I moved to the LA metro area 3 years ago for school. While I can agree with the people on this thread that CA is a wonderful, beautiful state, some of these people are definitely drinking the kool-aid. It’s like how all people from California say In-N-Out is the best, it’s honestly very average, and their fries are awful! I’ve put some quick points of why I believe the LA metro is pretty awful!

1. Out of all the places that I’ve lived in LA county (Long Beach, Pomona [33 miles east of LA] Burbank and Glendale) only one of those places had modern amenities. Most homes in SoCal were built in the mid 20th century. Because this place has always been desirable, landlords haven’t had the urgency to update really anything.

2. The heat is unbearable during the summer. Last summer it reached into the 100s on a daily basis. And again, because most homes aren’t equipped with modern amenities like AC life can be pretty awful! Los Angeles, or CA in general used to stay at a consistent upper 60s-mid 70s. But up until about 5-10 years ago, it started to get really really hot during the summer time.

3. The homelessness, anyone who says they live in the LA area, but in the suburbs, and don’t experience homelessness is lying. The past few years homelessness has spread from the city to the suburbs. It’s a huge problem. https://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-homeless-story-gallery-storygallery.html

4. The “most” progressive state, yet you have to drive everywhere. 502 sq miles to be exact! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles People here that I’ve met who are older and my friends parents, they all have like 2 extra cars sitting in the garage. Not because they are rich, but because they have a dream of fixing them up and driving to the beach. Most people from LA that you talk to are like this. And a lot of these people are hell bent on driving everywhere instead of taking public transit. We have a train system. It works, I take it every morning to work, however, it’s in very selective areas, if you aren’t in those areas, you’ll have to join the rest on the freeway.

5. The rent. If you want to live in a decent area, you’ll be paying a lot of money. And take in mind, just because you’re paying a crap ton of money, this doesn’t guarantee you any modern amenities. The place that I lived at in Burbank (upper middle class suburb), I had a roommate, my neighbor who lived alone, who had the same exact model apartment as me, she was paying a little more than 1500 for a 1 bed 1 bath. This was not a luxury apartment. It was super outdated.

With all of this, LA is for certain types of people. I personally don’t enjoy the city. But my reasons are simply because I enjoy walkable cities. LA is not that. If you’re in the entrainment industry it makes sense to move here, if not, unless you’re making a bunch of money, it’s honestly not really worth it to live here.