Home, sweet home

[GRLMGC]

This is something different. Let's describe our hometowns (I'm homesick :cry:)

Los Angeles: The city people love to bash

I just saw this movie about how film portrays Los Angeles and is never able to get it right. That's about right. It's just too big. It extends outside the city limits. All the suburbs (I'm from a suburb) look to Los Angeles for identity. If you go outside of the area and someone asks you where you're from, you tend to say Los Angeles even if you're from Downey. It's just easier that way, I guess. So everybody hates our city. Many people can't wait for it to fall into the Pacific (I've even heard this on this website). I love this city. In fact, I'm convinced that the only people who love this city are its natives. So yes, I really, really want to go home. I don't like where I am right now.

So, someone else describe his/her hometown! :)

[JI7]

1. i wonder if those who hate it have ever been here

i just know it's one of those things where conservative types always talk about hollyweird, la la land, etc.

sometimes i view many parts as being a total dump but then again i also hate all the shopping centers popping up with the same chain stores. there are a lot of different types of areas you can go from shopping, the beach, parks, museums etc.

i have an aunt who lives in Santa Ana and i probably would not want to live in orange county. it is still Republican leaning but i think has been less than it used to because all the racists are leaving as more immigrants and minorities move in.

i guess the best thing about LA is probably the diversity. you can go walking out in public with some ethnic type clothes and nobody will think anything of it.

most of the ones who move here seem to do so because they want to rather than because of forced relocations due to jobs or something similar. they come here to find more acceptance. and of course many come here because they want to be a famous.

[GRLMGC]

8. The diversity is the thing

I feel so uncomfortable in Santa Barbara since it's far less diverse.

You know what though? It's not just the conservatives who bag on Los Angeles. I swear some guy on this website said that he can't wait for California to fall into the Pacific. And what, lose 55 electoral votes and a large chunk of the economy? Keep feeling superior, jerk. That really pissed me off, haha.

[rox63]

2. Lowell, MA

I originally hail from Lowell, Massachusetts, and will soon be moving back there. (Actually, I've never lived more than 30 miles from the old hometown.) Lowell has been through a lot of different, umm, phases in it's history. It's gone from the birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution, all the way down to being the armpit of the universe, and back up part of the way again. It's an old mill town along the Merrimack River, not far from the MA/NH border, and about 30 miles northwest of Boston. It's something of a blur-collar immigrant city, with the most recent large immigrant groups coming from Southeast Asia and Central and South America. My own ancestors came down to Lowell from Quebec (as part of a large French-Canadian influx into the city) in the 1870's, to work in the textile mills and the railroads. We've got an National Historical Park here, which is all about the role Lowell played in the American industrial revolution. It's pretty interesting to tour, if you're ever in the area. And we've got a kick-ass annual folk festival every summer.

Lowell was birthplace and home to several famous people, including Jack Kerouac (we've got a park named after him, and there's an annual Kerouac festival), Bette Davis and Ed McMahon. The late former Democratic presidential candidate Paul Tsongas called Lowell his home, and there's a sports arena here named after him. John Kerry lived here for a while during his post-VVAW years, and was (and still is) regularly vilified by the local right-wing-rag daily newspaper, the Lowell Sun. The Sun was a big part of why Kerry lost his first political race for the U.S. Congress.

Lowell National Historical Park site: http://www.nps.gov/lowe/2002/home.htm

City of Lowell site: http://www.lowellma.gov/

Right-wing rag of a newspaper: http://www.lowellsun.com/

Lowell Folk Festival site: http://www.lowellfolkfestival.org/

[GRLMGC]

7. Lowell!

I love Bette Davis so that's how I first heard about it. I really want to go to Massachusetts. I just want to visit the East Coast since I've never really left the western US.

[rockymountaindem]

3. I think LA is great!

Most of my family lives around LA, and I've been there many times. I think LA is a really great place. Despite the traffic, I've never had a hard time getting around, even the time I drove with my mom from Ventura County to Anaheim. Plus its easy to find what you need for daily living nearby wherever one lives.

I think LA is really great. Even in the so-called "bad sections" I felt safer in LA than in comparable parts of other big cities. It's warm, the people are nice, and hey, they've got the ocean (something I wish I had)!

Colorado Springs, on the other hand, is a different story. It's hard living there, and I'll tell you why. Colorado is divided into two halves, which I'm sure you can imagine. There's the really fun and strikingly beautiful mountain half, and the flat, Kansas-like plains half. Colorado Springs is situated on the plains half, but right on the seam with the mountains. As a result, we're not really *in* the mountains with all the cool nature stuff etc. but it's painfully close and you can just imagine what's on the other side of Pike's Peak...

Colorado Springs is a big city that refuses to acknowledge itself. A lot of the residents and city government still thinks we've got some small town charm going. We sure as hell don't. We're the second largest city in the state, with a metro area population of about 400k. Why, then, is our "downtown" (and I use that name loosely) only four by four blocks? Why is the tallest building only 14 stories high? Colorado Springs is one giant suburb, subdivided into little suburbs. We have all the problems of a major city, without any of the benefits. The only two events ever to sell out our biggest venue were WWF Raw and Benny Hinn the faith healer. People won't raise taxes to pay for anything. The city's largest school district has several dilapidated schools, and nobody seems to want to pay to fix them.

On the east side of town, towards the plains, there is an unbelievable housing boom. Whenever I drive over there with visitors, I (at the tender age of 18) get to give them the "when I was little, there weren't nuthin' out thar" speech. All these new houses, filled with young new families. Thousands of them... and we don't have enough water as it is. We can only water our lawns 2 days a week due to the ongoing drought which has persisted for about 6-7 years. There is also not a single major east-west road in town. To get from west to east is nearly impossible, as all the major streets (Union Blvd, Academy Blvd and I-25) run north-south. Nobody can come up with a solution to that either.

Not to mention the people. We have military types, the fundies galore, and a few old time hippy types. It's an odd mix.

Now don't get me wrong, I love Colorado, but "The Springs" needs to get its act together... soon.

Now Denver, that's another story. If you ever get the chance to visit Denver, take it. Denver is a city that works. I don't care what east-coast people say about the airport, it's the best in the country. They made that work. One year Denver had 52 days of unacceptable smog. Two years later, they got it down to 2 days per year. Pretty good for a city of 1.5 million. When they built Coors Field, people voted to fund it, and then the city unleashed a huge urban redevelopment project around the stadium. They turned lower downtown, or "LoDo" from a ghost town of abandoned buildings into trendy clubs, sports bars, and million dollar apartments in just a couple of years. Denver man, that's the place to be. Oh, and it's an hour closer to good skiing than Colorado Springs is.

So, to conclude: Denver: A- Colorado Springs: C

Edited to add:

Colorado Springs:


Denver:

[GRLMGC]

6. My friend went to Denver

It was in the winter so it was pretty cold but she liked it a lot. She said the club with the best music she's ever been to was in Denver, haha.

[fedupinBushcountry]

4. Auburn, N.Y.

Auburn is a part of the Finger Lakes (Owasco Lake) region, 25 miles from Syracuse and the major city of Cayuga County.

We have a couple historical cites located in Auburn, the homes of William Seward and Harriet Tubman. It is even said that Abner Doubleday may have started baseball here. Also John Walsh (America's Most Wanted)is from here in fact went to my school, he was older but I knew his sister well, and my parents knew them well through our school and church.

We also have a prison in the middle of town and it was the first prison to have the electric chair, not very proud of that at all. I use to hangout with the Warden's daughter when I was in 8th grade, her chauffer use to bring us to school each day, when I spent the night she had 3 bedrooms to chose from, and dinner was served one course at a time, even had the butter balls, I was mesmerized by it all. She also had 2 horses, and her house was right in the center of town. Amazing as I think of it now, of how our tax dollars are spent, at the time I thought it was cool coming from a completely different lifestyle. She went to our Catholic school, that is how I met her, accept she could afford it and my parents both worked so all 4 of us could have a Catholic education. Oh well.

It is a cute little town of about 30,000 now, there are no jobs there anymore, you either work at the hospital or the prison or in Syracuse. The houses are old, the new ones are on the outskirts of town, plenty of bars almost on every corner,along with many Ma and Pa restaurants, one in every neighborhood and the best Italian bread in the world. We had so many bars on one of our main streets, that we would try to hit everyone of them on a Saturday night and could never make it to the last one. On the weekends there would always be a dance at one of the high schools we had 3 public and a Catholic, and on Saturday in the summer it would be a lake dance at the pavillion on Owasco lake, ahh the memories.

Like most New York cities, our town had the Italian, Irish, Polish and Jewish sections, you knew what nationality just by where you lived.

Sorry for the rambling, just got caught up in the memories.


Info:
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[GRLMGC]

5. It's cool

I understand getting caught up in memories. I'm so homesick that I had to post that and I don't even live that far away from L.A., haha.

[sandnsea]

9. I don't have one

I was born in St. Louis, my extended family is there, and has been there since the 1700's. Catholic, Union, Democrats, all the way. I love St. Louis, it's such an un-city city. I have uncles who live in areas that seem more rural than the rural town I live in now. I love podunking down a two lane road that pops onto a massive freeway that takes you into the heart of downtown. I love the unpretentiousness of it, so blue collar.

I grew up in Fresno, the San Joaquin Valley, the Sierras, Yosemite, all of that. Another very blue collar town, that was an All American City when I was a kid. Implemented a bussing program and other integration programs because it was the right thing to do. The heart of the farmworkers movement. I don't understand what happened to the place. Somebody said the other day it was so yellow dog dem in the 60's, that's when I was growing up there. I also spent summers in Mt. Shasta, where I first experienced small town life and the complate freedom a little kid can really only get in such a place. Summers spent all over town, the pool, the park, the woods, the dime store, TONS OF FUN!!

But I also lived in Montana for about 15 years, so it is homelike to me too. Much like Mt. Shasta, but with more of a sense of community than I'd ever experienced before. California is fast and not particularly nozy. Montana is slow, nozy, but not too judgemental because you can't hide your own dirt enough to get too much into each other's business.

And now I've been on the Oregon Coast for about 8 years. But this doesn't feel like a hometown at all. I just live here. Too transient, too many new retirees, too much self-involvement for a real sense of community to develop. Seems to me anyway.

So those are my hometowns. :)