The video above I shot during a 2004 trip to the USA westcoast. During that trip I visited Los Angeles, the city that is host to magic places like Beverly Hills and Hollywood. The most significant thing that struck me was the neverending uglyness of Los Angeles. In fact, Los Angeles is so ugly that it becomes beautiful again.
Los Angeles is so much not build with the human scale and physique in mind, that it becomes a true pleasure to stroll around and be amazed about what you experience. In fact, Los Angeles was never really designed or planned in a modern way. The greater Los Angeles area consists of hundres of towns that have melted together. Because this created huge distances between the individual parts of Los Angeles, endless motorways have been built to connect the parts.
But as there was more need to built roads in Los Angeles, houses were demolished to built motorways. The result is that Los Angeles is now very much a maze of motorways. The human settlements in between the Los Angeles roads have adapted to their environments. All human activity is based upon car traffic. There are drive in restaurants, cinemas and even drive in shops in Los Angeles. In Los Angeles, you can order your groceries from behind the wheel. I think Los Angeles is the only place in the world where you can find a drive in Sunbathing area. You can drive your car up to a private spot that is covered with some white sand. There is comfortable chair and a towel ready for you, and cold drinks are being served. It is supposed to be the solution for people who have no time to go to the beach because they are too busy riding around in their cars.
Did Los Angeles annoy me? Not at all. If you know what to expect, Los Angeles is a very interesting place to visit. There are so much famous places and landmarks in the Los Angeles area that you need at least a week to get decent picture of what the phenomenon Los Angeles really means. So I sure would recommend a visit to Los Angeles!