Current opinions of USC

<p>As a non-Californian, I"m having trouble figuring this out. Are people proud or ashamed of how much time they have to spend in traffic? Or how expensive their cars are?
These are odd topics for a college forum.</p>

<p>I am more of a UC person, but if my daughter were interested in broadcast journalism I would certainly visit and consider USC. She will make good connections there.</p>

<p>I am not sure if one summer in NYC and 4 months in DC are long enough time to make you an expert. So you went to ONE party (welcome to the real word!) where "if you weren't at least a staffer on the Hill with a nice watch, you were a nobody". That must be a pretty elite party to base value on career condentials like that. Well, you know what? Some parties I went to weren't even anywhere elite. Many people don't even consider any career credentials or educational background but how your face and body look. :) </p>

<p>
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...then assuming that this won't apply elsewhere

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You still don't get it. Did I say I wouldn't meet any image concious people in singles parties in other cities? Go back to my last post and read it 1 or 2 more times. If not, I think you should go outside and have your mental block cleared.</p>

<p>As for Van Nuys, the whole point of you is to try to discredit my obervation using something that's not even relevant. Let's just assume I was way off about Van Nuys, does it make what I said about the most happening places in LA any less credible? The whole time you were just trying to prove I was wrong about where I live by saying I was wrong about the Valley. The irony is I was implicity arguing for, not against, LA, that many areas don't fit the reputation. If the Valley is as image concious as West Hollywood and Sunset strip, I guess that would further validate the reputation known to outsiders, not the other way around since now much larger area is covered. </p>

<p>I've driven through Van Nuys many times for work. I didn't see the concentration of flashy cars and people anywhere near what I normally see in the most happening areas in LA. According to you, either I must have driven the worst part of the town every single time I was there or they knew I was coming and avoiding me. LOL! I also know couple friends that live in Van Nuys; I never really hang out there yet I seem to be able to make an observation closer to the following than you: </p>

<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Nuys,_California%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Nuys,_California&lt;/a>

[quote]
Like many central Valley neighborhoods, Van Nuys was a white, middle-class neighborhood as late as the 1970s, but the demographics of the area changed considerably due to white flight. It is now a predominantly Latino neighborhood.

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<p><a href="http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bpretire/2005/snapshots/38098.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bpretire/2005/snapshots/38098.html&lt;/a>
Median home price $427,555 (low by LA standard); even average price of condo (not house) in West Hollywood is much higher than that.
Median household income (per year) $36,725 </p>

<p>Looks like you have a pretty inflated view about your family's town. </p>

<p>You seem to confuse me with some San Franciscans harboring No Cal superiority. I am not from San Fran; I came from overseas.</p>

<p>Sam,</p>

<p>I think you're reading me wrong here.</p>

<p>I'm saying this: If you go looking for shallow people (who are likely to be congregating at these singles parties) then you'll find them.</p>

<p>LA is not special in that regard and it's not very different from any other city. You made LA out to be peculiar or by a certain degree more severely image conscious than other cities. It's just not the case. </p>

<p>I mean, if you go to the trendiest place in a city to hang out, what do you expect?</p>

<p>Oh, and again: what I was saying was that there are still pockets in Van Nuys. I didn't say that all of Van Nuys was like that. But check out some of the houses around Victory and Sepulveda. But what do I know? I just lived there...</p>

<p>Oh, and the party wasn't much of anything, really. It's just that everywhere you go, people worry about image. </p>

<p>But not in SF, of course.</p>

<p>It just seems to me that while LA has gotten the title of being some image conscious or shallow city, it seems hard to believe that NYC, Paris, DC, Milan, Tokyo...and all these other big cities aren't equally full of vapid image mongers. All I've been trying to say is that big cities attract consumer-based image cultures.</p>

<p>That's it.</p>

<p>danas,</p>

<p>There are a lot of traffic in LA; in many other places, you have rush hour but here there are often traffic jams at times like 2pm, 8:30pm..etc. It depends on how tolerable you are to traffic.</p>

<p>Now that we can agree on Sam.</p>

<p>
[quote]
It just seems to me that while LA has gotten the title of being some image conscious or shallow city, it seems hard to believe that NYC, Paris, DC, Milan, Tokyo...and all these other big cities aren't equally full of vapid image mongers. All I've been trying to say is that big cities attract consumer-based image cultures.

[/quote]
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<p>Ari, you can't compare those cities to LA, the only thing in common LA has is that is also is a city with a large population. LA is extremely different from all the above in its car-centered layout and culture. In many ways, it has been the trendsetter for urban America. Part of the antagonism from SF people is that San Fran is a lot more like the other cities in its urban landscape. </p>

<p>I've been to all the cities above. Paris is certainly not nearly as materialist as LA. Paris adn Milano actually are a lot more class-conscious, but they are much less materialistic than LA, if that makes sense to you.</p>

<p>Somehow, it seems that much of this thread has gotten rather far from the OP & perhaps a new thread might be in order for folks to endlessly debate materialistism in various cities/countries, etc. With 20 pages of responses, I'm not sure the OP even has any interest in how this thread has wandered.</p>

<p>CalX,</p>

<p>Is it that the Parisians aren't as materialistic, or that they just don't have the money? France is a rich country, but not quite as rich.</p>

<p>I mean, people were damning Paris for being materialistic and shallow in the 18th century.</p>

<p>I know, I know...make a new thread. [url=<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?p=3517107#post3517107%5DHere.%5B/url"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?p=3517107#post3517107]Here.[/url&lt;/a&gt;]&lt;/p>

<p>HImom,</p>

<p>Most OPs stop following pages after a while, in my experience. It's usually jsut debate for many pages after they leave... :p</p>

<p>
[quote]
You mention that the people in San Francisco who ARE materialistic are actually transplants from L.A. I suppose that you can tell this, from afar, as you watch them drive by? There seems to be this double hatred (of USC, and of Los Angeles). Why? Just curious: where were you born, and where were you raised?

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<p>I am from Paris, went to college at Berkeley (undergrad and MBA) and more or less worked in the bay area (along with stints in Europe, Asia and the east coast) for most of my adult life. I count the Bay Area as one of my hometowns.</p>

<p>There are many people who commute in the Bay Area, but many commute using public transit, and cities in the urban core like SF or Berkeley/Oakland have old, pedestrian layouts with neighborhood shops instead of strip malls. It's a bit deeper than that though, people just aren't as caught up with the kind of cars they drive. The difference is deeper than that though, there is a bit of a north-south cultural divide.</p>

<p>Since I've thrashed LA and USC, I will mention a few positives: LA is a very lively city with a more active nightlife than SF, which in comparison seems more dormant, partly because it has become a city with a very professional bent (business, law, consulting, corporate etc), partly because people are more into the outdoor and daytime activities and partly because of the weather. I think USC also deserves a whole lot of credit for having one of the most diverse student body in terms of socio-economic backgrounds, with a far higher % of students from lower-income families than almost any other top 50 private school.</p>

<p>CalX,</p>

<p>I understand what you were trying to say when you wrote "deeper than that". There are a lot of things unsaid but I just didn't feel like elaborating further either.</p>