[clairity]

do you live in LA and know this firsthand or are you repeating a cliché?

i live in LA and walk often. it's great. the weather is awesome (60's and sunny today, in the middle of winter), i have dozens of good restaurants and cafes within walking distance, as is most of my shopping needs. parks, theaters, museums, bars, and other entertainment can be easily reached by walking. LA is a big city so not everything is right there, but everything i need day-to-day is.

[zjaffee]

Sounds like you live in downtown, as that's the only neighborhood that fits all of those things within walking distance.

The majority of people who live in LA, live somewhere nestled into the bigger sprawl that is the region. While there are plenty of neighborhoods that have walkable aspects, the city is by no means walkable (even with transit) to huge portions of the city.

[seanmcdirmid]

Actually, it sounds like he/she doesn’t live downtown.

I had all that when I was living in Westwood, which is far far far aaay from downtown, but I could have had that in belverly hills, or Culver City, or even (but just barely) Brentwood.

[zjaffee]

What museum is walkable from westwood?

[seanmcdirmid]

That is kind of a weird question to ask when Westeood is right next to UCLA. So besides the hammer, there are a bunch of smaller galleries on campus, including one with meteorites.

There is also a giant robot art gallery in sawtelle japan town, which I think is walkable, definitely bikeable.

[zjaffee]

I was overlooking the hammer, I was too caught up on the miracle mile, downtown and expo center museums.

[clairity]

the hammer (it's free now too): https://hammer.ucla.edu/

[clairity]

i don't. downtown is dense but isn't remarkable for walkability in LA (until relatively recently it wasn't even particularly walkable).

my listed criteria wasn't even complete, just what came to mind in the 30 seconds i thought about it. there are plenty of neighborhoods that are walkable in LA (silverlake, hollywood, highland park, even north hollywood, etc.). the whole city doesn't need to be reachable by foot to be a walkable neighborhood.

sounds like your bar may be set particularly high or your assumptions about what you need to walk to may be extraordinary.

[zjaffee]

None of those neighborhoods are walking distance to museums unless I'm forgetting something. Additionally, I wouldn't call silverlake a walkable neighborhood but I'll give you the other ones.

My definition would be could you live comfortably without ever using a car, such as being able to go grocery shopping without having to walk a ton, be near enough to the rail system such that you can get around easily, be in a neighborhood where going clothes shopping doesn't mean an inconvenient trip to a mall, ect.

[clairity]

silverlake: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/holyland-exhibition

i'll leave it to you to find the others, but one of my faves in culver city is the museum of jurassic technology (has a rooftop aviary): http://mjt.org/

> "My definition would be could you live comfortably without ever using a car"

that's a pretty high bar. how would you move in/out without a car/truck/van? carry everything by hand? i don't own a car but i use one periodically.

[briandear]

West Hollywood, Hollywood, Sunset, Santa Monica, there are a lot of walkable areas in the LA metro.

[zjaffee]

Sunset is hardly part of a broader walkable neighborhood, it's a single street where there are various gaps along it where there's little built for the pedestrian. Parts of Hollywood, Downtown Santa Monica, Koreatown, Downtown, and Westlake are in my experience the only truly walkable areas. There are a few more where you can walk for some things, but you'd likely still need a car unless you were to order everything you buy online.

[ilaksh]

Who can afford to live in those areas?

[wasdfff]

You can find a 1br all over LA for ~1500 you know. Studios even less. Go on craigslist and check it out.

[joey-bob]

I lived in San Diego, and would visit friends in LA somewhat frequently. My interpretation is based off of my experiences in the northern slice of the area, San Bernardino to Venice Beach. Also I had to drive through LA to go anywhere, which might have colored my experience a bit.

[dima55]

Your interpretation is based on a slice that's 80 miles long, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you don't have a good sense of even that slice. LA is fantastic. There's plenty of suburbia to be sure, but living there is a choice some people make. Others make a different choice.

[joey-bob]

I suppose you are correct. Similar to the original comment, who was shocked coming from a European perspective to US, I was a bit shocked coming from an East Coast perspective, and have made too broad a generalization. What areas would you suggest I visit in the future?

[dima55]

Depends on what you want to see; the city is incredibly diverse. The denser, more urban areas are the ones developed before the car was the dominant form of transportation. Downtown, Macarthur park, koreatown, hollywood, etc are very dense. Some parts of the westside are too. The trains generally go through the denser areas. Much of it is gritty, but the architecture is cool, there's lots of fantastic food everywhere, and it's generally interesting. Go explore :)

[clairity]

gotcha. san diego is probably the only place with better weather, if that's possible, and seemingly with more intermingled trees (a good portion of LA's trees are in the hills dividing the valleys and basins).

venice is super-walkable, and i'd guess it's better to live in the venice/santa monica bubble without a car than with, because getting out of the westside is awful by car for large parts of the day. within the bubble you can walk, bike, run, skate or scooter to just about anything you need.

but outside of LA proper, it's true that san bernardino, the inland empire, and the san fernando and san gabriel valleys generally are car-oriented, and it's unwieldy to live in those areas without a car (although there are pocket exceptions, particularly in the valleys).

[zjaffee]

Venice is far from super-walkable, it's just walkable by American mid-density standards. I don't know how much time you spend there, but the sidewalks in Venice are pretty poor quality, walking to and from the grocery store would be difficult depending on what part of Venice you live in, and getting to other parts of the city is incredibly difficult to do so by public transportation in Venice. Some of this stuff can be supplemented with a bike, but it's still not an area I'd recommend not having a car in, especially should you not have a job in the immediate area.

The problem, is that Venice is what a regular suburban area should be like in terms of walkability, when for the most part, suburbs have nowhere to walk too.

[ilaksh]

How many people can A) afford to live in Venice Beach and B) manage to get a job within walking distance?

[clairity]

a bunch on HN? those two things are now correlated since tech took over venice (particularly snapchat) and prices skyrocketed. venice was actually somewhat affordable for a beach area not that long ago (unlike santa monica or malibu).

[chrisseaton]

> i live in LA and walk often. it's great.

Doesn't LA have literally the most polluted air in the country? Doesn't sound great for walking.

[biztos]

I visited Santa Monica (basically LA unless you live in LA) several times and walked almost everywhere, only taking a Lyft when I really wanted to go across town (the Blue Bus comes eventually, but it isn't fast). Air quality was fine and there was a 4-mile beach to walk on if you wanted to really Walk.

I know people who live in Downtown LA and don't own cars.

I get the impression there are several parts of LA you can live in without regularly driving, and still have a very normal lifestyle. Not sure about the air quality downtown but my friends didn't complain about it.

[thirdsun]

> Air quality was fine

> Not sure about the air quality downtown but my friends didn't complain about it.

I think unhealthy air quality is dangerous long before you actively notice it. I'd rely on measurements instead of subjective impressions.

[ilaksh]

It is incredibly expensive to live in downtown LA or Santa Monica. Especially if you actually want to own something.

[gnopgnip]

It isn't great, but it is not any worse than other large cities since the 90s. You can see the current and forecasted cities with the worst air quality here. https://airnow.gov/

[seanmcdirmid]

No, not unless there is an inversion or a nesrby forest fire going on. LA has really cleaned up a lot since the 70s, even SLC has worse air now.

[clairity]

nearly - 4th according to the american lung association annual study (via cbs): https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/air-pollution-worst-us-citi... (fairbanks is #1)

but it's the worst for ozone, where it's 80's reputation for smog comes from. to be fair, LA's air quality is far better than the 74 major cities in chinaa: https://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-china-la-smog-stats...

which is where a significant portion of the air polution comes from (enough to go from good to bad): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution_in_the_United_St...

[ctrl-j]

Its not like there are black clouds of smoke hanging in the air or anything... Your average person is more likely to have allergies and asthma, but it's not like breathing the air hurts or your skin burns or anything...