cars at caltech

tech_fan
Mon, 17 Apr 2006 00:28:43 +0000

Unless you have severe allergies or breathing trouble, smog is never a problem… and you rarely see it anymore, I think it’s been getting better since I got here.

I have an econ prof who loves L.A.. While I don’t quite share his infatuation, his [url="http://www.hss.caltech.edu/~kcb/Border.shtml#LA"]rhapsodizing[/url] on this topic is fun to read. Highlights:

[ul]
[li]Los Angeles has an overall crime rate 50% lower than Seattle, 47% lower than Minneapolis, 66% lower than Atlanta (no surprise there), and significantly lower than say Houston, Dallas, Denver, Phoenix, Toledo, Kansas City, Portland, Columbus, or Boston, to name a few. [/li]
Some of you have complained that the previous paragraph lumps all crime together, but that L.A. has more violent crime. Well, the murder rate is lower than say Minneapolis, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Cleveland, Charlotte, or Denver. (And those are not the leaders by any means.) The overall violent crime rate is lower than say Minneapolis, Seattle, Kansas City, Boston, Dallas, or Charlotte. Of course it’s lower than the really violent cities such as Detroit, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Miami, or Memphis.

[li]Then of course there is the weather. The average July high temperature in Los Angeles is 75.3 (Fahrenheit). This is cooler than Houston (92.7), Denver (88.2), New York (85.2), Minneapolis–St. Paul (84.0), Boston (81.8), but a tick warmer than Seattle–Tacoma (75.2). [/li]
On the other end, the average January low in Los Angeles is 47.8, which is warmer than Minneapolis–St. Paul (2.8), Denver (16.1), Boston (21.6), New York (25.3), and Seattle–Tacoma (35.2). (At least the last one is above freezing.)[/ul]

And that’s all L.A. proper – not the leafy suburbs like Pasadena, which are REALLY safe (and, according to this prof, not real L.A. at all).

P.S. There was snow in this L.A. – in 1949.