I live in the Valley. LA is a cesspool that we only go to if it is absolutely necessary. Not only are the people rude, but we always feel stressed, like we have to watch over our shoulders. Not only is the traffic crazy, the drivers are too. Take a wrong turn into the wrong neighborhood and its downright scary. Large parts of LA that you don't see on TV look like a 3rd world country. If you just plopped someone into the middle of one of them and took off the blindfold,you could easily fool them into thinking that's where they were. Angelenos seem to come in only 2-3 varieties- snooty superficial rich people and semi- or just-plain scary hood types. Statistically there must be some nice normal people there somewhere, but they must lock themselves indoors or something; because we certainly never run into them. Thanks to the internet, we hardly ever have to go to there to shop for things unavailable where we live anymore. The only thing we need from LA are the occasional medical specialists we might be referred to. We would rather miss out on many of the cultural things LA has to offer than go through the stress. Others here may see it differently, but this is just my honest opinion.