More About Los Angeles
LA is a young city but back then in the mid-nineteenth century, it was a community of white American immigrants, poor Chinese laborers and wealthy Mexican ranchers, with a population of less than fifty thousand. In the 20th century Los Angeles began to embody a style of living desired by the people of the nation. Its warm climate and economic opportunities drew newcomers from across the country and much of the world, making the city a vibrant and constantly changing place.
The first-time visitor may well find Los Angeles thrilling and threatening in equal proportions. It has its fine-art museums, California cuisine and a few old-fashioned urban plazas, what people really come here for is to experience the city that has come to epitomize the American Dream the fantasy worlds of Disneyland and Hollywood, as well as the gilded opulence of Beverly Hills and Malibu. If LA has a heart, however, its downtown, in the center of the basin. It offers a taste of almost everything you'll find elsewhere around the city, from upscale avant-garde art along Bunker Hill to the abject dereliction of Skid Row in the Eastside, compressed into an area of small, easily walk able blocks. The area around downtown contains some decaying Victorian suburbs, 1920s Art Deco buildings and the center of LA's enormous and growing Hispanic population.
Heading west from downtown to the coast, the first major district you come to, Hollywood, has streets caked with movie legend - even if the genuine glamour is long gone. Adjoining West LA is home to the city's newest money, shown off in Beverly Hills and along the Sunset Strip. Santa Monica and Venice to the west are the quintessential seafront LA of palm trees, white sands and laid-back living, while the coastline itself stretches another twenty miles northwest to glamorous Malibu, home to the movie land elite.
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