In conversation with a former student, now temporarily a resident of LA, we were comparing life on the one coast with life on the other. The difference is epitomized in my New Year's Day post about a bus-wide conversation on the M104. Such a thing would never happen in California.
As he put it, New York City is all about "us" while LA is all about individuals in isolation from one another. There you just get in your car and drive through neighborhoods; here we walk out of our front door and are already participating in a neighborhood that does not have a specific identity, other than an environment in which we are comfortable mingling with other people who may or may not resemble ourselves.
And always such a glorious surprise when it turns out that we share common interests or tastes or curiosities.
