Los Angeles' Booming Creative Class Lures New Yorkers
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Commuting 10 miles each way in LA traffic is definitely the worst commute I've ever had!
While it obviously wouldn't work for everyone, it worked for me and was more pleasurable than living in even nice parts of Brooklyn and dealing with crowded trains in the morning.
I'm not a New Yorker but I'm having a very hard time believing this. Poking around online I get the strong sense any non-roommate living space at all in Manhattan is going to be very well over $2000.
I don't like the NYC real estate market, personally it's the reason I'm most likely to leave. But I've found great places and friends of mine have found great places; places many of the other commenters say don't exist, and I found these through friends and friends of friends. The longer I've been here, the easier it has come to find places I like that I can afford because I'm not relying on points of entry most likely to be scams or misleading.
I have absolutely no idea how I'd go about finding a $1500 studio anywhere in Manhattan south of 96th street, much less in the 20s. Maybe you can find an illegal apartment in a basement with a hot plate instead of a stove or something, but that's about it.
There are people are grandfathered in to all kinds of sweetheart rent stabilized / mitchell lama / etc. deals but that takes more than having a group of friends and keeping your ears to the ground. That's the equivalent to winning the lotto.
East Village, Downtown, and Harlem were sublets I was renting while bouncing back and forth between NYC and Oklahoma while my father and mother were going through illnesses and traveling alot for work, the others I left because I wanted more space, to be closer to certain neighborhoods or because the new apt was better than the last.
None were illegal shares, none were rent controlled, one was rent stabilized, and all were very nice.
By the same token, I also don't doubt you could find a decent share where your half would be $1500 south of 96th street today, maybe even in the 20s somewhere.
Neither of those are a studio in the 20s for $1500 in 2015. If that exists, I wish I knew the secret handshake.
You can get cheaper if you go significantly towards the rivers (for example west of 10th ave) at the cost of a more industrial feel and longer walk to transit and the park. Those buildings would also be more walkups.
Perhaps you can find a deal as a roommate if you know people as one of the other posters said, but if you're looking for a whole apartment and don't have connections that's the ballpark.
Also, it's very hard to get a sense of how cheap the market goes from looking online because chances are there's a catch or the listing isn't real. NY listings tend to lie outright (1BD is actually a convertible studio, etc).
Source: lived a few blocks from Columbus Circle last year.
Everyone's definition of "poor shape" is different. I do not mind washing dishes at all; I'd rather save a hundred bucks a month in rent than have a dishwasher.
Different people, vastly different tastes, dude.
Every small town around the world spreads this weird rumor among themselves that cities are so terrible. Apparently caused by the small percentage of people who moved to a city and then later moved back. Great sample to draw on.
What if -- dense cities are extremely packed with millions of people because that's exactly what some people love? Not some convoluted tradeoff that millions of people are being forced to make by living there. What if the answer to why cities are that way is simply because people love it that way?
I do iOS dev work, so I considered SF, but maybe 20 years ago...
...and significant markup in housing costs, no?
live: http://calheights.org
Long Beach is both a great city to live in and, increasingly, a great place to work - not only if you work remotely, but if you want to work local. We have a great and growing tech scene, increasingly awesome food and drink, and a long history of arts, music and community.
PS, hi Dan! Great to run into you again (and again).
the most common complaint about LA is that it is semi-urban and there's too many houses instead of highrises.
So true. I live in a pretty ordinary SFR (that's what I wanted), but it's a trip to go to friends' houses and see what other people have been able to do.
Horse properties where you stable your horse in your back yard and go riding into the mountains that rim the city. Totally unique view houses clinging to hillsides in Hollywood. Converted warehouses with 10K SF in Frogtown by the LA River (perfect for a sculptor or a tinkerer). Properties on National Forest Service land in the forested valleys in the San Gabriels. Freaky old cabins built in the 1920s right on the edge of Elysian Park or the Arroyo Seco.
It's not the luxury or the money (I did not mention any beach houses). It's the uniqueness. If you have your nose to the ground and care about such things, you can still score one of these places on a middle-class income.
* The bus system and rail is better than many people seem to be aware -- if you live/work near a good line you can commute as quickly as an auto commuter (and sometimes quicker). Once you have to make multiple transfers or otherwise bridge a gap, speed of transportation goes down fast.
* Bicycling is possible, but the quality of bike accommodations varies widely and so does the consideration afforded cyclists.
* Real estate costs here are lower than San Francisco and New York but still far from sane for the median wage... even modest homes are often much more expensive to rent (let alone buy) than you'd think.
It's a rumor we spread to keep people from moving here. :-)
In LA, if you're going to live on side of the city & work on the other, you definitely need a car.
However, if you live near were you work, you definitely can get away without one. I've lived in Santa Monica, West Hollywood, & Pasadena (each for different jobs). I still had a car, but I tend to use it 1-2 a month, to do things like pick up friends from the airport, roadtrips to Vegas & what not.
It's definitely possible.
http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/210-they-got-the-neutron-bomb-...
http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2014/04/03/priced-out-san-francisco...
We don't value fun here. Or art. Or games. Or films. We're like robots, looking for useful things that make money, rather than something risky and expressive and thoughtful. We've fallen in love with money.
Reading this article, it's refreshing. A city of artists. I wonder if I might enjoy it to this city of gross utilitarians.
It's a giant city, with what is likely the largest concentration of creative people on the planet. Don't let your stereotypes and preconceptions mislead you. Some of that is here, but it's just a thin surface, and there's a great deal of depth underneath it.
- If you do need to meet with people in the bay area, it's a short flight. You can even do a day trip, flying up in the morning & flying back in the evening. (It's a long day, but worth it if you have a family.) I do that probably 1-2 times a month.
- Being in the same time zone as the bay area is big boon as well.
- There's a fairly solid tech community in LA. We've hosted various meetups at the Google LA office and always gotten fairly solid attendance, from a pretty wide range audience.
- In a similar vein, we've also done things like hosting art walks on the campus & so on.
- The weather is pretty great year-round.
- It's easy to escape the tech bubble. In fact, most people you meet are not in tech. I actually find that pretty helpful to understand better how various technical issues are perceived by the non-technical public.
- There's a growing "maker" culture, with make spaces popping up. There are also events like Glow (http://glowsantamonica.org/) which fuse the tech & arts.
- The people here are actually pretty great & down to earth, yes, even the "Hollywood" types. I'm friends with the screenwriter of an ongoing movie franchise and the creator of fairly popular TV series. I knew both before there work became popular. Yes, they're very rich. No, they have not had major personality changes. No, they're not assholes. In fact, until you visit their houses, you'd think they were just regular guys.
That said, no place is perfect. We share some of the same housing pains at the bay area (esp. on the westside). Likewise, homelessness is a significant problem in parts of the city, including places like Venice.
ObRecuriting:
We're also looking to add great people to our office.
Why is Hamish just 'an artist' while the other person is 'the writer' Andi Teran? seems like some kind of bourgeois class system. Makes me suspect Andi is a well heeled trustafarian and other isn't ...but then I'm a terrible cynic
Teran: http://anditeran.com/about/
They both seem to be doing fine, but "from the deserts of West Texas" (Teran) doesn't seem like the tagline of a trust funder.
The thing I have observed about LA artists and "creatives" who are featured in the NYT is that they are well-connected, but not necessarily wealthy.
There tend to be repeats; i.e. one person's art will be reviewed one month, and then five months later there will be a spread with their garden, or an opinion piece on work/life balance that quotes them. I assume it's just laziness, or (to be generous) keeping it simple by looking into a NYT pooled rolodex for [LA] [artist] while under deadline.
Probably all it takes is a lucky encounter, or a well-timed press release, and you're "in the system". It seems like Teran has linked to a couple of articles about moving NYC->LA, and has a book coming out with Penguin in June, so there's your peg.
Here are my 2cents:
1. At about 50% of NYC's economy, LA is the second largest GDP contributor. So, one can expect all the pluses and minuses of a large economy. As a side, economy of LA county alone will make it 21st largest "country" in the world by economy.
2. It helps to think of LA as a string of different "Cities", each unique in one way or another. This is different than how NYC behaves. Yes, you can argue that each neighborhood in NYC is unique, but by and large, NYC behaves like a single organism.
3. The people. It is just different, how people communicate, connect and further an Idea in LA. It seems much more peppy, group-hug (not being cheeky) kind of a collective progress, than the cut-and-dry of NYC. If you like that sort of diffused but more social way of progress, you will like LA.
4. Weather. All around it is nicer than NYC. But air quality is significantly worse in LA than in NYC. If you are Asthmatic, or just breathing-in vile air bothers you then LA may not be for you.
5. Traffic. I took the Bus or walked in LA. I realized only poor people took the Bus and no one walks (for commute. Not including the joggers).
6. Cars are status differentiators in a way that most New Yorkers do not even get. If a fancy $50K car is out of your reach, you need to get a Hybrid and lean in on your green credentials.
7. The Valets (they are everywhere) and Wait-staff are better looking in LA compare to NYC (most of them are aspiring actors).
Source: Economy : http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/09/here-are... Air Quality: http://www.lung.org/press-room/press-releases/healthy-air/SO...
* lots of new york license plates driving around in the last 5 years, indicating transplants. midwest/upper midwest states also.
* dining and entertainment has taken a major step forward in the past decade. it was never bad, but now it's really good in general. also, ethnic food has always been top notch but is now far more mainstream. food / culture enclaves exist but are frequented by the public at large, i.e. more integration. i see this in other large cities like new york and chicago also.
* public transit has improved in a major way. expo line (light rail from downtown to the beach) is opening next year and will have a major effect. uber also has amazing coverage everywhere, not surprising for a city full of cars.
* the bus system (and local subsystems) is probably the best in the country by a huge margin and is relied upon by probably millions of lower income people. it's very, very good and covers a massive area. it's probably the best bus system in the world, again not surprising for a driving city.
* commercial development was uncorked in the past few years and new construction is happening all over the city.
* the key is to live close to work, or to shift your hours. without traffic LA is extremely fast to get around whether in a car or public transit. it's the traffic that kills everything. lots of car enhtusiasts live in the city and drive around town or in the canyons early in the morning or late at night.
* traffic still sucks but there are many infrastructure projects to improve it. having said all that, people are still buying cars like mad. if you're into cars, it's like a car show every day. not just expensive, but rare, old, and unique custom-built cars too.
* anecdotally, when people leave LA, it's almost always for cheaper places i.e. portland, vegas, denver, etc. they only move to new york or other east coast cities when a lucrative or strategic job offer beckons.
* and last but not least.... downtown LA is now a legitimate downtown. it took 10 years of concerted effort by the powers-that-be, but it's a cultural destination and nice place to live now. a residential construction boom (you could buy a condo for < 100k at one point in the last decade!!!) has fueled a rise in shops, cafes, restaurants, bars, etc. in the downtown area. downtown is also the regional transit hub.
That sounds odd, about the bus system. So if you can afford it, you pass on the bus system? Why, if it is so great? Where I live I prefer public transport over driving (cycling is best, though).
i'm so very sorry stating an obvious observable fact hurt your fragile moral sensibilities.
many people of all means also bike in LA.
Why the patronizing? Asking why you don't prefer the bus when you deem it the best in the world was actually a great question. Using your personal car also makes you move at the same speed as traffic (duh) and obviously it costs you more than a dollar.
I like riding the bus/subway, more so than having a car. But the reasons many people prefer cars are glaringly obvious.
And so on.
Granted in my city we also have subways. But the question really interests me, because having to rely on a car would be a complete no go for me. So if that is (still) the case for LA, it's not the city for me.
Actually I consider it a privilege to not need a car. I pay for it with higher rent, I suppose - living closer to the city center, and in a city big enough to have public transport to begin with.
I have no idea what LA is like, does it have things like 8 lane streets? Seem to remember hearing that years ago. That to me would look very outlandish, I don't think I have ever seen an 8 lane road.
Maybe some LAians just can't imagine how different other cities are? Maybe in LA parking space is not scarce, and neither is space on the roads (with 8 lanes). But in other cities it might be different, and the incentives for cars change, not just because of ideology but because of circumstances.
And many people see it as a necessity for weekend beach trips, or getting groceries 5 minutes away.
I absolutely love LA though.
The construction boom started about five years ago and is just peaking. Most of the work before then was commercial to residential conversions. Most of the "effort" went into zoning changes (almost everything downtown was zoned commercial leading to a major glut; occupancy rates were around 20% in some buildings).
The reason it's a cultural destination now is mostly due to the "concerted effort" to raise commercial rent prices elsewhere in Los Angeles. I run a small art gallery in South Park, something that wouldn't make sense if it wasn't for the cheap rent. I know a lot of other people running similar spaces or smaller bars, the story is the same. In a few years when we have to re-negotiate our leases a lot of these places will move or shut down. I really don't care about hipster cafes, but having the Fashion District (all the fabric suppliers, textile printers, and mom-and-pop clothing factories in one place) is great (my wife has a clothing business and I help out sometimes). It's cool if people want a "nice, clean" place to live and spend their money on hipster coffee and lame clothes, but I kind of wish these people would stay on the west side.
I lived in the South Bay for 6 years, and they were the best years of my life. I definitely plan to own there in the future (and likely AirBnB it out and surf there as I please), but decided to move for the expense reasons you mention.
Anyway, my initial thought behind this article was, "If you're gonna be poor, you might as well do it in LA". Weather is great, and the ocean can do you wonders.
LA was picturesque, and had really awesome things to do, but ultimately I left because of allergies to the local flora and the smog. And I never got into the focus on looks and connections. People were always talking about T&A (both on guys and girls) and name dropping.
Of course, All this is 15-20 years ago, maybe things have changed.