From: helfman@aero.org (Robert S. Helfman)
Newsgroups: ca.general
Subject: Re: Jumping the Good Ship California
Date: 1 Sep 1992 04:53:28 GMT
Organization: The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA
Distribution: ca
NNTP-Posting-Host: aerospace.aero.org

In article <4997@bacon.IMSI.COM> jordan@IMSI.COM (Jordan Hayes) writes:
>Robert S. Helfman <helfman@aero.org> writes:
>
>	The problem with most people who complain about traffic is that
>	they have this perverse desire/need/compulsion to live
>	somewhere far from work.
>
>You're assuming that living in one place is just the same (modulo a
>commute) as living in another.  It turns out that for many people,
>SillyValley is simply uninhabitable.  Heck, I'd blame it on the
>companies who decided that it was a good idea to put all those jobs in
>an undesirable (now at least -- I hear Sunnyvale used to be a nice
>place 50 years ago) place....
>
>Oh, but I see from your return address that you "live" in LA?  That
>must be why it doesn't seem to bother you much where you live, since LA
>is just one big suburb.
>

Far from it. You probably have the typical San Fernando Valley or Orange
County or Westside perspective, from which it DOES look like one
big suburb. Believe me, where I live, in the Crenshaw district, it
ain't no suburb, homey! My neighborhood is upper middle-class mostly-black.
I am almost dead-center in the AAA 'Central and Western' map. I'm close
enough to downtown to take the streets (which I did when I was on
jury duty). [Please don't start that stuff about LA having no downtown.
Suburbs don't have 72 story buildings. They also don't have
13 stories of courtrooms in the Criminal Courts Bldg, either, before
you or anyone else starts in about "ALL THAT CRIME".]

I agree that SillyValley is uninhabitable. The reason I don't live in
the Bay Area is that I can't possibly afford San Francisco, and that's
the only part I'd want to live in. I lived in the East Bay in 1962 and 1963,
until my job dragged me kicking and screaming to Riverside (uggh). Then
economic conditions made it impossible to find a job in the Bay Area. (the
1970's) Then prices made it impossible to live there (the 80's). I have
gone to Sunnyvale and environs a number of times on business, and find the
area as repulsive as Orange County.

One of my reasons for living where I do is easy access to cultural things.

LA County Art Museum: 12 minutes. 

Music Center, Museum of Contemporary Art,Temporary Contemporary: 15 tops. 

Natural History, Calif. Afro-American, Science & Industry, Air & Space: 10 
minutes, straight down King. Blvd. I often ride my bike early on Sunday
mornings to go there (35 mins). I seems a pity to drive it. 

Wiltern Theater: 10 minutes. 
Hollywood Bowl: 20 minutes.
Greek Theatre: 20 minutes. 
Armand Hammer: 15 minutes. 

You say, but you have to DRIVE! Yeh, for most things. I CAN walk to the
Museum of African American Art. Just down the hill.

That's just culture. Sports?

Coliseum (USC, Raiders): 10 minutes. 
Sports Arena (Clippers): 10 mins. The Forum (Lakers): 15 mins.

Not to mention one of the greatest knockout views on earth. 210 degrees,
Westwood, Century City, Beverly Hills, Hollywood, Wilshire, Downtown,
and southeast to the horizon, where Mt. San Jacinto is visible on lots of
mornings 110 miles away. Once you've seen the flats of LA shrouded 
in ground fog at dawn, with a disembodied downtown looking like 
the floating city from "The Empire Strikes Back", you'd never consider
moving again.

Not to mention a painless 15 minute drive to work.
 
With all that, I can deal with occasional gunfire in the distance at night,
and a riot every 26 years.