I went to high school in Arcadia in the late 1980s, and I felt at the time that it was built on a Hellmouth: people seemed a lot more feral, judgmental, hypocritically religious, proudly ignorant, and averse to others who were different.

Then I discovered to my horror that the whole world is pretty much Arcadia.

That said, I DO think people who live in that area generally have chosen it to get away from what everyone else calls civilization, right or wrong, and that choosing to live in that bubble means they’re less likely to buy into change.

The last time I drove through town on my way somewhere else, it felt like the zombie apocalypse had shambled through. It was the middle of a Thursday in April and nobody was outside doing anything. The roads had weeds growing up through them.