Setting Aside Cost Of Living, 9 Things That Make Los Angeles Great

If money were no object (but it is) you could easily Never Retire here (except you can't)!

I have been down on Los Angeles lately. And for good reason.

There are too many cars. People have become hostile. And it’s dirty.

As Jimmy Kimmel said the other night, if North Korea dropped trash balloons into LA, we wouldn’t even notice.

Plus, it’s freaking expensive.

However, two things.

• I understand other parts of the nation are experiencing the same or similar.

• If you took away all of the bad things—LOL—Los Angeles would be an amazing place to Never Retire.

If, of course, money was no object and you could position yourself in an ideal perch. As in, you’d have to basically isolate and insulate yourself.

But, I digress—

This is supposed to be—and is—a post about the many things that are great about Los Angeles. Things I’ll something between miss and feel nostalgia around after the door hits me on my ass on the way out to Spain in just eight seven months!

Like, you could, um, totally Never Retire here if it was boiled down to these things.

Griffith Park. There’s a good chance you’ve never heard of it. It’s larger and more diverse than New York’s Central Park and San Francisco’s Golden Gate park.

It’s where the famous Griffith Observatory is.

It has everything you’d expect a great urban park to have (playgrounds, picnic spots, trees, grass to hang out on, an adjacent zoo, etc.) and more. And there’s tons of hiking. From leisurely walks to sometimes rugged hikes and climbs. It’s expansive. I mean, the Hollywood Sign is also in Griffith Park.

Local tip—if you’re going to visit the Observatory, don’t go in using a car via the Vermont entrance like all of the tourists. Park at the Fern Dell entrance (near Western off of Los Feliz Boulevard) and hike your way up.

Grand Central Market. It’s in Downtown LA. If it was in Europe we'd be like this is amazing! We would romanticize the shit out of it. But, even though most of the stalls (except for the doughnut place) are expensive and the surrounding area is seedier than a downtown should be, it’s pretty cool.

The best pizza. While you won’t find it in Grand Central Market, LA has the best pizza of any city in America. The only other place where I have had better pizza is Italy.

My current favorite—Pizzanista, the Arts District location downtown.

Great dive bars. Right next to Pizzanista is Tony’s Saloon, a good dive bar. In between it and the Market is a better dive bar, the Golden Gopher. But the best dive bar is Hollywood’s oldest bar, Frolic Room.

While it’s not like the Northeast or Midwest, we have quite a few dive bars in Los Angeles. And they’re good.

Living The Semi-Retired Life: Why The American Dive Bar Matters

Diverse architecture in most every neighborhood. Even among the shit. The unsightly strip plazas and modern boxes. You name the type of architecture and it’s in Los Angeles. In many neighborhoods, you’ll find multiple styles (like a dozen or so) within a few blocks, if not on the same block. It’s pretty cool.

Diversity in people and languages. Why? Because it’s freaking diverse here. Always has been. And, in a time where more people need to embrace our California values, we love this diversity—

The one beautiful thing about Los Angeles is that it’s 44% Hispanic/Latino. No ethnic group has more representation here. And most non-Hispanic/Latino people who live in Los Angeles love this reality.

You have no idea if the people you come across on a minute-by-minute basis were born here—in LA or the US—or across the border. And you don’t care. It’s literally not even a thought or consideration.

Which is sort of funny when you witness the hysteria from across the country about immigration, especially from South of the border.

In Los Angeles, we live in an epicenter of Latin American immigration and, by and large, not only see no problem with it, we mother fucking welcome it.

Without this diversity, our city would be much less interesting and, to the extent that it still is, less economically and socially vibrant. In fact, you could argue that without the Latin American contribution—on the books and in the underground economy—this city would be much, much worse of.

We Will Be Immigrants In Spain, Not Expats

Neighborhood feel. Really! Cities—even Los Angeles—are little more than an assemblage of neighborhoods. Stay here long enough and you’ll have lived here! Then, I could drop you blindfolded into an LA neighborhood and you could tell me—by smell, sound and overall feel—close to, if not exactly where you are.

The beach towns. Though that might be tough in the beach towns (and cities). The cool thing about the coast here is that places like Manhattan Beach and Santa Monica can feel like towns. Despite how freaking expensive they are. They’re distinct neighborhoods where you can go and recharge, only about 30-to-60 minutes away from Central Los Angeles.

Weather. And not because we get an average of 263 sunny days per year. Valencia, Spain gets more (300). But because, like most everything here (except the prices!), it’s diverse.

You heard that right.

For example, every year at this time of year, people act like it has never happened before. Cloudy in the morning and evening. Sunny (maybe) during the day. Depends on where you are (proximity to the coast). May gray. Then June gloom. And, sometimes, no sky July. Which makes zero sense, but they needed something. Anyway, it’s like this literally every single spring.

During some stretches you know exactly what to expect—day in and day out—with Los Angeles weather. During other stretches, you have no idea. Or it’s cold and cloudy (maybe even rainy) when you think it should be warm and sunny. And vice versa. It’s not unheard of to be hot—like really hot—on Thanksgiving or Christmas Day.

I hope you found this enjoyable.

I had fun writing it. Which is something you gotta do from time to time. No expectations. Just my thoughts via something like a local’s guide to Los Angeles.

Please accept this as a humble request to upgrade to a paid subscription to my newsletter as that move to Spain is now just seven months away. Lots of logistics, thoughts and emotions to cover between now, then and beyond.