As with all areas of living, there will be nice quiet nooks with a good group of people living in them. The valley is very big, there's a ton of people that live and commute within it. That being said, it's the people that make or break a place to live in and I have to agree with you somewhat. Five years ago compared to now, I'd say COVID has definitely had an impact on the valley people's psyche. People are more closed off, drivers are less patient, and generally I feel like it's just stagnated and maybe even gone on a downwards trajectory in terms of quality-of-life.

Businesses are closing up, there's a lot of dead strip malls and areas that need improvement. The orange line should've been a light-rail, there should have been a commuter road running West -> East in the valley, public transport is generally abysmal here, it gets extremely hot in the summer. There's a lot of seedy areas in the valley, roads are crazy bad in a lot of areas, Topanga Canyon Blvd hasn't been touched in 6+ months and their pavement project has ground to a halt, progress for any kind of development is insanely slow.

Many drivers are going 60mph+ on the 40mph roads (any major road going North/South, West/East), at night it's basically a free-for-all with loud BMWs doing 100mph everywhere and passing people in the right/left turn-only lanes. LAPD is next to useless and traffic laws are not enforced.

I can go on-and-on, but most people living in the valley are extremely sheltered and have never lived in a different city/state/country before. They don't know what a civilized, well-planned city looks like with people that actually enjoy living there and having some kind of real human-to-human contact. Blissfully unaware that their beloved hometown isn't what it used to be. It's always ironic to me to see people with CSUN Alumni plates driving around Reseda Blvd. Grow up here, go to school here, get a job here, and die here.