The mere mention of Los Angeles generates sighs and eye rolls all over the country, I’m told. Pick an adjective, add “-est” to it, and apparently, that’s us. But I recently found plenty of evidence to the contrary.
This week, Money magazine, whatever they’re about, put out another one of those “best cities” lists. Despite the apparent universal desire to move here, this isn’t that great of a place to live, according to the folks at Money. We’re not even in the top 100. In fairness to Money, they did separate the big cities into their own top 10. We didn’t make that one, either.
The closest “we” got was Santa Clarita, if you count Santa Clarita as part of L.A. Some do, some don’t. It’s way the hell out there, or just over the hill, depending on what part of L.A. you’re criticizing from. It was ranked 18th. And it is a great place to live if you’d like to own an overpriced ticky-tack house in a valley with the big-city problems of Los Angeles, the temperature extremes of the desert, and the charm of neither. Oh, I almost forgot: You’d be really close to an amusement park.
Simi Valley, which is fairly similar to Santa Clarita in character and distance from Los Angeles, came in 17 places lower at number 35. In my opinion, it’s in a much nicer valley -- and with fewer meth addicts, I’d bet. Then again, it’s not near an amusement park.
It’s also worth noting that Simi Valley is the place where, when the huge fires hit a couple of years ago, the National Guard came out to protect the Ronald Reagan Library. I’m not sure if this speaks well of the library or ill of the houses, but either way, if I’d been living there then, I wouldn’t have taken much solace knowing that Ronald Reagan’s letters and tchotchkes were safe while an uncontained fire raced toward my house.
These two outlying cities are the best we can do. And these cities are not exactly L.A., anyway. Most of the people who move out there do so precisely to get away from Los Angeles.
But Money had other lists, Top 25 cities in a variety of categories. Surely, Los Angeles, for all its extremes, must be in one of those, right?
Let’s start with our stereotypes. Think we’re all a bunch of ultra-thin model and actor types? Not according to Money. We’re not among the top 25 cities with the lowest average body mass index (BMI). There are a grand total of eight cities in America with an average BMI below 25. A BMI of 25 or more is considered overweight. Therefore, most of the country is fat. Including us.
We’re all rich, right? Hardly. All us poor and middle-class slobs more than overwhelm all the lofty salaries of those showbiz types. Newport Beach residents’ average income puts them at 19th in the nation, but Newport Beach is so far away it might as well be Newport, Rhode Island.
Fastest home appreciation? No. But that’s only because we overpriced our houses years ago, before it became cool. On that note, 23 of the 25 cities with the most expensive houses are in California, including in and around L.A.: Santa Monica, Redondo Beach, Arcadia, Huntington Beach -- and, of course, Newport Beach.
Youth? Yes, we got that -- in economically depressed neighborhoods. Lynwood, Paramount, Huntington Park, Compton. Go figure.
Nice and warm out here, right? Right. But most of the hottest cities are in Nevada and Arizona. Poor bastards.
Top 25 safest cities? None here. More than half of them are in New Jersey, for some reason. Not sure if that’s a sign of rigid law enforcement or qualities about New Jersey that even criminals can’t tolerate.
Highest percentage of singles? None of the top 25 cities are in Southern California. Anyone who’s ever tried dating here for more than a month could have told you that.
Smarties? Not really. Lots of smart-asses, I’m sure. But except for Santa Monica (#23), we’re apparently no smarter than the rest of the country.
Cleanest air? Hundreds of miles away. We’re all gettin’ emphysema. Job growth? Nope. Shortest commutes? You’re kidding, right?
All this mediocrity compelled me to do a hunt for just what, exactly, we are best or worst at. There are the obvious ones, of course: most major movie studios, most likely to slide into the ocean after an earthquake, most millionaires named Streisand. However, from other sources on the Internet, namely Wikipedia, come the following bragging rights.
The American Lung Association ranked Los Angeles as the most polluted metropolitan area in the country. So we have that going for us.
Our own Biola University is credited with coining the term “fundamentalism.” You’re welcome, America.
We have more Scientologists than any other city in the world. Again, don’t mention it.
Our own LAX is the number one point of entry for this country’s immigrants. We also have more Persians and Japanese living here than any other city in the country. So there.
We have the largest archdiocese. Yea. Skateboarding was reportedly invented in Venice. Dude.
We are the only major city in America bisected by an entire mountain range.
We have five commercial airports serving greater L.A., more than any other metro area in the country. Van Nuys Airport is the busiest general aviation airport in America.
Our county was named “America’s Birdiest County” in April when birdwatchers counted 265 species of birds in our county, more than any other county in America. If that doesn’t compel you to move out here....
However, no word on just how crazy we are. I guess Money magazine doesn’t care about stuff like that. No other magazine does, either. I couldn’t find any such study anywhere. Personally, I’d like to think there’s more demand for stories about insanity in Los Angeles.
While it is hard to measure, there must be opinions, at least, about which city is the craziest in the country. After totaling the data of a few Internet searches, I have tabulated the results. New York and New Orleans came in tied for first -- with two votes each. San Francisco, Berkeley, and Las Vegas had one vote each.
This is remarkable. There are people all over the country who think we’re nuts, but there are no studies to warrant that generalization. And what scant commentary I can find doesn’t acknowledge us. Furthermore, as a native Angeleno, losing out to New York and San Francisco at anything kinda’ stings.
So how did we get this reputation as crazies?
Well, based on all those extremes, I have a theory. We’re tops in air pollution, two religions, two nationalities, and air traffic, right? Maybe the air pollution limits oxygen to our brains, the excess of religion skews our spiritual sensibilities, the disproportionate numbers of other nationalities makes us susceptible to ethnic disorientation, and all the planes just distract the hell out of us.
That has to be why there are so many crazy people here. Now when the rest of the country bashes us, they can arm themselves with this information. I’m happy to help.
May my act of generosity lift Los Angeles higher up in some magazine’s list of most altruistic cities.
L.A. Nuts is a weekly look at the cast of characters that make up this city.
