Since it’s a big city only two hours away by plane from my home, I’ve been to Los Angeles countless times. “Great place to visit, but I’d never want to live there” is the perfect statement for LA, at least for me. It’s an utterly fantastic place, and I love visiting there, and always have a great time when I go. Yet if I had to live there full time I’d probably have to kill myself, certainly when it came that time of year to pay my taxes.

Here I am once again, on the tail end of my current month-long trip to Asia. As always, I’m having a great time.

1. The women. I’ve said this before but I’ll say it here again to be official. Los Angeles is one of the best-looking women cities on the entire planet Earth. It could even be number one for many men. In terms of the cities I’ve visited over my life, only Miami beats it, and it barely beats it, and that assumes you stay in the normal downtown areas of Miami. Otherwise, LA is king when it comes to hot women. If you’ve ever visited here, you know exactly what I’m talking about. If you’ve never visited here, you need to.

I could write an entire article about how smokin’ hot LA women are, but I’ll do my best to summarize. This hotness factor here extends to women of all ages and all races. Teenagers, young women, older women, milfs, and even some of the grandma-age women here are all hot, across the board. There are some cities where only the younger women tend to be hot. In LA, it’s all ages.

All races too. White women are hotter here (what few there are; more on this in a minute). Hispanic women are hotter here. Asian women are hotter here (and many actually have boobs and butts here!). Black women are hotter here. I’m not even into black women, but damn, black women in LA are so sexy it’s ridiculous.

Most women you see here, hot or otherwise, are not white. Only 27% of people in LA are white, and this number decreases every year. (Ignore the “white alone” numbers in the census, since those include Hispanics; only look at the “white, not Hispanic” numbers.) This is clearly reflected when you walk around and observe people. The vast majority of the hot women you’ll see here are mixed, Hispanic, black, or Asian. This drives right-wingers insane, but if you’re a guy like me who finds all races beautiful, you’ll be very happy here. I’m just making it clear that if you only like 100% white girls, you won’t find LA women quite as amazing as I’m saying.

It’s also the sheer amount of hot women that so unusual. Go to any busy place in LA; a mall (even a “shitty” mall in a poorer or more “normal” area), a food court, a business park during lunchtime or rush hour, and you’ll see a constant flow of super-hotties, more than you can count. It such a stark difference from just about every other city that it almost feels like you’re in a movie or a TV show.

I’m sitting in a normal, suburban (non-fancy) LA mall right now, typing these words, watching all the people walk by, and god damn, it’s a constant parade of babes. Any time I rotate my head 180 degrees right now, I can pick out at least two in the current moving crowd. In any other city, I have to walk around for several minutes in a crowded place to find one girl I’d find attractive enough to have sex with, if I’m lucky.

This next part is hard to explain. Even the average women are…well, hotter here. “Then they’re hot, not average, BD.” Well, no. This is the part that’s hard to explain. In LA, it’s as if all women are several notches hotter than in other cities. There are many “average” women walking around in LA who clearly aren’t “hot,” but whom I’d be very happy with in bed.

Tom Leykis used to say that the 1-10 scale in LA was different. He’d call a woman an “LA 9” instead of just a 9. This means that an LA 6 is much hotter than a 6 in every other city. Upon first hearing that many years ago, I thought that was dumb. Now, after having visited LA many times, I have to admit this is correct. I have an “8” rule in that I don’t have sex with anyone I consider less than an 8 (that’s an 8 in my opinion of course), but if I lived in LA (and I never would, for reasons I’ll explain in a minute), I could very easily drop this down to 6.

Like I said, hard to explain. Come visit LA, pick a random mall, and walk around, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Even the average girls are cute. Even with the fat girls here, you can tell that if they went on a diet and lost a lot of weight, they’d be hot.

I’ve always wondered why guys who live in LA even bother with night game. In a normal city, night game is needed because that’s where all the hot girls congregate. However in LA, night game is completely unnecessary here. Want a meet a hot chick? Walk out of your house and go to any reasonably crowded place and there will be more of them than you can count, literally. Daygame or online dating is all an LA guy needs. (LA is a daygame paradise!)

Don’t get me wrong; LA is still in America, so there are lots of fat people here. This is further increased by the sheer amount of Mexicans in LA, who are even fatter than American whites, and that’s saying something. So I’m not saying “everyone in LA is hot.” There are plenty of ugly and fat people here. I’m just saying that there are more hot women here, as a percentage of population, than just about anywhere on Earth. Again, if you don’t believe me, just come visit here and you’ll see for yourself.

Okay, enough about the women (though I could talk about LA women all day). Let’s move on to LA’s other positive benefit.

2. The weather here is beyond amazing. The weather is the one reason why people in LA put up with so much abuse and incompetence from their ridiculous government. It’s not quite the best weather in the world (that would be San Diego, just a few hours south of here), but it’s almost there.

It’s sunny, clear, and warm, but not too warm. The nights here are simply incredible. You can walk outside at night in LA (and most of southern California, to be fair), even out late, with shorts or short-sleeved shirts, almost year-round, and never feel too cold or uncomfortable in any way. If there was one thing I could “import” from LA to my current or future home town (besides the women) it would be the nighttime weather here. I always miss it terribly when I go back home.

3. The air quality has been a long and interesting story in LA. Back in the 50s, 60s, and early 70s, LA’s local environment was pristine, and it was considered the most beautiful place in the United States. Then in the 80s and 90s, it went to absolute shit. The smog here was horrible, and a disgusting haze hung over the entire area. LA went from a great place to live to a place people ridiculed. Several movies at the time demonstrated this; the best one being the Michael Douglas film Falling Down from the early 90s.

Then, sometime around the late 90s (I think; guys who live here could give you a more accurate timeframe) the local government jacked up the local environmental laws (which is one non-social issue where I agree with left-wingers). Now, the air quality is pretty good again. People here joke that “you can actually see the mountain now.”

Sadly, this is the one thing the government here has done right. Now let’s get to where LA is an absolute cluster fuck.

4. Ridiculous, incompetent, left-wing government. The taxes, regulations, and government bullshit in California is insane, and the LA it’s even worse than in most of the rest of the state. If you actually live and work in LA, be prepared to spend over 60% of your income in taxes you see and taxes that are hidden from you. The personal income tax here is the highest in the nation. It’s sales tax and property tax are also among the highest in the nation (and thus the world). Combined with the already high federal taxes on all this crap, living in California means you are, quite literally, among the highest taxed people in the world. Remember I said this, because I’m going to circle back to this in a minute, making this situation even worse.

The government of California is wasteful and incompetent in the extreme, and if you’re in LA, you’re in California, paying massive taxes to one of the stupidest governments in the Western world.

You’re also subject to a list of the stupidest laws you’ve ever seen. I’ve done consulting for many firms based in LA, and the list of regulations to do business here would make even the most paperwork-loving lawyer puke.

The cost of living here is also insane. Things like housing costs aren’t quite as crazy as in San Francisco, but they’re close.

This is why I don’t live in LA. The taxes, regulations, wasteful government, and cost of living would driving me crazy within a year of living here. People who live in LA either tolerate it because of the fantastic weather, or have lived here so long they’re “used” to it and don’t realize there are other options. Oh well.

5. Driving culture. LA is structured very different than most large cities. Instead of being built vertically like New York or Hong Kong, LA was built horizontally. This means that LA is HUGE. It just goes on and on, seemingly forever, and includes many other “sub-cities.” The LA area is over 1000 square miles. Compare that to New York which is only 300 square miles, about 200 if you don’t include Staten Island. The entire country of Hong Kong, even if you include the mostly rural parts, is only 426 square miles. And remember that both New York and Hong Kong have more people.

People in LA will tell you that “every few miles, LA is a different city.” This is somewhat true. It’s so massive that there are varying subcultures all over the city. It makes for a very interesting experience.

The huge downside of all this is that everything is spread out. Nothing is close. If you ever want to go somewhere, even somewhere simple like go get groceries or go see a movie, you’ll have to get in your car and drive in the horrible traffic for at least 30 minutes, and that’s if you’re lucky. It’s a huge pain in the ass.

If you’re visiting here, your options for getting around are limited. There is a light rail system in LA but it’s somewhat pathetic considering the city’s size (in land and population) and it’s almost guaranteed to not get you exactly to where you want to go. The buses are an option but complicated if you don’t live here. Taxies are very expensive, considering the distances and traffic involved.

That leaves two options: Uber or, and I can’t believe I’m recommending this, rent a car. Usually when I say here for several days I’m pretty much forced to rent a car, something I don’t need to do in other big cities. Uber is also an option, and an increasingly good one, since Uber in LA is actually further evolved than in most other American cities. They have a new feature called “Uber Pool” where for a reduced fare you can allow the driver to pick up or drop off other Uber passengers on your route. Using this I had several Uber rides on this trip for less than $6. Not bad.

This driving problem is worse than it sounds, because:

6. Third world roads. This is the most irritating thing about LA for me as a visitor here. The roads here, including and especially the freeways, are literally like something out of the third world. Driving over freeways in LA is almost like driving off-road. There’s constant grinding, slamming, bouncing, and buzzing. Rough road that looks and feels like it hasn’t been paved in decades. Huge potholes, all over the place. It sucks ass. After driving around LA for a while, you’ll want to drive your car into a tree. On purpose.

Look, I’ve been in some pretty shitty cities. As just one example, I spent several days in Detroit earlier this year. It’s pretty hard to get shittier than that, and fucking Detroit had better quality roads than LA.

Remember I said that LA people pay some of the highest taxes in the world? With the stratospheric, ultra-high taxes you LAers pay, your roads should be the smoothest and cleanest in the world. They should be the envy of all other cities. Instead, they’re the worst in the country, literally. If I lived here, I’d be embarrassed.

Again, this is why I don’t live here as much as I enjoy visiting. If you live in LA, you’re getting financially raped every day. You’re paying massive taxes and aren’t getting shit for it from your government. Again, you can use your weather as the excuse, but I’d rather live in somewhere with moderate weather, super low-taxes, and quickly fly to LA whenever I want. Where I live is perfect this way. Low taxes (for an American anyway), decently mild but not perfect weather, and I’m less than two hours via plane away from awesome places like LA, Vegas, and Vancouver BC, and go whenever I like.

This concludes my current month-long excursion to Asia, so no more big trips for me for a few months (other than my usual jaunts to places like Vegas, etc). Next year I’ll be visiting Europe (London and Italy at least, perhaps other European locations as well), possibly the Middle East, and Asia again. More to come.

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