Hollywood Projects

[LongBeachUrbanist]

Anyone can find examples of people who don't like L.A., or for that matter, any city. What does that prove? You cannot generalize individual examples, this is the first thing you learn in Logic 101.

I think what really matters is what people who live here think. Not people living in St. Louis, or San Francisco, or India, or Ventura. Los Angeles has a very large population, much of it in extremely dense areas, and overall real-estate prices are quite high. If things were so bad, those people wouldn't be here.

LAB is absolutely right about connectivity. We are a great city, but we lack good connections between our unique neighborhoods. The Purple Line is a huge part of that: stengthening the spine that leads to Downtown L.A. For me, it's also rezoning the central neighborhoods and streets to encourage more unique pockets of activity. An improved cab system would also help.

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by LongBeachUrbanist

You cannot generalize individual examples, this is the first thing you learn in Logic 101.

But there is the matter of percentages, & when message threads even here at SSP, where one assumes most ppl share a lot of common interests about cities & urban issues, often indicate a lot of forumers don't exactly rank LA on the top of their lists, or even at least better than above halfway down, something is wrong.

If things were so bad, those people wouldn't be here.

But sheer quantity without enough quality isn't too impressive either.

[LongBeachUrbanist]

Originally Posted by citywatch

But sheer quantity without enough quality isn't too impressive either.

Like beauty, quality is in the eye of the beholder.

[bjornson]

Originally Posted by citywatch

[/b]

And there must be a lot of SSPers, much less [URL="http://www.travelandleisure.com/afc/results.cfm?cat=14"]Americans in general

Hahahahahh. I really don't care about these things, but it eems like the visitors really wanted to rate L.A. low on everything. Even weather.

1 highest
25 lowest

Quality of Life:
25 out of 25

City Attractiveness:
25 out of 25 (on Locals also)

Peacefulness:
24 out of 25

Ease of finding your way:
25 out of 25

Cleanliness:
24 out of 25

Weather:
10 out of 25 (not too low, but not high enough)

[Vangelist]

Seriously, citywatch, why do you care so much? You're sounding so obsessed, like a really insecure SSC poster. You can't control or change people's individual opinions, so why not live here with a sense of pride and see that things improve, instead of just complain re: what others think?

I kind of like that LA is low on people's radar for a lot of positive attributes, and that it's severely underrated; it makes enjoying the secrets here kind of cool. I even find the fact that we're so hated or misunderstood by others as somewhat charming. But your contant harping on comparing people's perceptions of SF vs LA or whatever just seem like a personal inadequacy issue, in that you can't take people's varying opinions with a grain of salt. I know I myself have whined about this from time to time, but it doesn't really seem to bother me that much here at the end of the day, as with most other posters - if I live here, the only opinion that matters is mine (and I love it); you seem genuinely perturbed, however, and nothing's going to reverse a century's negative stereotypes about LA fast enough to satiate you.

Oh and btw, not everyone in India is a slum-dwelling beggar; in fact, it has more millionaires than most Asian countries, and the middle class there outnumbers the population of Spain & France combined...but I'm sure you were just trying to exaggerate, right? Because for a dirty Indian to have any sort of less-than-ffabulous opinion on LA should just be illegal - who are they to talk, when their skid rows are worse (or some such "logic" I think you were using...I think)

[Vangelist]

Same with those poor unfortunate souls who call St Louis home. The condescencion and bigotry in yr posts are overwhelmingly insulting

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by Vangelist

I kind of like that LA is low on people's radar for a lot of positive attributes, and that it's severely underrated; it makes enjoying the secrets here kind of cool.

I don't. That's like saying you don't mind, and even kind of enjoy, everyone around you thinking you're a loser, have few or no friends, smell bad, & are ugly and a poor dresser.

(or some such "logic" I think you were using...I think)

I'll have to ask, where is your "logic?" Or is it more a matter of if the truth hurts, burn the messenger?



Poverty runs deep in India despite strong growth

Reuters
Wednesday, July 07, 2004

Mirjapur (Kolkata), July 7: Shontish Hansda, a poor 35-year-old villager, lies on the ground outside his small thatched hut desperately trying to draw in some fresh air on a sultry summer afternoon. Ever few minutes, the bony farmer from Communist-ruled West Bengal, who is suffering from tuberculosis, breaks into a hacking cough and weakly waves a hand to shoo off a cow. "I have no money. I got some medicines from the village government some time ago. But they say I have to have nutritious food to fight tuberculosis. I cannot afford it," says Hansda who lives in Mirjapur, before he's overtaken by a bout of coughing.

Hansda is one of 250 million people in India who live in desperate poverty with an income of less than a dollar a day and no access to wholesome food, basic health or drinking water. While a small slice of India is rich enough to eat out, drive new cars and shop for luxuries at glitzy malls, millions in the vast, impoverished countryside are still struggling for survival.

"Poverty is an acute problem in India. Some states are not attracting investment and poverty is getting entrenched in more backward areas," said Arun Kumar, professor at New Delhi's prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University.

It is this abject poverty that the ruling Congress party's finance minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, will try to tackle when he unveils the federal budget on July 8. The job isn't easy. Last month, a few hundred miles away from Hansda's village in the state which has the world's longest surviving communist government five people died because they had nothing to eat. Starvation deaths are often reported in rural areas where nearly 70 per cent of the country's more than one billion population live, despite 8.2 per cent GDP growth last year.

While consumerism is on the rise in the many shopping malls that have sprung up since an economic reform drive was launched more than a decade ago, in some villages people are sometimes forced to eat rats and toads to survive.

SILENT EMERGENCY

A review of the Indian economy published by a private think-tank says India has more poor households than Africa, Asia and Central America together. The World Bank say malnutrition remains a "silent emergency" in India as almost half of all children under five are malnourished and 34 per cent of newborns are underweight.

The new left-leaning government -- elected chiefly by the rural poor rather than urban middle class and rich -- has vowed a new deal to the farmers and has promised to increase spending on health to at least two-three percent of GDP over the next five years and on education to six per cent. "What we lack is proper targeting of pro-poor schemes, cutting down bureaucratic hurdles and a clear roadmap for reforms," says Ajitava Raychaudhuri, professor of economics at Jadavpur University in Calcutta.

The lives of farmers like Hansda living in remote villages in West Bengal typify the extent of poverty. "He has two children and a wife. He does not have a job. Earlier, he worked in the fields but now he is too ill to do anything," say some villagers gathered outside his hut.

A short distance from Hansda's hut, some women gathered around a fire to roast some puffed rice for a local festival. "What else can we afford? We eat this puffed rice and some boiled potatoes," says Leela, a woman who looks older than her 50 years, as she watches the potatoes boiling in a worn-out aluminium pot.

Only a few houses have access to electricity in Mirjapur village, 130 km from the bustling state capital, Calcutta, where bright red hammer-and-sickle symbols adorn the walls of most huts. The vast majority make do with lanterns or home-made lights made of cotton dipped in kerosene. A few hand pumps are the only source of water, while most women and children wash in the muddy water of the village pond.

"We have done rural development but it does not mean that we have been able to eliminate poverty. We also have the same faults as in other states," says Nirupam Sen, a senior minister in the West Bengal government. "There are faults in the delivery of pro-poor schemes. Just because we are communists it does not mean we have a foolproof system."

LAND REFORMS

The Communists are key supporters of the new government led by the Congress party which swept to power in May after angry voters who felt left out of an economic boom voted out the previous government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party. The communists, who took power in 1977 in West Bengal, undertook widespread farm sector reforms to redistribute land equally between rich landlords and landless peasants in a bid to increase productivity.

Sen points to the fragile fiscal situation of the state and the huge burden of pension and salaries -- about 120 billion rupees a year -- and high interest payments which leaves little money for key social sectors. But the argument doesn't cut much ice with people such as Sushil, an unemployed man who lives in a thatched hut in Mirjapur without any access to electricity and barely large enough to accommodate his wife and two children.

"I vote but I don't understand politics," he says, sitting outside his hut, when asked whether he had heard about the pro-poor promises of the new government. "I am only worried about my children and wife's future."

[LongBeachUrbanist]

Interesting article about India. But how is it relevant to "Hollywood Projects".

[bjornson]

It's not too relevant, it apparently goes back to what Vangelist said about India and I guess now, from that Indian girl who thinks L.A. is just Hollywood.

[Vangelist]

>>I don't. That's like saying you don't mind, and even kind of enjoy, everyone around you thinking you're a loser, have few or no friends, smell bad, & are ugly and a poor dresser.

Isn't this stretching things a bit, even in terms of your ridiculous analogy? LA doesn't have a reputation of anything approaching that

Basicaly citywatch is saying that no one from anywhere that might have a have shred of poverty - or ugly cable & telephone lines overground - or St. Louis, for that matter, has any right to dislike or criticize Los Angeles. Anyone else want to handle this?

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by Vangelist

Isn't this stretching things a bit, even in terms of your ridiculous analogy?

No. How else can one interpret the comments of a person who writes:

I kind of like that LA is low on people's radar for a lot of positive attributes, and that it's severely underrated;....I even find the fact that we're so hated or misunderstood by others as somewhat charming.

If my analogy is "ridiculous", then I have to describe your POV as a form of hometown masochism.

And your resenting my comment about the SSPer from St Louis who dissed LA several months ago is about as ridiculous as resenting someone for saying that a job resume that includes "PhD from Harvard" should be viewed differently from a resume that indicates "AA from local junior college."

[Vangelist]

But you're not addressing the root of all this, which is your intolerance for others' opinions. There is no objective "truth" that irrefutably claims that Los Angeles is more beautiful than St Louis, or Mumbai, or whevever.

It's entirely subjective..

[LosAngelesBeauty]

^ I think it has to do with the level of city rankings. Obviously St. Louis is nowhere near the level of LA as a global city, and I think citywatch is saying that LA deserves more respect as a city and that someone from a much smaller city (with much less world-class venues and amenities) should regard LA higher if that person considers world-class shopping/entertainment/food/culture/etc. as a way to gauge a city's level. "Dissing" LA from St. Louis would seem like someone who goes to a Junior College and bagging on Caltech for being shoddy (haha!).

I think it's endearing that citywatch wants the best for LA (even though it's a bit obnoxious sometimes), but listening to people bag on LA time and time again is annoying when we all know here that LA is one of the greatest cities in the world.

[citywatch]

^ that about sums it up, LAB.

However, maybe if more ppl in LA had been, as you put it, obnoxious about their agenda, concerns & wishes----for things like better transit, a completed red line, or more connectivity between hoods (which, btw, are important issues)----we wouldn't have had (or still have) so many yrs of folks saying, la de dah, la de dah, la de dah, no BFD, no BFD, no BFD, who cares?!, who cares?!, LA is good enough, LA is good enough, LA is good enough. Or, worse of all, saying "we're big fans of NIMBYitis, we're big fans of NIMBYitis, we're big fans of NIMBYitis!!!

Originally Posted by bjornson

I really don't care about these things, but it eems like the visitors really wanted to rate L.A. low on everything.

Quality of Life:
25 out of 25

City Attractiveness:
25 out of 25 (on Locals also)

Cleanliness:
24 out of 25

There's something wrong when ppl, even those who are locals, rank their city so poorly, & when others like this guy have to put up with such dissing.

But you know what? Maybe this wouldn't be such a bad thing if everyone finally started to think of LA as though it were like the person who, though highly qualified & even very talented, keeps going to big job interviews dressed in cheap, dirty clothing, wearing fugly, broken glasses, with skin full of festering sores & with breath that would knock out a baboon.

[Quixote]

The problem is that people pass through so much of the ugly to get to all the destinations, especially via the freeway. From the freeway they see powerlines, old warehouses with vacant adjacent parking lofts, smog, etc. unlike more centralized cities such as NYC and SF were everyone remains in the urban core and never ventures outside it. So they never see any of the ugly unless going to or from the airport. That is why once we establish Downtown Los Angeles as the main center of our city, peoples' impressions of LA will change for the better.

[LosAngelesBeauty]

Originally Posted by citywatch

^ that about sums it up, LAB.

However, maybe if more ppl in LA had been, as you put it, obnoxious about their agenda, concerns & wishes----for things like better transit, a completed red line, or more connectivity between hoods (which, btw, are important issues)----we wouldn't have had (or still have) so many yrs of folks saying, la de dah, la de dah, la de dah, no BFD, no BFD, no BFD, who cares?!, who cares?!, LA is good enough, LA is good enough, LA is good enough. Or, worse of all, saying "we're big fans of NIMBYitis, we're big fans of NIMBYitis, we're big fans of NIMBYitis!!!


[/b]

There's something wrong when ppl, even those who are locals, rank their city so poorly, & when others like this guy have to put up with such dissing.

But you know what? Maybe this wouldn't be such a bad thing if everyone finally started to think of LA as though it were like the person who, though highly qualified & even very talented, keeps going to big job interviews dressed in cheap, dirty clothing, wearing fugly, broken glasses, with skin full of festering sores & with breath that would knock out a baboon.

I only said obnoxious because you hate graffiti

[bjornson]

Originally Posted by citywatch

There's something wrong when ppl, even those who are locals, rank their city so poorly, & when others like this guy have to put up with such dissing.

But you know what? Maybe this wouldn't be such a bad thing if everyone finally started to think of LA as though it were like the person who, though highly qualified & even very talented, keeps going to big job interviews dressed in cheap, dirty clothing, wearing fugly, broken glasses, with skin full of festering sores & with breath that would knock out a baboon.

Hahah the best analogy.

[LosAngelesBeauty]

Originally Posted by Westsidelife

The problem is that people pass through so much of the ugly to get to all the destinations, especially via the freeway. From the freeway they see powerlines, old warehouses with vacant adjacent parking lofts, smog, etc. unlike more centralized cities such as NYC and SF were everyone remains in the urban core and never ventures outside it. So they never see any of the ugly unless going to or from the airport. That is why once we establish Downtown Los Angeles as the main center of our city, peoples' impressions of LA will change for the better.

Exactly. What is the focal point, will become the impression of the city. And for the longest time, we lacked a focal point, which gave us the label of sprawling hell hole. When actually, Chicago was JUST AS sprawling as LA, but it actually had a FOCAL POINT so everything you saw outside Downtown Chicago was practically FORGOTTEN! The train ride from O'Hare to Downtown Chicago was long and grueling and I saw similarities between LA and Chicago along the way. But all that was forgotten when I saw Downtown Chicago. THAT BECAME CHICAGO.

With LA, once Downtown LA becomes the undisputed center of life, it'll really change the way people view this city. How we differ from Chicago, however, is that we have Wilshire Blvd. Once the Purple Line makes its way down there, people will travel by subway (not seeing any of the ugly powerlines, etc.) and come up out to a bunch of activities, and again, their impressions will be based on what they see around train stations. Wilshire Blvd. will EXTEND Downtown LA to the ocean and we'll become one of the most loved cities in the world.

[bobcat]

Originally Posted by LosAngelesBeauty

Exactly. What is the focal point, will become the impression of the city. And for the longest time, we lacked a focal point, which gave us the label of sprawling hell hole.

What we have to remember is that tourists are overwhelming superficial, and that when people say the "saw" a city, they mean they visited its major tourist traps. Examples of how a typical tourist "sees" various cities:

San Francisco: Went to Fisherman's Wharf, Chinatown, and Alcatraz. Rode Cable Car.
NYC: Went to Times Square, Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, and a show.
Chicago: Went to Michigan Ave, Sears Tower, and a museum. Ate some pizza.
LA: Went to Mann's Chinese Theater, Rodeo Drive, Venice Beach and a theme park.

If I visited LA and did only that I would be disappointed, too.

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by LosAngelesBeauty

I only said obnoxious because you hate graffiti

Haha! I still recall your post some time ago where you said you actually like seeing graffiti on fwy walls! I remember at the time thinking, oh, damn, no wonder Brigham can have a screen name with "LA" & "beauty" in it & not mean that as a form of sarcasm!
Still, just goes to show you how different ppl's opinions of things can be.

And I do remember running across your blog about 2 or more yrs ago where you posted about your sister & cousin being really down on LA, on DT in particular.

That's why I have to say that----& I think westsidelife nailed it-----when ppl from all over the place, from India (even a hypocrite) to St Louis, from NYC to Seattle, from SF to San diego, from the Encyclopedia Britannica, ferrchrissakes, from right HERE in LA....

Insult New York to a New Yorker, and you're liable to get punched in the face. Insult Los Angeles to an Angelino, and you'll most likely get a shrug, or even an agreement. Can civic pride in Los Angeles be described as anything but non-existent?

....all seem to react in the same way-----as though LA weren't a very attractive town----you know something about that must be going right to the heart of the matter, straight to the root of the problem.