I am not trying to bash my city, but it's obvious whenever I travel to San Diego. San Diego seems to have a real city center, and the downtown parks are full of families with kids and dogs. The beaches seem to be cleaner. The streets are cleaner.
In 2023, San Diego passed a camping ordinance. No tents in parks, near schools, or on the beach, and they are actually enforcing that ordinance. Los Angeles has over 45k homeless people. San Diego has under 6k. That's 7.6 times as many as Los Angeles. Is San Diego smaller? Yes, still, per capita, Los Angeles has almost three times the homelessness rate.
Violent crime in Los Angeles is about 77% higher. The murder rate is 2.8 times higher. Yes, I know, homicide is very geographically concentrated and most common in gang-ridden neighborhoods, but still.
Oh, and let's not even talk about traffic. What I do prefer in L.A. is the food and the surrounding nature. Still, I wish we would level up a bit.
I noticed that too. Downtown SD on a Saturday is families, dogs, people on bikes. Downtown LA on a Saturday is… a lot. Skid Row is not just a neighborhood problem. It’s a visual you cannot unsee if you work anywhere near it. The camping ordinance is the whole game. I know we talked about that in other threads. SD actually decided parks are there to be enjoyed. LA is still having a 12-year committee meeting about it.
Not only that, we changed some of the anti-camping laws. It's insane.
Not saying your points aren't correct, but you’re comparing San Diego, a city of 1.4 million with a compact downtown, to Los Angeles, a county-sized mess of 88 cities that people insist on treating like one downtown. Nobody who lives in Los Feliz, Mar Vista, Palms, or the South Bay is walking through Skid Row on the way to Trader Joe’s.
Homicide in LA is extremely concentrated. Same as you said. So if you’re not in those neighborhoods, you’re not living that statistic. What LA has that SD will never have is actual culture at scale. Film, music, art, more diverse food. SD is prettier, I agree, but I wouldn't want to trade.
I think it really depends on where you live in Los Angeles. I wouldn't want to switch cities either. I mean, yeah, people on this page are rather biased, as we are all Angelenos. I just prefer the food and nature over here.
The camping ordinance is the thing people in LA don’t want to talk about. I used to step over tents on my way to get coffee. In SD, you take your kid to the park and no one is sleeping there. That is a quality of life gap you feel in your body, not just in a spreadsheet.
I love San Diego. They are doing a lot of stuff right over there, but I don't give up on Los Angeles. It's still the city that makes me feel being at home.
We just need to work on things and stick together. Let's help the homeless, not the fraudsters. Let's not accept tents as the "new normal".
The per-capita homelessness point should end the thread. At least when it comes to the quality of life. 45k vs 6k is not “LA is bigger.” It’s a different governing philosophy. SD passed the ordinance in 2023 and then, wild idea, enforced it. City PIT count last year was under 6k and actually dropped.
LA is ugly in places, chaotic, badly governed and still the only city in California that feels like the world. SD’s diversity is real but it’s milder. Everything in SD is milder. That’s the pitch.
San Diego Downtwon is prettier, but LA has more to offer than just DTLA. That’s the fun part. Beach, mountains, WeHo on the weekends. I wouldn’t necessarily want to live in downtown to be honest.
