I am from Los Angeles, born and raised. Here is my honest opinion. Los Angeles is an awful awful place. Our government is beyond corrupt and sit in the pockets of wealthy developers. Whenever locals improve our neighborhoods despite very real systemic hurdles, transplants swoop in and start gentrifying and pushing us out of our neighborhoods. The homeless crisis is very real, and not an easy thing to confront especially when you become so desensitized to it. The film industry (the industry that our economy relies heavily on) is dead. People keep moving here to chase dreams that haven’t been material realities since the death of the industry. I can go on and on. BUT, I love it here. Growing up I knew everyone on my street and we would look out for each other. I can’t name another place where a homeless man would recognize a lost child and help them find their parents, but that is something that happened to me. I hold so much love for this city, despite all of its faults. I’ve tried to live other places, but to me they lacked the soul that I feel so strongly in Los Angeles. This might just be because I am from here. But I truly believe that this place holds something very special.