Serious question, Cory, why are you moving to LA? I am guessing it is a career move as there is a lot to do with writing and you are close to Hollywood should there be screenplay deals etc. Closer to the network, which make sense.
Other wise, I can think of many places I would rather be. CAs laws upon laws upon laws. The cost of living is way higher than other places. You are half a world away from Disney World (though closer to Disney Land). Personally I’d rather live in a small to medium town, especially if I was basically self employed. Quiet, way less crime, and the cost of living so much lower.
As a native Londoner (and a small business owner to boot) I don’t intuitively understand why you’re leaving.
Ok so you’ve got some problems with the creeping corporate takeover of our vibrant, multicultural, exciting, beautiful city. Don’t run away! Stay and fight! Fight for what’s great! Fight against what’s shit! Don’t just leave!
How are the edges of London? I went there about 10 years ago and stayed with Kiwi friends who had a flat full of people on the outer part of London. I forget the name of the area, sorry. But it allowed us to visit London and have a cheap base of operations.
You’re right that L.A. is a city of cities; that’s an excellent way to think about it. But I strongly caution against buying into the Silver Lake hype. Real estate in that area is grossly overpriced, entirely due to the reputation of Ivanhoe Elementary. (One of the reasons I linked to Sandra Tsing Loh’s book was a hand-drawn map in there, that rather hilariously describes what’s stereotypically wrong with each section of the LAUSD… and that Ivanhoe and Studio City’s Carpenter schools were shown as tiny little oases of high quality in a countywide sea of nightmarish public schools.) And Ivanhoe ain’t all that spectacularly great. I mean, it has a wonderful and caring principal, and the faculty and staff are largely top-notch. But the school is still hampered by being a public elementary school in California, and there’s only so much that the faculty and staff can do within the strictures of that system.
And the school itself just isn’t what it once was. Ten years ago, the student body resembled a pint-size Benetton ad. (Remember those, olds like me?) But the neighborhood has been so relentlessly gentrified by the property values plumped up by this school’s API score, that the school is becoming more lily-white by the year. And that API score is, of course, based on the standardized testing that all the public schools have to administer. “Teaching to the test” hits Ivanhoe as hard as many other schools. P.E. is still just once a week. Music and arts programs are skeletal. Ivanhoe is merely the least wormy chunk of meat bobbing in a thin, nasty soup of California public education, despite all the dedication, talent, and hard work of its faculty and staff. A truly progressive mode of education that customizes the curriculum and pedagogy for the strengths and weaknesses of each student won’t be found at Ivanhoe any more than any other public school in the LAUSD, even though the Ivanhoe faculty might like it to be so. (And most of 'em do.)
No! Didn’t you get the memo that once you move to PDX you have be smug about where you live and discourage other people from getting in on it? Blue Star runs out of donuts early enough in the day. We don’t need more people!
Personally I think PDX and MPLS have the perfect balance of big city amenities without many of the drawbacks of the truly huge cities, but PDX wins thanks to all the great nature you can play in. Disclaimer: None of the preceding sentence should be taken as an endorsement of living in PDX. It’s horrible here, really. Who wants a city with solid (though not perfect by any means) mass transit and a temperate climate that punches outside its weight class in food and the arts? Ick. Doesn’t sound like a place I like living.
Though, genuinely, Portland does have some generally unacknowledged problems regarding race, gentrification, and policing. That is a pretty big negative, but it’s one shared by most if not all U.S. cities.
Depends which edges. London’s pretty big. The outer boroughs are a lot more affordable in terms of buying property, and public transport makes travelling in easy. If your friends are Kiwi they were probably in Shepherds Bush/ Hammersmith or Haringey.
Portland has a problem with race: ding ding, you have unlocked the FLIPPIN’ OBVIOUS merit badge :D. It really is the worst part of the city. (Hey, I saw Eddie izzard there the other night!).
Also, I drove past a house I used to live in near 36th and powell–a second house has been built in what was the nice back yard, and they both sold for half a mill each. Oh, and the Pearl and the OHSU area is unrecognizable from 2000/2001.
Oh, and if you buy in silver lake you’ll bump into Chris hardwick, Jonah, and constantly be pressured for a ride to Meltdown comics. (No! The traffic is awful! Ride your skateboard you 45 year old hipster!)
Doesn’t seem as obvious to some of the people here as it should be. PDX is an excellent case study in how people are blind to all but the most blatant privilege when it is their own.
Someone please confirm for me that this article has been edited and that i’m not lacking quite as much sleep as i initially thought. For the sake of my sanity…also, i knew that was part of the reason!
Wasn’t Portland sort of founded around the idea of White Supremacy? Hell, the state constitution forbade black folk from living there. This is the state that prohibited whites from marrying not only blacks but also Chinese, South Pacific Islanders, and any person with more than half Indian parentage until the 1950s!
It’s no wonder they’re the only place with a strong “Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy” presence and monuments to Confederate heroes in the Northwest!
My wife worked in Bend every summer from 2002-2007. In that short of a time, by the time she stopped downtown was unrecognizable from 2002. Almost all our favorite cheap places to eat and stay were replaced with stuff that was fancy and expensive. And condos too. Way out of character. It’s like it was terraformed by Californians.
