One day, bitches: the future of the Los Angeles Metro

Hurrah! He is free! Perhaps.

-- Ned Raggett (ne...), June 15th, 2005.

Vik, you're also saying some incredibly offensive things about certain groups of Angeleno's. The comments border on hate speech as far as I'm concerned.

Also, the Bounty has survived far worse than Eva Longoria (and has more famous semi-regulars).

I'm more interested in hearing your (hopefully a bit elaborated) opinion on why there is no Metro, what lack-of-development led to it being this way. It's easy to claim offense, but why don't you add to the discussion and set it right then? I have civic proide but it's not that I have an excess of personal pride in that I won't be corrected - CORRECT ME CHOW! SET ME STR8 (good luck w/ that)

http://www.visitwesthollywood.com/whpress/images/map.gif

The black line is The City of West Hollywood. The classic definition of the Fairfax district is not within the city boundary at all. Also, Fairfax continues for many miles south going through many different neighborhoods.

It seems like you're reading the most hysterical accounts of why people vote for what and taking it at face value, or you're making sweeping generalizations based on hackneyed assumptions about a person would or wouldn't want something in their neighborhood. Even if it is a NIMBY attitude, I find it difficult to blame a person for being self-centered at a highly local level (and I don't even necessarily believe that is what's going on regarding potential Metro extensions).

I think it's fine to discuss this and I'm really happy you brought it up, but I also think that you're jumping to extreme conclusions (perhaps in jest?).

The funny thing is that nobody really talks about the eastside. Fairfax may not be the westside but you definitely don't live in East LA. It's like everybody wants to define themselves into a no-mans land. Or I guess it's just the natural instinct to assume that your neighborhood is the center of town.

Doesn't NY have a similar thing with uptown and downtown where those terms are all relative to where you live?

"totally" meaning if you cross the street you're in one of two other neighborhoods?

Kyle, tell us about your Memorial Day weekend in LA!

oh, also, the knitting factory soundguy was an ass who made all the kids who got onstage to dance get off, and cut the band off, and cussed at everyone.

Are you quoting Picard?

Kyle, I think this actually has something to do with the physical layout of the Hollywood Knitting Factory. Seriously.

"totally" meaning if you cross the street you're in one of two other neighborhoods?
-- gygax! (gygax0...), June 15th, 2005 3:43 PM.

If you cross the street, you're in Beverly Hills.

Walter: when did I say that ALL - ALL the city's transportation problems are the fault of the westside's racist white yuppies? I'm blaming them for repeatedly voting against the line travelling through their communities, but what else? Thanks for distorting everything I said on this thread.

Spencer: yesterday you were trying to argue that Fairfax is not in West Hollywood, and I proved that it was w/ that map. And now you're saying that I said that _all_ of Fairfax Avenue is in Weho, but I didn't...I was just saying refuting you when you said upthread that "Fairfax is Hollywood," - and the we figured out you were talking abt the Fairfax DISTRICT - and that was the misunderstanding there. I thought it was all settled and cleared, and I even apologized abt this yesterday, so why bring it up again today? To add to your list there to show how I'm wrong/inaccurate abt so much re: LA?

It seems like you're reading the most hysterical accounts of why people vote for what and taking it at face value, or you're making sweeping generalizations based on hackneyed assumptions about a person would or wouldn't want something in their neighborhood.

And it seems like you're trying to deny what's a very simple, clear and well-documented fact. Yes wikipedia can often be wrong, but Spencer, this is not a "hysterical account" or a "hackneyed assumption," -> people in the gated communities in West Los Angeles have continuously voted against a Metro line in their area since they'd prefer to keep people from other neighborhoods from commuting to and from near their residences and businesses. Why? Because they think this'll keep down the drugs and gangs/ crime (ironic w/ all the drug use in, say, those "gatherings" in Bel-Air). Because they think this'll keep their property values down (ironic w/ all property vales skyrocketing right now everywhere). Oftentimes, the voting fell down along racial and socio-economic lines. This is all quite well-known, and falls easily within Los Angeles' historic pattern of racial geographic marginalization (with just a few precedents being the construction of the 110 freeway to keep the African American community on one side, and the "white flight" of the 50s and 60s to the Valley, from southern and central Los Angeles).

Even if it is a NIMBY attitude, I find it difficult to blame a person for being self-centered at a highly local level (and I don't even necessarily believe that is what's going on regarding potential Metro extensions).

Then what is going on? If my conclusions are "extreme conclusions," what are your conclusions? And it really sounds like you're trying to either be an apologist for NIMBYism there - I DON'T find it difficult to blame anyone for being so self-centered that they'd vote against public transportation for any reason with the staggeringly high cost it exacts upon our city's environment and public health. The racial issue is almost a moot point here, but it only makes it embarrassingly worse.

I think you're unforunately taking offense to some of the things I may say abt the westside, and you're letting that color your responses to my thoughts on this thread.

I think it's fine to discuss this and I'm really happy you brought it up, but I also think that you're jumping to extreme conclusions (perhaps in jest?).

I'm entirely and thoroughly surprised that you're trying to make it sound like I'm taking any sort of "extreme" position here, when I'm pretty much spouting what I'd assumed is general knowledge. I'd like to be proven wrong, if you can show me anything that amounts to hard evidence as to why certain groups voted which way.