Getting worse each year!
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12/26/2007
Santa Monica used to be a very nice place to live, but as the cost of living continues to up each year, it also seems that the quality of life is going down. The neighborhoods north of Wilshire are safe and physically attractive, but hardly anybody walks here and the sidewalks in the neighborhoods are kind of empty. Montana Ave. is very pretentious (and boring) and its cafes are noisy and are unappealing places to sit and relax. Most of the restaurant on Montana are over-rated, over-priced and too noisy. The city is turning into a police state, with its ridiculous no-smoking-outdoor laws, and the same people who fought for this idiocy drive around in obscene SUVs whose emissions are far more dangerous than "second-hand smoke." The 3rd Street Promenade which used to have interesting and small restaurants and shops is now filled with horrible chain stores and restaurants that you can find anywhere (unfortunately) and which are uniformly loud. The quality of street performers and street vendors on the Promenade is about a two on a scale of one to ten, though I'd put the performers here into a -1 rating. Between the horrible cacophony of noise produced by one street performer and another and the boom-boxes carried by people on the promenade, this part of the city is a disaster in terms of being a nice pubic space. Don't bother to get outdoor seating in a Promenade restaurant, unless you love listening to several loud street performers all doing their thing at once. Parking is horrendous in the downtown area, public transportation stinks, and there have been measures to make it uncomfortable to sit outdoors with horrible benches and in some places metal spikes to prevent people from sitting down. The beaches are polluted and many of them ugly as they are right next to the ugly Pacific Coast Highway, and there are hardly any trees, and unlike New England, where you can bring your dog once the summer season is over (through Memorial Day), there is not a single beach in Santa Monica where you can bring your dog at any time of year. If you are planning on having a picnic with wine, forget it, as you cannot drink anything with alcohol outdoors anywhere in the police state of Santa Monica. Homeless and crazies abound throughout the city. If you want to live in Santa Monica, plan to stay at home, since what you find in the business districts and public spaces is not that appealing!
Jane | Santa Monica, CA