For decades, real estate barons and city leaders worked relentlessly to sell Los Angeles to frigid East Coasters, tubercular Midwesterners, and skeptical Southerners. But LA doesn’t need a booster campaign anymore.
Los Angeles County added nearly 13,000 residents from 2016 to 2017, and the population is projected to balloon over the next two decades with the addition of 1 million residents.
New Yorkers, especially, have finally come to realize what Angelenos knew all along: Los Angeles can be a wonderful place to call home. But it can also be exhausting and overwhelming, especially for newcomers. There’s the competitive housing market. The not-perfect but still-growing transit network. The natural disasters. The complex web of neighborhoods. The never ending sprawl.
To help you untangle it all, we compiled this beginner’s guide to Los Angeles. It’s a collection of explainers, tips, advice, history, personal essays, and must-know context that will give you the lay of the land. It will help you make sense of the strange and beautiful things you’ll discover when you come to Los Angeles. It might even convince you to stick around.
— Jenna Chandler