra / Owen's Valley in my lifetime.

Also, we don't get our water from northern California, we get it from the eastern Sierra in Central and Southern California

Yeah, my home in the Tujunga neighborhood of Los Angeles got over 14 inches of rain last week.

[AviationGuy]

Originally Posted by ChrisLA

No seasons, and nothing but palm trees.

I actually think the exotic trees and landscapes make for some of the most beautiful scenery anywhere. I especially love the fact that the LA region is using more native plants, the colors are down right breathtaking. Don't get me wrong I love greenery too, but I found some areas of the country I visited trees are rather dull and boring looking. Atlanta was the exception

LA does has four seasons, it may not be as drastic as the eastern part of the country, but we definitely have them.

Los Angeles City-West San Fernando Valley
My neighborhood, notice not many palm tress here. Many of the valley's residential communities are full of tress that are not palms. Sherman Way is one of the few major streets in the SFV that are lined with tall palms





















Thousand Oaks:

Really nice pics. It always amazes me that pronouncements about various cities/metros are often made by those who are not at all familiar with (or only superficically familar with) the place they are characterizing. We've seen a fair amount of that in this thread. It's been going on at SSP for as long as the site has been around.

By the way, one of the prettiest trees I've ever seen in L.A. is the one that has purple blooms.

[Quixote]

Whether it's 5% or 20% is beyond the point. Although I will say that given the premise of money not being an object and knowing that people love LA's weather and the cost of living being orders of magnitude more expensive than the other cities in the top five, it's fair to surmise that 5% is probably quite low.

The main takeaway should be that LA's the most desirable city for, perhaps, say 1/10 Americans (who have enough financial means to relocate somewhere else) despite all the challenges that plague the city. "It's us, not them" is a better state of affairs than vice versa. Better than being a decaying Rust Belt city with brutal winters and a scarcity of amenities, which will (quite frankly) never have broad appeal. I'm not describing any city in particular.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by AviationGuy

Really nice pics. It always amazes me that pronouncements about various cities/metros are often made by those who are not at all familiar with (or only superficically familar with) the place they are characterizing. We've seen a fair amount of that in this thread. It's been going on at SSP for as long as the site has been around.

By the way, one of the prettiest trees I've ever seen in L.A. is the one that has purple blooms.

Jacaranda trees?


source

They originated in South America. There's a ton of them on the UCLA campus. I love them, but don't get many Angelenos started about what a mess they make when the blossoms fall.

[ChiSoxRox]

Originally Posted by ChrisLA

Edit: I just read Fresno averages the same amount of rain as L.A, but I questioned this because I have never experienced heavy storms in the five years I lived there like we get here in southern California. But our averages here can be all over the place too, depending on where you live in the metro.

Yearly averages can be counter intuitive.

Rome gets 30% more rain in a year than London.

[JManc]

I'm sure similar case with LA but the Bay Area is filthy with flowering plants and bushes. Houston is far more green and lush but it's so colorful out here.

[ocman]

Originally Posted by ChrisLA

No seasons, and nothing but palm trees.

I actually think the exotic trees and landscapes make for some of the most beautiful scenery anywhere. I especially love the fact that the LA region is using more native plants, the colors are down right breathtaking. Don't get me wrong I love greenery too, but I found some areas of the country I visited trees are rather dull and boring looking. Atlanta was the exception

LA does has four seasons, it may not be as drastic as the eastern part of the country, but we definitely have them.

Los Angeles City-West San Fernando Valley
My neighborhood, notice not many palm tress here. Many of the valley's residential communities are full of tress that are not palms. Sherman Way is one of the few major streets in the SFV that are lined with tall palms

The beauty of being in a rare meditteranean climate zone is that almost any type of tree grows in California because temperatures don’t dip below 50 degrees. So LA is lush in good neighborhoods, but tree poor in the “bad” ones, where the city has decided not to invest in those areas.

In 2007, the mayor launched a plan to plant 1M trees along with NYC and Shanghai. It only got to 400,000 by 2013. NYC hit the 1M goal in 2015. And then, instead of continuing Villaraigosa's goal, Garcetti just pretended it never happened and decided to launch a 90,000 tree plan. 60,000 have been planted. And as usual, in the fk-up way LA government thinks the free market will do everything for them and they just have to mandate things, they expect non-profits and homeowners to do the job rather than planting it themselves.

[JDRCRASH]

Originally Posted by craigs

And correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't New York City also import its water from upstate? This is not uncommon.

Yes, it does, though to be fair, from a far closer distance:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Yo..._supply_system

[AviationGuy]

Originally Posted by craigs

Jacaranda trees?


source

They originated in South America. There's a ton of them on the UCLA campus. I love them, but don't get many Angelenos started about what a mess they make when the blossoms fall.

That may be it. I've seen residential areas in L.A. where the streets are lined with trees having purple blooms. Our color (aside from nice fall foliage in some years) is crepe myrtles. In early summer, many of our thoroughfares are lined with brilliant blooms of purple, red, pink, and white crepe myrtles. At least when I was a kid, Galveston was a ablaze with oleander blooms. Many cities have something that provides nice color during certain seasons.

[AviationGuy]

Originally Posted by ocman

The beauty of being in a rare meditteranean climate zone is that almost any type of tree grows in California because temperatures don’t dip below 50 degrees. So LA is lush in good neighborhoods, but tree poor in the “bad” ones, where the city has decided not to invest in those areas.

In 2007, the mayor launched a plan to plant 1M trees along with NYC and Shanghai. It only got to 400,000 by 2013. NYC hit the 1M goal in 2015. And then, instead of continuing Villaraigosa's goal, Garcetti just pretended it never happened and decided to launch a 90,000 tree plan. 60,000 have been planted. And as usual, in the fk-up way LA government thinks the free market will do everything for them and they just have to mandate things, they expect non-profits and homeowners to do the job rather than planting it themselves.

It was in the low 40s even along the coast in L.A. the other day, and in the 30s in Burbank/Pasadena and other parts of the Valley.

[ChrisLA]

Originally Posted by AviationGuy

It was in the low 40s even along the coast in L.A. the other day, and in the 30s in Burbank/Pasadena and other parts of the Valley.

It’s not uncommon to dip into the high 30,s here in Woodland Hills at night. Last weekend it definitely felt like it could snow, especially with the wind chill. I actually wore thermals under my pants this entire week, something I haven’t worn in a few years now.

[L41A]

Originally Posted by Segun

LA is a consideration, but I'm spoiled by having lush, shade-providing greenery in my immediate surroundings. It sounds petty, but it's real to me. The exotic appeal of Palm trees doesn't last long.

Originally Posted by L41A

Plus, I like the seasons.

Y'all Tripping. Soo sensitive. Let me re-state what I posted. Maybe this will be better and won't cause so much angst. "I prefer more seasonal climate'

Even Segun stated "is a consideration". Didn't say nothing bad. I do like cold weather: 2-3 months with lows in 20s/30s and highs in 40s/50s is near perfect for me. But the response with all the pics, and implying that folk don't know about So Cal weather because they don't like exactly what you like. C'mon nah.

LA weather is great. God is great! OK!!!

Yes, LA has seasons but so does Orlando and Houston and Savannah.

I'm very observant of climate changes between regions especially while driving. Even lived in different regions/climates including So Cal. I travel often in the Eastern seaboard (but particularly in Georgia/Florida). Even in Georgia if I cross the Fall Line (especially in the months between late August to early May), I could expect not only a significant temperature difference but a change in trees and landscape. It ain't as drastic as driving from the So Cal desert into LA which I did the last time I was out west 4-5 years ago.

Y'all seemingly trying to make people like LA climate over all others. People like different things. That's what make the World go around. Posting all those pics like So Cal / LA landscape is the same as Richmond, DC, Raleigh, Pittsburg, Atlanta, etc.
I myself like LA/So Cal weather. I could agree it is the most convenient climate in the US. I lived there while in military and you never had to be that concern what the weather was doing or going to do like you do back east.

[ocman]

Originally Posted by AviationGuy

It was in the low 40s even along the coast in L.A. the other day, and in the 30s in Burbank/Pasadena and other parts of the Valley.

Regardless, those days are as rare as the current snow LA is experiencing now. Tropical trees are able to survive planted almost anywhere in southern California.

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by ChrisLA

I actually think the exotic trees and landscapes make for some of the most beautiful scenery anywhere. I especially love the fact that the LA region is using more native plants, the colors are down right breathtaking.

Only certain climates in the US & world allow for this kind of an odd or exotic planting, which some people may think of as from a planet in Star wars. This type of landscaping isn't common in Florida because such plants don't do well when there's too much rain, while in areas like georgia, the weather during the winter can be too cold & tends to make them die off. I'm sure the recent cold in parts of SoCa are stressing them out...


• Video Link

As is true of many ppl living in the LA area, lots of the landscaping is transplanted too...

• Video Link

In this interview with Julia Louis Dreyfus, she talks about how the TV show Veep moved its filming location from Baltimore to Los Angeles. Halfway through, she says, "We never shot anything exterior during the day in California to stand in for the East Coast because the light is so different there." Having recently moved from Baltimore to Los Angeles myself, I'm curious - what does she mean?

I don't know if there's a technical term for it, but as an east coast transplant, the light in LA during the day is completely unrelenting and (almost always) cloudless before fading into a slinking, lingering golden hour. The Mid-Atlantic is rife with clouds and humidity; you rarely see that haze around street lights on really humid nights where I live in So-Cal, because there are very few nights that qualify as humid. NCIS is a classic example of this for me; it's inconceivable that you could confuse most of the scenes outside with anything in the greater DMV area vs. Southern California. Even besides the red curbs, the light is just harsh, even in "winter" scenes.
posted by jetlagaddict at 6:59 PM on September 6, 2016

Best answer: It's bright as hell here in LA with a clear sky 300+ days a year and very little humidity, so the light is always crisp and undiffused. Even on a bad air quality day when you can see low haze in the distance you don't get much actual diffusion in the main part of the day if you stay very close to sea level. Cameras are even more sensitive to that diffusion than the eye, and it changes even the artificial lighting you use for exterior shots, which means that the way a lit exterior shot looks on the East Coast is different.

Even on shows I know shoot here, you can see a distinct difference between "outdoors" shot on a sound stage versus outside because of the face shadows. You'd have to blast someone with an extremely bright extremely diffused light to compete with the sunshine and still get the baseline "evenly lit face" you get elsewhere, or indoors.

The glare off walls and inanimate objects here is no joke too. If you happen to be on the road between 10am-3/4pm, you're getting your retinas burned from the sunflare off all the other cars. I don't even know what shows here do about that, except avoid shooting at or near anything shiny.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:30 PM on September 6, 2016

It's certainly true that the light is different in NYC. I can't explain exactly how, but I can see it instantly in a show shot on location here. For example, I knew for certain that The Night Of was shot in the city even though I didn't actually recognize most of the locations in Jackson Heights where I live. You can always tell immediately if a show that's supposed to be taking place in NYC was actually shot here; the light, specifically, just looks wrong if it's a different city standing in for NYC.
posted by holborne at 7:43 PM on September 6, 2016

The light in NYC is very different-- colder, bluer, glassier-- than the warm, yellow, thick light in SoCal. Light in SF has the same quality as LA but tends grayer and doesn't get the fantastic pink and red sunsets that you get in much of the southwest more than a couple times a month in the summer. NYC sunsets are mostly like a nickel yellow, edging into gamboge. You'd have to go to a lot of trouble with lighting to get the same effect on the east coast.
posted by blnkfrnk at 8:22 PM on September 6, 2016

David Hockney talked about LA light, and the way it struck him even as a child in Bradford (54 North with flat matte close skies): "one of the things I noticed right away . . . was how Stan and Ollie, bundled in their winter coats, were casting these wonderfully strong, crisp shadows. We never got shadows of any sort in winter. And already I knew that someday I wanted to settle in a place with winter shadows like that."

It's similar to how many impressionist painters moved to Provence and the Mediterranean coast (which is further north than Baltimore!) for the light and the sharp shadows and the sense of hyper-saturated colour.
posted by holgate at 8:35 PM on September 6, 2016

The sunshine is much brighter in Los Angeles (well, really in Southern California, and I'm guessing in the Southwest and parts of the South as well) than it is in the Northeast, and there are far fewer clouds. Not to mention that low-rise sprawly development almost everywhere doesn't block the sunshine at all, and tall trees are almost invariably landscaped and non-native.

This is something I noticed upon moving here. I now own 4-5 pairs of sunglasses I wear year round, whereas in New York I had one pair which was reserved strictly for sometimes in the summer. It's also something that is apparent if you watch film and television closely. The exterior lighting on Mad Men (shot in L.A., takes place in NYC) never looked right, for example.

If you moved here in the spring or summer, I'm guessing this is something you'll start noticing in a few months, when it doesn't become grey and dreary like you're used to. Summer light is relatively similar to the Northeast aside from what I mentioned about the lack of tall/foliage-bearing trees and dense vertical architecture.
posted by Sara C. at 8:57 PM on September 6, 2016

A lot of shows, Bones, Justified etc take place in the mid-atlantic but are shot in LA and environs and it's very obvious I think having lived both places. LA is gold and warm, the East coast is blue green and cool. Watch the pilot of Justified and then watch a later episode (mostly filmed inland) and it'll jump out at you.

Also wild tall grass and thick green weeds and bushy trees. Don't exist on LA. Whereas live oaks and savannna aren't so common in NY state. The background is all wrong.
posted by fshgrl at 9:44 PM on September 6, 2016

I'm not a film person, but I am from Boston and now live in Seattle. Pretty similar latitudes, but when I moved here in the middle of the summer, it was pretty shocking how much brighter the sun seems. Insert joke about sun in Seattle here - but really, the sunny days here are so much brighter than the sunny days in Boston. I feel like I'm constantly squinting here in July and August.
posted by lunasol at 10:07 PM on September 6, 2016

Lots of midcentury Mitteleuropa escapees wound up in SoCal, and one of the draws was the light:

Thomas Mann was the exile who loved Los Angeles best — so much that he became an American citizen and planned to live out his years there (disgust with McCarthyism impelled him to leave for Switzerland in 1952). Mann had always adored the Mediterranean, and to him Los Angeles was the next best thing. “I was enchanted by the light,” he rhapsodized, “by the special fragrance of the air, by the blue of the sky, the sun, the exhilarating ocean breeze. ...”
posted by notyou at 10:15 PM on September 6, 2016

Best answer: This is also a noted phenomenon in France, where you've got generations of painters who noticed that French Riviera light is very different from Parisian light. As someone who is regularly in both places (though not at the same time ), it's very much A Thing. LA is a lot like Nice – awash in sun, striking blue skies, saturated sunrises and sunsets, never any fog, and once the sun's gone, bam, it's night, as another commenter so aptly put it. Monet and the Mediterranean goes into this and has some beautiful paintings linked. Monet lived just outside of Paris, then fell in love with Riviera light on a visit with Renoir. Parisian light is very much like Oregon light (I hesitate to say like NYC since I've never been there): more diffuse, mysterious, all sorts of fog densities. Impressionist paintings very much reflect that.
posted by fraula at 12:56 AM on September 7, 2016

I grew up in the Midwest and I remember the first time I was in Southern California on business. Specifically Palm Springs. I was stunned by how bright the sun was. I couldn't not wear sunglasses.
posted by LoveHam at 4:38 AM on September 7, 2016

The light here in LA is just stronger than that I grew up with in Chicago. I go back east, especially in the winter, and the sun seems anemic. The movie Drive captures LA light well.
posted by persona au gratin at 2:58 AM on September 8, 2016

I really noticed this when The X-Files moved from rainy, overcast, moody Vancouver down to LA for its last season. Mulder in the bright sunshine? No thanks
posted by drinkmaildave at 5:57 PM on September 10, 2016

[FromSD]

Originally Posted by ocman

In 2007, the mayor launched a plan to plant 1M trees along with NYC and Shanghai. It only got to 400,000 by 2013. NYC hit the 1M goal in 2015. And then, instead of continuing Villaraigosa's goal, Garcetti just pretended it never happened and decided to launch a 90,000 tree plan. 60,000 have been planted. And as usual, in the fk-up way LA government thinks the free market will do everything for them and they just have to mandate things, they expect non-profits and homeowners to do the job rather than planting it themselves.

I think the biggest obstacle to these tree planting programs is that the trees often don't survive. Until they get established, the newly planted trees need water, and they don't always get it, especially when they are planted in the narrow strip between the sidewalk and street curb.

Wealthy and middle class neighborhoods usually have more trees because there is more room for them and because homeowners are more likely to see landscaping as worth the cost of a higher water bill. The recent push in California to allow Accessory Dwelling Units and otherwise densify neighborhoods, while good for the housing supply, probably works against the tree coverage. Less open space in backyards means fewer trees.