You guys mind if an out of towner judges your city a little?

Californian Elitist

Well-Known Member
OP, the following isn’t necessarily aimed at you, but rather the topic you bring up. This has been on my mind for a while.

There are very real socioeconomic challenges in Anaheim as there are in any city. An effort by Disney to improve it in some way only goes so far. The Disneyland Resort occupies a tiny footprint in a giant metropolitan area that is both incredibly fruitful yet suffocating under its own weight. I have lived in a few different parts of California, and I found that in the North the popular thing to do is to hate on Southern California and generally trash it for being an unnatural, hellish place. Sometimes they forget that Southern California is a real place with real people who have lived there their whole lives and actually had real, (negative and positive) human experiences there. I don’t expect everyone to love Southern California, but I do wish we would try to think about it with a bit more empathy.

Especially at Disneyland, we can forget that we are in a neighborhood full of people living their lives and trying to solve their own problems day by day. Even Disneyland can’t change that. But guests go to Disneyland to escape their problems, and to see the real world so close outside can be sobering in a very unpleasant way for a vacationer. Maybe this has contributed to some of the complicated feelings non-locals have for the region.

Honestly, I find the California hate, not just Southern California hate, quite amusing. I find it amusing mainly because I’ve run into people who claim to hate California, yet they’ve NEVER even visited, they’ve never lived in any part of the state, let alone the entire state, they’ve only visit a tiny portion, or they judge all of California based on one experience. It’s fascinating.

The Northern California hate for Southern California is also amusing, as well as funny and ridiculous. I just ignore it.
 

SteamboatJoe

Well-Known Member
I have never been to LA or California so my upcoming trip will be interesting. I am going to try to keep an open mind and be realistic. As someone who lives in a region that is viewed by outsiders as rust belt ghettos and brownfields separated by flat cornfields that are sparsely populated by backwards country bumpkins, I can understand why folks would be upset over broad generalizations being made.
 

Californian Elitist

Well-Known Member
Ya'll are lucky you didn't see Harbor in the 70's.

And how does any city in California get an 'A' for housing? I thought a 1 bedroom, 1 bath box went for over a million nowadays.

Not all of California consists of million dollar homes. That’s another misconception. A cousin of mine bought her home for around $200,000, and yes, she lives in California.

Desirable areas are expensive to live in in every state. It’s not just a California thing.
 

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