Some non-LA peeps were talking trash about the city of Angels recently. It got me thinking. The fella and I were hard pressed to think of reasons why we'd WANT to move to LA when the decision first presented itself ... wow, I guess 4 years ago now.
It took us almost a full 12 months to finally book the tickets for a quick investigative visit, and even as we slowly coasted in over the freeways and swimming pools, I felt a pang of worry that this was a terrible, terrible idea. The fella, on the other hand, got one whiff of the warm Los Angeles air as we waited for our baggage, and that was it: He was sold. When he laid eyes on the town of Santa Monica, things only got worse. If my husband could leave me for a municipality, I'd be a single woman today.
The best thing about LA, hands down, is the car-friendly urban planning. I'm not saying I wouldn't mix it up a little (thanks to Rep. Henry Waxman, it's gonna be an easy 10 years before we see any light rail out here by the ocean), but on the whole, LA beats the pants out of older, lesser cities. Chicago, for example, has a bunch of main arteries that reduce down to one lane each way in order to cross the Chicago River. That's craziness.
(AND, can you believe it, Chicago hasn't bothered to pave its river bed yet! The rubes! Where are teenagers supposed to hold their illicit drag races for pinks?)
The other thing about LA that really wins you over is the mild, sunny weather. Yes, okay, there are some really broiling months between June and August, but generally speaking, it cools off every single night. Suddenly living in a desert seems like the greatest idea ever. But the other 9 months of the year are like some kind of Utopian weather paradise. It's not just warm -- it's mild, like the first perfect April afternoon, when you realize that winter is behind you and for the next few weeks, you and the planet's climate are not going to be at odds. And the sunshine. Oh, lord, the sunshine. I wear a heavy SPF at all times, sunglasses and often a hat, but from beneath my protective layers, my heart leaps up every time I walk out of the shade into a wide, bright wall of sunlight.
I'm not kidding, it's nature's Prozac.
Coming up: Aspects of other cities that would make up this fictional "Perfect City" of which I speak.
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