Mariel, thanks for this. I couldn't agree with you or disagree with Mr. Newman more. I ran the marathon yesterday, and am in awe of what a diverse and amazing city this is -- and the marathon is such a cool way to experience LA. The view of downtown from the 6th Street Bridge at mile 24 was totally amazing and inspirational.

Thankyou! What we need is more people defending this city. I am so tired of hearing these sort of negative remarks from people who have moved from the east coast. It seems as though they just jump on a bandwagon of pessimism when they get to Los Angeles. Probably because of social reinforcement, seeing as they immediately want to congregate with fellow east coasters. Comedians do this all the time! What really gets me is that alot of these transplants have been here for well over a decade and yet still cannot get over the different characteristics of this city. Ok I'm done. Thanks!

Sorry, but a lot of people apparently share Mr Newman's POV.....

http://www.travelandleisure.com/afc/results.cfm?cat=14

It's not fair to blame folks like Robert Newman for the slovenly ways and careless standards of far too many Angelenos.

The LA area is sort of like a 1200-sq.-mile Rorschach test: you can find a bit of everything here, so what you find will be largely determined by what you spend your time looking for.

What someone notices about LA and how they interpret it tells us far more about them than it tells us about LA.

Sorry Mariel, but Newman's got a point.

Now, I'm sure you'll dismiss me as some carpet-bagging, lowlife who has no place criticizing your fair city. But ever since moving here for work (from Chicago, and before that DC) I have been stuck by how mind-numbingly ugly Los Angeles is.

Yes, the weather is gorgeous. And Angelinos are far and away the nicest big city residents I have ever encountered (I chalk it up to the weather, since it's hard to be pissed off when it's 80 and gorgeous in February).

But LA itself is one large, unbroken collection of strip malls and parking lots. And the skyline in downtown is anemic compared to the other great cities of the country. Newman was right.

(And as for the bagel gripes, you can tell people to shove it. LA food is heads and tails above other cities. Except for my native Chicago. No one does pizza like Chicago does pizza).

I live here, and I vote that L.A. is one on the most unwelcoming, inhospitable cities in the world, though with lots of good Mexican restaurants.

While I wouldn't say that late loop east out of expo park and back into downtown was ugly, I don't think it was great either, and it had little to do with the scenery. As evidenced by the Chicago marathon, which weaves through some very similar industrial areas, a warehouse district can be a great backdrop to a run - if there are people out. Miles 22-24 were vacant. A lack of glycogen, and a lack of cheering spectators makes for an uglier scene than the fact that we were running past logistics docks and Spearmint Rhino.

Last year's marathon was lined with spectators all the way from the turn onto Olympic to the finish. Next year, Mr. Labonge, put the route wherever you like, but make sure that spectators can walk there.

if only we could put a large wall to keep rubes from chicago and other `big cities' out. trust me, i'm a native of la, third generation (not and Angelino, another word brought to us by outsiders)now living in New York. Trust me, you can have the bagels. They taste the same here as they do anywhere else. But try and find a decent mexican restaurant. Nice blog. Moratorium on all those `LA is so ugly and boy look at all those freeways' pieces written by out-of-town, midwest or East coast hayseeds. Yes, i said it. the rest of america, including the sainted manhattan, chicago, boston, or any other rustbelt dying frozen city, is flyover country. hayseeds, all of em. They don;t get la, never will. so why do they come? I have lived here on the east coast for 5 years and I never get over the fact that I feel like I'm from a different country with better weather, stoplights, firefighters and cops without earrings, good beaches and real mexican food. oy.

>>>>> This city is filled with pretty. One just has to be willing to see it. <<<<<

I think the problem with the city is that for every nice street or cluster of attractive structures, there are a lot of other streets or clusters that look tawdry and rundown; the epitome of "tacky" and homely.

Much of the Southland was created by or for people of modest means and modest tastes, many of working-class Midwestern or Dust-Bowl stock who migrated here during the first half of the previous century. Their sense of aesthetics, torn asunder by years of the Great Depression and World War turmoil, quite understandably fell to an all-time low when vast stretches of the city were first being developed.

one persons "trash" is anothers "treasure." count me as someone who sees beauty in all of los angeles...from backlit plastic strip mall signs to tree canopied 6th street in hancock park. this is my home and i love it for all its diverseness.

Mo,

Wow. Lots of anger there. Yet you don't seem to do anything but insult us "rubes" and "hayseeds" (who coincidentally, moved to LA for work, not necessarily in the "industry" and who now pay taxes and help support Los Angeles and California).

How about it, Mo? What about all those strip malls and parking lots. You can't drive across vast swaths of this city and say it isn't full of asphalt, strip malls, neon signs, and low-slung buildings. Sorry, but that IS the streetscape of L.A.

One thing I learned from living in "flyover country" (which, by the way, us "rubes" tire of just as quickly as you natives of LA tire of "look at all the freeways" pieces) is that those who get most offended by criticism are so upset because deep down, they know it's true.

Something to ponder on your next flight over the rubes and hayseeds.

Commenter Max, above, shows exactly how to go about missing the point in LA.

He says "the skyline in downtown is anemic compared to the other great cities of the country."

Well, yes, LA is different than many other places. And that 'anemic skyline' - and the outward-rather-than-upward growth it represents - is one of the most important differences.

Our vast transportation infrastructure - first the Pacific Electric interurbans, and later the freeways - have long made it possible for even people of modest means to have backyards and fruit trees and sunshine.

That's a different (and possibly more modest) sort of beauty than a skyline of gleaming towers, but it's *our* sort of beauty. We're more interested in enjoying our own little slices of paradise than in cramming lots of people into the smallest possible area.

LA isn't really about downtown, and hasn't been, since Henry Huntington first starting laying out Red Car lines.

If what you want is an impressive downtown skyline, then LA is probably the wrong place for you.

And then he complains about the strip malls.

LA's much-maligned strip malls are one of the most important sources of our multicultural vitality. They've been a tremendous source of economic opportunity for immigrant entrepreneurs who were locked out of more conventional developments, and they enrich all our lives with the diversity of their offerings.

I once noticed a visiting friend taking a photo of a rather undistinguished-looking LA mini-mall. He thought it was amazing because it featured a Oaxacan restaurant, a Greek cafe, a Persian restaurant, a Ramen'n'Bulgogi joint, a Japanese fast-food place, a Thai massage parlor, and a Glatt Kosher market. "We don't have anything like this back home," he said.

Diversity and opportunity aren't always neatly manicured, but they're beautiful nonetheless.

So there's beauty to be seen even in strip malls and 'anemic' skylines, if you know what it is you're looking at.

If you want every city to look like every other city, then you're in the wrong place. That's not how we do things here.

A former Angeleno, I now live in suburban New Jersey. Right now it is below-zero windchill, the trees are bare, the only snow is a few brown lumps leftover from the Valentine's Day storm. L.A. is ugly? Pleeze. Also, I just drove this morning into Manhattan to drop off a house guest at his hotel: an hour and 20 minutes to go 23 miles. And the sights along the way (except for the view along the Hudson) were less than inspiring. Hmmm, that trip was almost marathon length ...

Some of our best restaurants are in mini-malls. Suchi Nozawa, anyone? Yes, please! Carousel? Ditto! Etc, etc, etc.

No, you can't walk there. Get over it.

The L.A. Marathon should be held at the beach?

Michael Newman sounds just like every other spoiled Westsider I know. Bet he lives in Santa Monica and just wanted to walk to the event.

I can't resist adding:

There's a whole culture of LA people who love ONLY the Westside.

They think Silverlake is a scary ghetto.

They treat rare visits to friends in The Valley like a day out of town.

When you talk about dinner, they only suggest restaurants within close walking distance from their beachside dwellings.

They think Hollywood is too far to drive for a concert.

They rarely venture East of the 405.

Those people are immensely annoying.

Denial isn't a river in Egypt, wearing blinders won't improve vision, and being an enabler to garbage-type conditions sure won't help matters in La Ciudad de Los Angeles.

Everyone should acknowledge the grungy, battered---and, yea, ugly---condition of the areas pointed to by the Times' columnist, and not play the role of urban Polyannas.

Perhaps one reason Angeltown has been the scene of two major riots over the past 40-or-so years is because many people deepdown sense much of the environment around them is a dump that deserves no more respect than a molotov cocktail with a few lit matches.

And, by the way, there are some trashy areas not just in South-Central, but around the city boundaries of Santa Monica too, in full view of anyone tooling down the 10 Freeway west of the 405. So the denizens of the westside shouldn't feel like they're so above it all, so high and mighty compared with the rest.

Dear Michael,

So you want an LA Marathon run by the beach..... it's called THE LONG BEACH MARATHON!

That's what makes LA great, we have so much more than NY, Chicago, Boston, Philly and the rest of the East Coast. We have it all within running distance.

Other local beachy marathons include the Palos Verdes marathon (going for 41 years and it even includes a piece of LA - San Pedro) and Pacific Shoreline in Huntington Beach.

The problem with LA (that is the city of LA, so you can't count the beach cities of Malibu, Santa Monica, Manhattan Beach, etc.) is that its most beautiful venues - its hills and mountains - are very marathon unfriendly. If the marathon route went along Mulholland Drive, through a canyon into Griffith Park, and headed into downtown from the north through Chinatown, the marathon would have been truly spectacular visually. And it would have been extremely grueling.

And LA weather doesn't agree with marathons. 80-degree weather in early March is the envy of the nation, but it really messes up people trying to run 26.2 miles.

The problem with the LA organizers are that they are trying to make the marathon into an "elite" one that attracts the best runners worldwide. Current elite marathons like New York and Chicago are flat as pancakes by comparison. They can virtually guarantee frost-bite weather every running, which is brutal for the locals but what every elite marathoner craves. Boston is a different story - as the original modern marathon, it is the only "elite" one that is allowed to have a hilly, difficult course, and be run in relatively warm weather (that April marathon starts around noon instead of the usual 7 or 8 am).

If LA really wanted a marathon that only cared about its elite status, it would be run in the middle of the San Fernando Valley in the middle of January.

"who are so keen to tell Angelenos how crappy their city is."

Treat the issue like one of those television shows that follows the process of people buying decrepit houses, fixing them up and then flipping them for profit, or that other program where some sad souls are given a trip to Disney World while their small shack is massively remodeled and guzzied up.

The town needs a major facelift, like an old Hollywood celebrity or accident victim who sorely needs plastic surgery on his/her face, neck, stomach and thighs.

THANK YOU! I am a native Los Angelino and I love my city.

There is much diversity in this city, ethnically, socially, architecturally... If that man doesn’t like what he’s seen, then he won’t have much care to venture to those areas again.

As for those people who think Los Angeles is an inhospitable place, take a good look at your selves. From my experience as a native, the people who “act L.A.” are those who aren’t from here. People who relocate here see what the television shows and movies typify as " L.A." and some of them adopt that attitude because they think it’s the way to be in this city – but go into our neighborhoods and places beyond the 405 and you’ll find there are good, decent, hard working people who are laid back and down to earth. Some of us are frustrated with being stereotyped.

If you don’t like what you see in our city, then by all means please leave.

Glen B. misses the point.

Yes, the Pacific Electric was partially about making it easier for people to buy homes in outlying real estate developments owned/built by Henry Huntington and his friends. But if you look at that map of the Pacific Electric at its greatest extent, you'll see that almost every single line converged on downtown Los Angeles, home of our major department stores, shopping, and the largest still remaining concentration of movie palaces in the United States. Henry Huntington did not abandon the traditional downtown. He made it more accesible to those living around the edges.

Henry Huntington was not about building "Edge City" type developments like Century City and Warner Center. Those only came after the freeway system was conceptualized and built. I don't think urbanists had even envisioned such developments when Henry was laying down rail around 1905.

The Pacific Electric was built, as well as giving people the opportunity to buy a home, the means to funnel people into a great downtown from bedroom communities with relatively few jobs and commercial development. Let's not forget about the "Yellow Cars" of the Los Angeles Railway, which were built to shuttle people around downtown and close by suburbs.

My point is that wanting to buy a home with an orange tree in the backyard is not a particularly Los Angeles aspiration, except maybe for the orange tree. We are not the owners of Sprawl, we merely perfected it. And now that we're out of room, our buildings are rising upward, slowly but surely.

I also disagree that Los Angeles does not have an impressive downtown skyline. It might pale in comparison to New York, Chicago or Hong Kong. But it does compare favorably with other American cities (smaller ones, I will admit) such as Seattle, Dallas, San Francisco, Philadelphia or Boston. Remember, we do have the Library Tower, the tallest building west of the Mississippi.

"Sprawl," at least when it's applied to Los Angeles, actually may be some people's euphemism for ugly. In other words, if more of the vast expanse of LA were pretty --- more like Cheviot Hills or Belmont Shore (in Long Beach), or Toluca Lake (near Burbank) or the new and improved parts of Koreatown along older segments of Wilshire Boulevard, or even what I saw a few months ago near the convention center and Staples arena, or what I've encountered in certain niches of Park LaBrea, Fairfax/Beverly and Hancock Park --- "sprawl" in combination with "Los Angeles" might not have such a negative connotation today.

As for whether we in LA should be insulted when the city is described as being not very pretty, that question is worth asking only if constant improvement ceases to occur throughout our community.