The Gold Brush

“Bland Canyons” (by Jonathan Gold, On the Town, Dec. 18) was only one poetic page but it spoke volumes. The bottom line is that some people do not see the Los Angeles metropolis, somehow missing the sum of its beauty and life.

I travel a lot, and when people in Lubbock or Abilene, Tex., Phoenix, Ariz., Knoxville, Tenn., or even Fresno ask me (and they seem to be sincere), “How can you live in L.A.?” I am dumbfounded and speechless and don’t know where to begin my response. Really, have you ever been to places like Raleigh, N.C., Orlando, Fla., or Austin, Tex., those mini-mall’d, Dairy Queen’d, zestless, too-hot, too-cold, singles-dance-on-Saturday, bar-closes-at-10, taco-burger’d, vanilla-tapioca-pudding’d little towns?

Some of us refuse to settle for mediocrity. That is why I left Orlando to live once again in the greatest, most diverse and exciting city in the United States. Sure, some of us have to leave on the financial coattails of exiting corporate traitors. Making a bit more money now, big guys? Don’t let the Golden Gate hit your backsides on the way out.

Guess what! I still live in paradise.

Don Lemke

Redondo Beach

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Many of us have left the big cities because of their artificiality, high prices, overpraised amenities, impossible traffic and boorish citizenry. We’ve gone to smaller places, where people are friendlier and more intelligent. My own San Juan Capistrano is such a place, but tell Gold not to come here. He’d just be bored to distraction with our unsophisticated lifestyle.

Tom B. Stephenson

San Juan Capistrano

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In this area, and even in thoughout the state, there are problems of extremes. On one hand, there’s Gov. Pete Wilson and the Republicans with their federal-phobic hate; on the other are ultra-liberals, who would give sanctuary to any lawbreaking criminal who crosses the border.

This is why there’s white flight to Utah, Arizona and Texas. It isn’t that people necessarily want homogenous communities. It’s simply that they want to live where law and order persists, where they don’t have to contend with mindless hostility from people they don’t even know, and where their daily drive to and from work doesn’t use up 20% of their day.

John Ristau

Torrance

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What could be more rational, when faced with chaos and madness, than to look for calm and a greater degree of safety? Why should one be an object of contempt for wanting his children to be able to play safely in the park, or expecting to get some benefit from her taxes? Less diversity is a small price to pay to leave behind the drive-by shootings, aggressive panhandlers, deteriorating infrastructure and other ills besetting California’s urban centers.

Irene Riordan Struthers

Morro Bay