Submitted by Daniel, Sep 14, 2007 00:57

Los Angeles is just as great, cultural and diverse a city as New York, the only thing missing is the economic prowess. Internationally LA is known well and that can be proven by the millions of international visitors we get from every corner on earth. In one day on a typical day I can run across a man from India, an Armenian, a Swede, a Dutchman, a person of Chinese descent from virtually every region in China (but mostly Taiwanese and from Hong Kong), Koreans, British(of almost every region in the UK, Ireland included), Argentinians, Peruvians, Mexican, Chilean, Brazilians, Guatemalans, filipinos, Germans, swiss, Italians, Aussies(many of these recently), Canadians(although most Canadians sound and look like most Californians, but they always let you know they are from Canada, very open outgoing people), French, Danish, Indonesian, Japanese, South African, Egyptian, Greek...well you get my point. every single nationality on the planet is present.
Like that guy before said Los Angeles is not just the city proper it encompasses the entire Los Angeles County area and pours over into 5 other neighboring counties(Orange, Ventura, Riverside, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara, even northern San Diego County although I won't count that county with the rest).
It expanded horizontally as far as the eye can see, although that's changing as we are running out of land in LA County proper, the last areas with some space limited to East and North Los Angeles County comprised mostly of the San Gabriel and San Fernando Valleys. Most development now taking shape in LA is beginning to be vertical, with several very large projects underway that will have a major impact on the Los Angeles skyline. Subway lines are also expanding along the west and east of the city and county, freeways are being expanded as well but public transit is really being pushed into development right now.
and underground tunnel running from Long Beach to Pasadena, which is being hotly debated, will most likely come about eventually, it's going to have to, as well as one proposed between Orange County and the Inland Empire. Malilbu, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Newport and Laguna Beaches, Pasadena are by far not the only affluent areas in the LA area by the way.
The main problem with mass transit is funding. It's very expensive to build massive subway and rail line corridors(we have several lines leading into Union Station, and Metrolink trains above the ground). hundreds of billions are needed to cover the massive area that is LA County. Though New Yorkers fret about zoning Californians and LA residents in particular have their own self imposed standards for construction, due to earthquakes, why is it that you never hear about pipe explosions in LA like you do New York, and bridges don't just collapse without cause(earthquakes). California has some of the most rigorous building codes in the nation if not the most, and this makes building, surveying, engineers, etc. very expensive.
Now about culture in LA. LA is so not only film, we have museums and galleries galore, theater second to none. If LA is seen as lala land it's often due to out of towners just recently arrived in LA (LOHAN, Paris Hilton-new york, just one example) that become the rabble rousers. Native Angelenos, are some of the best educated people in the country, and in fact we have a long history of brain drain from LA to the East Coast schools and the Northwest. Armies of the brightest Angelenos have relocated to places like New York, Colorado, Connecticut, Washington D.C., San Francisco, Seattle and more recently Utah, Oregon, and some midwestern states in the past 50 years or so.
Fortunately though with LAs ascendancy as a cultural hub, for the first time in a hundred years more native students stay in local schools which are beginning to rival schools in the Northeast and San Francisco Bay area. Schools include those public research universities(UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, UC Irvine, UC Santa Cruz, UC Riverside), private (California Institute of Technology, USC, Pepperdine, Redlands, Otis, Pitzer, Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd, Pomona, Scripps, Azusa Pacific, La Verne, etc.), as well as those other publics the Cal-States(Fullerton, Northridge, Pomona, San Bernardino, etc) , and the Colburn music conservatory. There are many many more and not just locals are attending anymore. more and more from across the country students have flocked here like never before in recent history.

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