Week One: Los Angeles

Los Angeles, California. Perpetual sunshine. Beautiful beaches. Occasional celebrity sightings. Mountains a few hours away in nearby Big Sur. What's not to love? Exorbitant rental rates, perpetual traffic, and pushy people. Still, you have to take the good with the bad if you want to live in this city.

Lets start with the basics.

Neighborhoods
Los Angeles is full of rich and diverse neighborhoods, each with its own particular vibe. The most expenisve neighborhoods are certainly those that comprise the West side of Los Angeles, commonly known as West LA or the Westside. Santa Monica, Brentwood, Pacific Palisades and Westwood are some of the most common neighborhoods associated as being West LA. While it would be nice to live here, most of us living on an entry level salary need to turn our attention to the neighborhoods to the East.

My personal favorite is Silver Lake. Located 21 miles from the beach, Silver Lake has earned the reputation of being a creative enclave, home to musicians and artists. It gets its name from
the Silver Lake Reservoir, which if your lucky
enought to live close to, will surround you in
a microclimate keeping you about 10 degrees
cooler than neighboring areas. Doing some preliminary research on Craigslist, I found several 2 bedroom apartments in the 1,600-2,000/month range. So, if you are willing to live with a roomate, you an expect to pay as little as 800.00 a month to live in one of the most vibrant cities in the world. If you do happen to find yourself in Silver Lake, make sure not to miss the Sunset Junction, a neighborhood within Silver Lake that bosts a weekly Farmers Market and an annual street fair. For more information on Sunset Junction visist http://www.sunsetjunction.org/index.html


No report on Los Angeles would be complete without atleast some mention of the current traffic situation. Simply put, traffic is an integral part of every Los Angeles citizens life. Trips that should seemingly take 10 minutes will take an hour. There is no escaping this. With that in mind, if sitting in traffic seems like cruel punishment, then perhaps Los Angeles is not for you.
There are, however, ways to help ease the pain. A good cd mix, ipod car adapter or even a book on a tape are all helpful. It is also good to know that for the most part peoples attitudes towards punctuality are seemingly relaxed in this city. At my internship at Warner Bros. last summer, as long as employees could come within 30 minutes of there start time, the managers were happy.



Entertainment




If you are living in Los Angeles you will probably be spending a good portion of your free time at the beach. If a large crowd is what you crave, navigate your way to the Santa Monica Pier. Not only will you find a beautiful beach, but the pier has been transformed into a mini-amusement park, boasting a roller coaster, ferris wheel, bumper cars and much more. If a more relaxed and decidedly less touristy beach experience is more your style, try going to to the southern part of the city, where you will find Hermosa, Manhattan and Redondo Beach. If you crave a more intelectually stimulating experience, perhaps a trip to one of many Los Angeles' museums is in order. Of course there arethe obvious, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, but my personal favorite is the Getty Center. Just of the 405 freeway in Sanat Monica, the Getty Center is home to numerous art exhibits ranging from photography to modern art. For more information or to see what the current exhibits are, visit their website: http://www.getty.edu/







Well thats it for this week. Hopefully this broad overview of the city was of some help to you. So remember, if you can deal with the traffic and find a way to circumvent the real estate market, LA may be the city for you!