LA

Los Angeles-This sections describes LA and more importantly, the things that I love about LA, why I live here.

First of all, it is no secret that LA is one of the greatest places to live. If I had a minority opinion, it would not be so populated. People have migrated here for many years, many many years. Here are some stats on the population of LA, (and yes, this is one of the intrigues of mine, the size of LA):

The city of LA is the second biggest city in the USA, about 3.7 million people.
Although this city population is small by international standards, the metropolitan area is one of the biggest in the world, urban sprawl at it's worst. The urbanized, developed area of Southern California is around 28 million people, (from the populations along the coast north of LA, down through the LA, Orange County, San Diego County, and in to Mexico and the inland empire counties). This is based on contiguous developed, urbanized area.
The state of California is 33 million people, (about 11% of the USA population).
LA County is 11.5 million people.

LA is the is the movie capital of the world. The streets of LA have been a stage set since the first silent movies. LA has been destroyed by earthquakes, fires, lava, aliens and terrorists. Just driving around LA you will see movies being filmed, actors driving around and the tourists. I live just east of Hollywood, (Hollywood is a neighborhood or community of the City of Los Angeles).

The freeway system is second to none, (all 1000 miles of them). Our mass transist, well, it does exist, and I love to take it when I can but it is small, very small by other city standards. LA is the city of the car. It grew during the last century when the car was prevalent, (versus cities like NYC or Chicago, which grew before the days of the car and people had to take the mass transit to work and live near the city core). And speaking of driving, the traffic is as bad as you hear, or worse. You get used to it but believe me, plan on traffic, seven days a week. This is one of the reasons that I live where I do, there is so much to do and I don't have a long drive, I can actually walk, bus or train to where I go much of the time. I sit back, read and relax. Below is a map of our freeway system in a familiar Sigalert Map, a map showing where the accidents are and where the slowing is. The system is massive, hundreds of minles of freeways!

Los Angeles is now arguably considered the most ethnically diverse city in the world, passing NYC. Southern California claims home to huge Asian and Central American groups including the largest populations outside of their native country. This diverse culture is so interesting, (and the food is good too).

Los Angeles-LA as it is better known, is Spanish for the City of Angeles.

LA City Hall