“It’s not a city, it’s an endless urban sprawl. Carpet store, lamp store, plumbing store, carpet store, plumbing store… on and on for as far as the eye can see.

Backing up that urban sprawl are suburbs that either have character but are old and shabby, or are little cookie cutter boxes made of ticky-tack, or are obscenely expensive, masturbatory dwellings for the over-privileged.

Things are so spread out that the idea of walking anywhere is laughable, so to get around from one plumbing store to another you sit in seemingly endless gridlock. No matter where you’re going it takes at least a half hour to get to. The highways aren’t much better than the surface streets.” —Ian Peters-Campbell

1. “The people who live there don’t seem to realize how dirty it is. Even the nice parts look like they could use a thorough cleaning and a good coat of paint.
2. It takes a minimum of 45 minutes to get to anywhere from anywhere within LA county, no matter where the start and endpoint are, and how you get there.
3. For the most part Angelinos have all the warmth of moon rocks. Reminds me too much of DC.
4. For such a huge, populous city they have a serious lack of culture. Anyone expecting entertainment opportunities like you would get in NY, SF or even DC will be sorely disappointed.
5. Most parts of the city don’t feel safe. And this from someone who is from DC.
6. It’s super expensive, but you don’t feel like you get anything for your money, like you might in New York.” —Eric Ruck

“Traffic is the complaint I hear from friends who visit there.” —Tom Worth

1. “The fact that it’s an ugly city with few areas of spectacular beauty to its credit.
2. You HAVE to own a car to live there successfully.
3. It takes a lengthy period of time to get anywhere around there.
4. It’s an expensive place to live.
5. The ever-present air pollution.” —Jan Mixon

“The biggest misconception is that LA people are ‘too Hollywood.’ For one, LA is a massive city with a very diverse economy. You can go many days without running into a ‘Hollywood type’—unless you are in the entertainment industry.” —Steve Raymond

• “Cars (smog and pollution)
• Traffic (smog and annoyance)
• Materialism (Hollywood)
• False hope and shattered dreams (Hollywood)
• Lack of appealing cultural hub/identity
• Urban sprawl
• Cars
• Traffic” —Josh Siegel

“Apart from the Hollywood sign, the beaches and boardwalks along the Western edges, and the grimey abandoned-downtown-from-every-zombie-movie-you’ve-ever-seen, it’s all very plain-looking, and repetitive. Accomodating. Flexible. Mutable. Ever-adapting. You always feel just a bit that LA is live-editing itself to appear as relatively inoffensive to you as possible.

Layer on the pollution, the weird movie scene, and the low-income areas, and as an outsider or occasional visitor, it’s really hard to imagine ever living there, or ever having a good reason to do so, barring being discovered in one way or another.” —Dean Blackburn

1. “For most of the 20th C, New York had a monopoly on TV networks, magazines, books, newspapers, and public opinion. The hatred of LA really got going with the Brooklyn Dodgers moving to LA. A special venom was saved for defectors, like Jay Leno,and others who moved to the promised land. Now that Bloomberg has rescued New York and LA is getting worse, there is a feeling of ‘I told you so.’
2. For San Franciscans it is genetic, part of the culture, but no overtones of envy.San Franciscans know they have the best and that LA is not even second best. If you paid a New Yorker, he might move to LA, people from SF and the Bay Area would not. At one time SF was worried about the increasing financial power of LA and then came Silicon Valley. Game over.
3. Crime movies are filmed in LA.
4. One of the best arguments against LA is Bobby Fisher. At any other time in his life he is world famous, he performs at the top of his game. He moves to LA and is not heard of for 20 years and nobody lifts a finger to help him out of his eccentricities. This is a one-industry town and there is no community to help you.
5. There are oil derricks visible from the beach, as well as homeless people. Ipanema or Cannes it is not.
6. Your choice is city view or ocean view, you can’t have both. So who planned this place?” —Fred Landis

Answers taken from Quora question “Why is Los Angeles disliked by so many people?” Comments have not been edited for spelling and grammar errors. See also: “Why do some people hate Los Angeles?”

Last year on this day I posted my own version of a year-in-review with my 13 favorite stories of the year. (Why 13, everyone wanted to know? Was I superstitious? Unlucky? Honestly, it just worked out that way.) This year, I couldn’t help but do it again, but with a twist: I picked my favorites, but I’m also handing out specific awards in different categories (yes, giving prizes to myself—all in all, it was a pretty boring awards ceremony). So while you’re out this weekend drunk walking or choosing a parking spot or curing a hangover with a prairie oyster, please enjoy some of the best, worst, funniest, weirdest, most popular and least popular stories I wrote in 2011. Happy new year!

Most Fun to Research
Nike’s 23-Year Journey To Make McFly’s Shoes Real, Co.Design
When I got the assignment to cover the release party for Nike’s Air MAG shoes, inspired by the ones from Back to the Future, I think I traveled all the way to the Montalban Theater in a montage set to “Power of Love.” Here’s a franchise that was so beloved to me growing up—I even did a dance to the “Back in Time” song at the neighborhood talent show one year—and I got to attend this detail-perfect themed event to celebrate the films. But talking to Nike’s Tinker Hatfield unfolded another incredible story almost as unbelievable as time travel in a De Lorean, as Nike worked on the concepts for the original film and then spent the next two decades making the shoes a reality. AND—this was the kicker—all to benefit Michael J. Fox’s foundation to battle Parkinson’s disease. Now that’s the power of love. Here are some more photos from the party.

Least Fun to Research
How My iPhone Was Stolen on the Train, Gelatobaby
Um, yeah. But on the bright side, I imagine that I saved dozens of phones from similar “apple picking” incidents this holiday season. You’re welcome.

Best Anniversary Party
My LAX series of 10 stories celebrating 10 years in LA, Gelatobaby
If I had one piece of advice to writers—or any creatives for that fact—it’s to celebrate specific milestones in your own life. When I was on my vacation this summer (ah, my sweet, sweet vacation) I came up with the idea to somehow commemorate my ten years in LA, and by the time I was back home I had started writing the pieces. It was an assignment no one would have given me, and it gave me a fantastic reason to examine the place I lived and how it affected my work. I covered everything from weather to secret staircases but my very favorite piece is on how I gave up my car.

Favorite LA Thing to Write About
It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year: Why We’re Pro-Carmageddon, GOOD
Besides the fact that I finally learned to spell “armageddon,” I had the absolute best time writing about the apocalyptic closing of the 405 freeway as a positive event for car-bound Angelenos. After I wrote this story I was asked to appear on the WYNC show The Takeaway, and—when people did, indeed stay off the streets for the weekend—I followed up with six more “-ageddons” I’d like to see.

Best Continuing Education
The Insider’s Guide to Art in Los Angeles, Details
The best kinds of stories are when you have to actually learn a whole bunch of stuff that you’ve always wanted to know, just to write the story. When I was assigned one of my first stories for Details on Pacific Standard Time, I was thrilled to jump in and try to make sense of this sprawling art-stravaganza about to descend upon LA. In the process, I got a seriously intense Los Angeles contemporary art education, thanks to some awesome interviews with the Getty’s Andrew Perchuk. This week I was on the KUSC show “Arts Alive” talking about my story and how PST has affected LA.

Best Per-Word Rate
GOOD Design is Growing: Announcing GOOD Ideas for Cities, GOOD
Not for the article itself, of course, but because I was writing about receiving an incredible $85,000 grant from ArtPlace for the GOOD Ideas for Cities program I co-founded three years ago. I can’t wait to take the event series to five cities, including my hometown of St. Louis, in 2012.

Best Stumbled-Upon Story
A Hidden Oasis Grows on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, GOOD
A perfect example of keeping your eyes open and your camera on, even when you’re out for a walk. I discovered this community garden on Hollywood Boulevard several years ago but it was only during a late-night, post-club visit that I realized it was a story just begging to be told. More on how I found it here, including photos I’ve taken of the garden throughout the years (before I even knew what it was). Street Journalism in action!

Best Stumbling
Enduring Spirit, Gelatobaby
Yes, I ran a marathon this year. Yes, I tweeted photos at every mile. Did I mention it rained the ENTIRE TIME? Did I mention that for the most part, I didn’t train AT ALL? Well, I hope you enjoy the story as I RISKED MY LIFE FOR IT.

Most Uplifting Subjects (I Believe the Children Are Our Future Award)
Middle School Students Tell LAUSD: No More Styrofoam!, GOOD
If you are ever feeling sorry for the state of the world, go visit the sixth graders at Thomas Starr King Middle School who not only got their school to stop using styrofoam trays at lunch, they raised money to buy reusable trays for every student who wanted one. After my story, the kids were featured on the local news, made dozens of videos, and worked with 826 LA to write about their experiences. Absolutely amazing.

Most Overwhelming Response
The Top 5 Things That Bother Me About This Headline, GOOD
When I pitched this little essay to GOOD for their Data Issue, it was mostly to vent about my own frustrations when writing “for the internet” compared to writing for print. But in the hands of guest editor Starlee Kine, it became a highly personal examination of my own transformation as a writer in the age of data—someone who, I realized, is almost addicted to page views and retweets. Ironically, the story was a traffic smash, and I’m still getting weekly emails and seeing it pop upon Twitter about it over six months later. Mostly, people thanking me for being honest about how hard it is to do what writers do.

Most Underwhelming Response
How Weeds Became a Marketing High For MIT’s Bike Wheel, Co.Design
After I noticed the Copenhagen Wheel in a recurring cameo role on Weeds, I jumped on this story, interviewing both the Wheel’s design team and the Weeds showrunner. I thought the incredible, slightly racy tale of how Weeds chose to include and work with the creators of this environmentally progressive bike concept would be a sure hit for cyclists and potheads everywhere. The story didn’t do that well, which I guess illustrates that data doesn’t always win. Or that potheads are an unreliable audience.

Most Beautiful Thing I Wrote About
An Almost Life-Sized Version of L.A. Made Entirely from Cardboard, Co.Design
Gosh, maybe one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen, period.

Most Delicious Thing I Wrote About
Don’t Call it a Pop-Up: Felix Barron’s KTCHN 105, KCET Food
Best brunch in Los Angeles, with a unique experience that matches the food.

Best Service Journalism
The Best Way to See the Hollywood Sign, Gelatobaby
After a group of Beachwood Canyon residents decided they didn’t want tourists prowling their streets in search of the elusive Hollywood Sign, I wrote this story outlining several alternate routes that actually produce better views than if you’d parked in some snobby asshole’s driveway. A big part of what I hope to do with my writing is to help people navigate and understand LA better, and if I can do that at the expense of wealthy, closed-minded Angelenos, even better.

Proof that You Can Make Money Riding Buses
“Mass Transit”: A Dance Performance Inspired by Riding L.A.’s Buses, GOOD
What Happens When You Put a Coffee Table at a Bus Stop?, GOOD
Is LA’s Public Transit a Joke? This Comedian Sure Hopes So, GOOD
Take that, cars!

Most Hate Mail
Do You Double Space After Periods?, GOOD
I had no idea that taking a stand (along with many other writers) against double spacing after periods would net me the most emails I’ve ever received for a single story. The emails that I received also happened to contain the poorest grammar and spelling I’ve ever seen. And every email was dutifully double spaced, of course.

Happy new year!

I once thought of myself as a special kind of cheerleader for Los Angeles, an eloquent advocate for its evasive beauty. I tried to give a voice to LA’s unique brand of urbanism. But now I don’t have to anymore. I’m going to let Ice Cube speak for LA from now on.

There are even more gems in the New York Times article. Somebody hire this guy as LA’s official spokesperson.

Here’s my story on the other PST videos.

“Art doesn’t exist in a vacuum” reads the first line of our mission statement for this week. Our Moving Experience team has been embarking on a variety of activities to test this theory. And as a personal exercise, I’ve been going for walks in the morning. Very slow walks, in a very small circle, around our very awesome hotel. To find art.

I’ve been inspired a lot by Roberta Smith’s piece “The Art of Summer” about finding art in unexpected and sometimes accidental places in New York during the summer. And although I would like to think that my eyes are usually this open while I’m walking around LA, I realized to actually find and capture art, I had to move much, much slower.

For example, I had to stop and look up to see this jewelry store sign, which I’ve walked under hundreds of times but never noticed before. It looks more like the opening titles for Disney’s Sleeping Beauty.

After that, it was amazing to see how many other buildings in the area used that same color of teal. Did they coordinate? Copy? Does the shade of patinaed copper move 14-carat gold chains and princess-cut diamonds?

Eastern Columbia represented in aquamarine.

Even Blue Jeans was appropriately blue.

I saw inadvertent art hilariously rendered with well-intentioned glasses.

And well-intentioned glasses rendered as inadvertently hilarious art (plus more of that blue!).

As I was taking this photo, a man came up from behind me on a bike. “I saw you taking photos of these old buildings, did you know you can go inside them?” he said. I was taken aback, to be honest. He didn’t look like an architecture geek. But he knew a lot about these old theaters, including something I didn’t: a great downtown bookstore named The Last Bookstore had organized a recent tour of them. We walked a block together talking about our favorites, him pedaling slowly, I snapping photos of marquees from below.

It was one of those incredible moments where I saw the true value in taking 15 full minutes to walk 150 feet. It’s not about covering ground, it’s about covering what’s around you. It made me realize two things: 1) It’s not enough for you to be set to noticing-speed: You should always be moving slow enough to let other people approach you and tell you what art they’ve found.

And 2) Sometimes you’re part of the art.

More photos from this year’s USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Fellowship.

I’ll be glad to see October end on Monday. Not just because that day is also the greatest holiday of the year. But because it will signify the end to the pink-hued month of awareness about breast cancer. I hate breast cancer, as I’m sure you do as well. But what I hate almost as much are the misguided attempts to “fight” breast cancer—which have now gotten as frightening as that end-of-the-month holiday.

As I flew out of LAX last week, I was horrified to see gate after gate decorated with reams of pink tulle and ribbon that look like they were filched from Barbie’s Dreamhouse. No signs. No information. Nothing that says “Hey, breast cancer is really bad, and you should do something about it.” No real message at all. Unless transforming my airport into a prom nightmare is supposed to subliminally remind me of the ugliness of breast cancer. Which it certainly did.

This “decorating for the cure” also annoyed Mary Ellen Havard, a writer and friend of my mom’s who has battled breast cancer for 11 years. In her book, Breast Cancer: One Illness, Two Women, Four Seasons, she writes about this plague of pink:

“Seems like everywhere you look, you see cute pink items designed to bring awareness to breast cancer. Since when is breast cancer cute and soft and pink? And why is the illness represented by a delicate pink bow? The true colors of cancer are puke green, necrotic black, blood red. There’s nothing soft and sweet about cancer.”

The rose-colored scourge is nothing new, of course. Nearly every woman-targeted product on the planet can now be found in a perky shade of pink. A decade ago I even bought a Kitchen Aid standing mixer in a Pepto-hued pastel (to be fair, I really do like the color). I was pleased at the time to see that a portion of my proceeds supposedly funded research. But after ten years I’m pretty disgusted at the types of products that are pushing pink power. There’s even a name for it: “pinkwashing.”

But when I was recently walking through the aisles of Safeway (or Vons out here in LA), I realized that fighting breast cancer could actually be bad for you.

As you’re shopping at those stores this month, you’ll pass shelves flagged with pink tags signifying which products are participating in some kind of revenue-sharing program with breast cancer research. The more foods you buy, the more you can help cure breast cancer. Great, right?

Unfortunately the foods which are highlighted are largely the foods which are proven to cause other diseases, like obesity and high blood pressure. IF YOU EAT THESE DONUTS YOU WILL BE FIGHTING THE BATTLE AGAINST BREAST CANCER, BUT YOU WILL BE LOSING THE BATTLE AGAINST DIABETES! ENJOY!

I didn’t see any pink tags in the produce section.

I can see how this strategy is a nice gesture on Safeway’s part. You’re buying the crap anyway, you might as well pay out some cash to a good cause. But once you get to the checkout, the message transforms from befuddling to downright wrong.

So let me get this straight. If you choose not to buy your own selection of high fructose corn syrups, artificial flavorings, and empty calories to help battle breast cancer, you have yet another chance to win a FREE BOTTLE of them. In a plastic container full of BPAs that have been proven to cause—you guessed it!—cancer! Don’t worry, you guys. It’s pink!

I agree we need more awareness about breast cancer. But awareness doesn’t mean forcing free strawberry soda down our throats. So what’s my solution? Ditch the pink. Entirely. Capitalize on the fact that October is also the month we put up our most terrifying decorations. Let’s put breast cancer in a ghastly house of horrors. Let’s make breast cancer a revolting one-eyed monster. Let’s see those colors that Mary Ellen Havard talked about—the “puke green, necrotic black, blood red”—in a campaign that gets people to think long and hard about the very serious choices they’re making when it comes to their health. I want a breast cancer campaign that freaks people out.

It’s time to remind everyone that breast cancer is not about buying a dozen sugar cookies dusted with delicate pink nonpareils or walking through an airport terminal that looks like it was sprayed down with cotton candy. It’s fucking scary.

I’ll take that message over a pink ribbon any day.

It’s tough enough being a student right now—fretting about an uncertain economic future while looking forward to a lifetime of mounting debt—yet somewhere during the creative process for designing a series of ads to promote their new “college discounts,” GM decided that a forced diet of ramen and Natty Light was not quite insulting enough. Belle Gerard, a public health graduate student at UCLA, sent me this ad she saw in yesterday’s Daily Bruin. Yes, GM has decided that it’s okay to make college students feel ashamed for riding bikes, a choice that’s almost certainly better for themselves, their schools and their communities.

The ads suck, but I don’t need to tell you that. The hot chick peering out a car window as a guy on a ten-speed shields his face in embarrassment feels like it’s from a 1982 Billy Ocean video. The tagline—”Stop pedaling…start driving.”—is not going to be winning them any Clios. Plus GM has a whole site focused on its “greener vehicles” that talks plenty about their environmental stewardship. The “stop pedaling” message makes me think, oh, they didn’t really mean all that nice stuff they said about our poor plundered planet.

The same ads seem to have run in college papers across the country, as hundreds of bike advocates have responded to GM via Twitter to express their distaste for the ads. But the interesting thing is that GM seems to be listening:

The GM Twitter team has been working hard in the last 24 hours, making probably a hundred personal @ replies to people who’ve complained. In one, they say this: “We’re making changes to the ads. We created them using student input and didn’t mean any offense.”

I’m sure there are plenty of students who would rather jump in the cab of a $22,000 pickup than ride their bike to school. When I was in college, I would have killed for the freedom to drive myself up into the mountains every weekend instead of relying on a roommate or boyfriend to put me in their passenger seat. The problem is this: GM’s eagerness to lock students—people who have NO MONEY and are about to have A LOT LESS—into 1o-year payment plans with insane interest rates by making them feel bad about using transportation that’s already free and available to them. It’s dirtier than GM’s most inefficient truck. Which may indeed be the 2012 GMC Sierra 1500 FINANCING AVAILABLE.

But when a car company publicly apologizes—multiple times—for making an anti-bike ad and promises to change it? Could you have seen that happening five years ago? I think we’re getting somewhere.

Where were you when Steve Jobs died?

I was where I usually am. Pounding away at this MacBook Air. Looking at my Apple 30-inch cinema HD display. With my MacMail open. With Safari open. Working in Pages. Listening to iTunes. My iPhone 4 just a few inches away.

It’s never more than a few inches away.

Moments after as I heard the news, I had to leave the house for an acupuncture appointment. I walked down my street to Sunset, passing two groups of people. They were both talking about Steve Jobs.

I walked the half mile to my appointment, my mind on Steve’s passing, my thumb on my touchscreen. I looked down and realized: I almost always hold my phone. Even with all the walking I do, all the adventuring across the city, wearing an obnoxiously large purse on my shoulder, that iPhone rarely leaves my hand. It’s because I’m always using it. I’m mapping my location. I’m locating buses. I’m checking my mail. I’m doing research. I’m posting tweets. I’m reading books. I’m using it to put on makeup. I’m finding restaurants. And I’m taking photos. Like this one, as, at that moment, on my way to acupuncture, I just happened to peer into an open garage, and spot this iMac box perched on a table:

Steve is everywhere we look. But Steve has also changed the way we see.

Many people have thanked Steve for his presence in their Mac-centric lives. I suppose I could write my stories on a different computer or do my research on a different Internet browser. But I don’t think I would have been able to make this step—the part that included choosing to move about my city a different way, to experience this new rhythm of Los Angeles—without an iPhone. I started my car-free life without it, of course, and many navigate the city without one every day. But it has made something that seemed impossible not only plausible, but pleasurable. It made walking more fun.

Now, I can’t imagine being out on the streets without that little glowing rectangle that helps guide me towards my destination, and keeps me entertained along the way. It has truly changed the course of my life.

And since the iPhone is solely responsible for increasing the amount of reading I do, a few of my favorite pieces I read last night about Steve:

A story by former Gizmodo editor Brian Lam about Steve’s reaction when they found the iPhone 4 prototype

Alexis Madrigal’s piece on why Steve mattered at The Atlantic Tech

Wired’s obituary by Steven Levy, who has been interviewing Steve since 1983

Cliff Kuang’s piece at Fast Company’s Co.Design on Steve’s legacy as technology’s greatest fan

Walt Mossberg’s very personal encounters with Steve as the tech reviewer for the Wall Street Journal

The voluminous New York Times obituary (with some pretty amazing quotes)

And if you haven’t seen it yet, his Stanford commencement address is getting linked everywhere for one reason: It’s truly awesome. Here’s the end:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Thank you for helping all of us to follow our hearts and intuitions. We  you, Steve.

Let’s get back in time… to last Thursday, when I was honored to be invited to the Montalban Theater in Hollywood for the launch of Nike’s new MAG shoes. Yes, these are the shoes inspired by in Back to the Future II, and, in one of the most brilliant marketing twists ever, all their proceeds will support Michael J. Fox’s foundation to eradicate Parkinson’s disease. Your calculations are correct: This is heavy.

As Back to the Future was one of the most formative films of my youth (the other being, you know), this detail-perfect experience easily topped my previous adventures into local McFly lore. My first brush with the films here in LA was when I discovered that a gym in a church near my old house was used as the location for the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance. Then a few years ago I went to the Gamble House, ostensibly to see the gorgeous turn-of-the-century Craftsman architecture. But I really just wanted to see where Doc lived.

The event last week was packed with Future freaks just like me (although, oddly, very few of them were female). Indeed, there was a time machine made out of a DeLorean parked out in front. Doc looked a little different than I had remembered him.

Always a fan of alternative transit, I arrived on my hoverboard, of course.

We stepped in to the theater and were confronted with walls of actual props from the films, including one that I had replicated in my youth using an old video camera case, Doc’s 12-pack of plutonium. I didn’t see any blue VW vans in the vicinity, thank god.

Upstairs, we stopped for a Pepsi Free at “Cafe 80′s.” (Look at the pattern on the countertops, the “vintage” candy… at this moment I realized this could totally be a viable restaurant concept today.)

My friends at Wieden+Kennedy made a film that debuted at the launch featuring several of the original cast members. See how many you can spot (hint: the guy behind the counter is going to clean up this town). I especially love that there’s now a Nike store at the Lone Pine Mall.

There was no Huey Lewis performance, however, the DJ did play “Back in Time”—which I performed a routine to with my friend Lelia at the neighborhood picnic in 1985. But the night would not have been complete without an appearance from Christopher Lloyd. Here he’s being introduced by the evening’s host, Joel McHale, to a standing ovation. Great Scott!

And it was a huge honor to meet Tinker Hatfield, Nike’s shoe guru, who designed the concept for the Nike Airs featured in the film 23 years ago, then helped bring the actual shoe to fruition. And yes, they are working on actual power laces to make them more like the ones in the movie (you can read my story at Fast Company to find out more). Power laces? That may be more impressive than designing a flux capacitor, in my book.

A pair of the shoes were auctioned off live. I was never clear if the final amount was in 1985 or 2015 dollars. You can buy your own (and check out more fantastic references to the film) at Back4TheFuture.com

As I mentioned before, the most amazing part about this whole event was that it all centers around raising money for Fox’s foundation to “erase Parkinson’s disease from the space-time continuum.” He wasn’t there that night, but he used this opportunity to make several awesome appearances promoting his work for Parkinson’s this week: One on Letterman, hyping the shoes, and one on last night’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, which may have been the funniest episode I’ve ever seen.

For the whole story on the party, as well as my interview with Tinker, head over at Fast Company’s design site, Co.Design. Go ahead and click over there now. I’m serious. Make like a tree, and get out of here.

More photos from the future.

For the first nine years I lived in LA I was at war with a driving range. I have nothing against golf, mind you. Rather I hated the bloated bubble of green mesh that contained the driving range, a ragged box of netting that billowed in the breeze, ostensibly to prevent the wayward balls from tapping on the roofs of its neighbors.

The green monster was taller than anything in the surrounding area. It began to loom on the horizon from miles away as I’d drive the 101 towards Hollywood, growing bigger and gaudier and dingier as I got closer to the Melrose exit. As even more of an affront, it was next door to my favorite ice cream parlor, and I’d have to walk by it every time I got my scoops of salty chocolate and olive oil gelato.

Why did I hate it so? Like much of Los Angeles, it was ugly.

Los Angeles is definitely in the running to be one of the ugliest places I have ever been. 75% our buildings are made from exposed cinderblocks. The stucco we’ve swabbed over the other 25% isn’t making matters any better. The freeways lacing through our basins cut wide, cement gashes in our once-scenic neighborhoods. The streets are too wide. The trees are too few. I mean, would you just look at this photo I took of downtown? Ugly apartments, reflected in an ugly hole in the ground, in an ugly vacant lot!

Of course, the optimist in me says that living in an ugly city is good. Without any ugly we wouldn’t have anything to make prettier. We can have a hand in shaping our own cities, seeing the flaws and improving upon them. But this positive thinking often leaves me exasperated and depressed. How can I work to fix a city that can’t see past its own wrecking balls? When did shoddy landscaping become acceptable in a city where our weather is perfect? What kind of a place values cars over people? Why did we tear down an entire downtown and build another one—yet one that still has ugly holes in ugly vacant lots?!

That’s why I hated the driving range net so much. It cast a shadow over an entire neighborhood, yes, but it mostly represented to me how LA has no respect for itself. I walk around the city moaning about our lack of sculpted parks and Beaux-Arts buildings (which are, by the very nature of their names, beautiful). I fret about the unshaded sidewalks and mourn the crappy bus stops. Why us?

What LA needs is someone to take control of our ugliness. I’m not talking about some powerless Ugly Council that hands out tickets. I’m talking about some Robert Mosesian dictator who would sweep his hands over the city and instantly de-uglify it. I will gladly volunteer for the job. In fact, here are a few things I would declare ugly immediately:

• Vinyl signs
• Parking lots
• McMansions
• Transit-Oriented Developments with Bright Colors and Bad Retail
• Freeway onramps
• Freeway offramps
• Hollywood & Highland

Note that I believe ugly is an equal opportunity characteristic. I’m not calling for that loaded word “gentrification” here. The worst offenders when it comes to ugly are the homes of the very rich. The best and most beautiful signage—the handpainted kind—is often found in lower income neighborhoods. Very few things over 100 years old can be considered ugly, yet very few new buildings escape being whacked by the fugly stick. Example: Nothing can help these ghastly new houses I found in Silver Lake.

Dude, they have GOLD TRIM.

One day, while riding my bike home, I realized the evil net had vanished. And not just the net, the driving range itself. It had been replaced by a coming-soon, non-golfing facility for Los Angeles Community College. How long had it been gone? How had I not noticed that it was no longer spreading its evil green tentacles of tackiness over Hel-Mel?

When I went to get ice cream one week A.N. (After Net), I stopped in front of the former driving range to celebrate the newly blue sky, unencumbered by fraying green mesh. As I looked at the architectural rendering of what was to come, I felt a twinge of loss for the regulars who I used to watch chainsmoking between swings. And the Korean pop music that blasted well into the night. And that weird restaurant on the second floor. And the fact that, hilariously, you could play golf in the middle of the city, aiming your drives for the Hollywood sign. I looked up at what now was a hole in the neighborhood. It was only then that I realized how much I missed it.

Ugly is in the eye of the beholder, of course. One man’s driving range net is another man’s Disney Concert Hall. The best parts of LA make us feel proud to live where we do. But the worst parts of the urban environment—the chock-a-block apartments, the cracking liquor signage, the seedy vacant lots—are what make LA so interesting. And the fact that we get the entire spectrum, all stacked on top of each other, sometimes on the same block, scattered across this wide basin, makes us the best worst-looking place on the planet. And maybe that’s the beauty of living in LA.

What about you? Do you think LA’s ugly?

I’m celebrating ten years in LA with ten days of LA stories. Go here for more LAX.

Living in Hollywood, like I did for almost seven years, it was the one question I got asked more than anything else: “What’s the best way to see the Hollywood sign?” Being the generous LA resident that I am, the kind of person who knows exactly how vital money from both Omahaians and Okinawaians is to our economy, I always took the time to patiently explain to the inquirer where they could find the most low-impact, high-impression view. From the fourth-floor viewing platform of the Hollywood and Highland mall. I’m serious.

95% of people are satisfied with that view, as well as its proximity to Forever 21. But another 5% think they can get EVEN CLOSER. Yet like the people who live in the neighborhood it names, the Hollywood sign is elusive, and slippery. Just when you think you know where it is, it vanishes behind another stucco turret. In fact, the people who live in Beachwood Canyon—the tangle of narrow streets just below the sign—even designed their homes with extra turrets, just to confuse tourists. But with the advent of the GPS, technology now helps drivers to confidently navigate those nasty twists and turns deep in this residential area. And the neighbors, who believed their stucco turrets would forever trump satellite technology, are becoming as nasty as the hairpin curves they live on.

Now a piece of land art that spells out the puzzling words ”TOURISTS GO AWAY” has been created by some frustrated Beachwood sculptor near one of the places where tourists like to go. This work is so abstract in nature I’m not sure exactly what it’s trying to say, but I think it’s a bad strategy on behalf of the artist, anyway: I mean, don’t you think tourists will come up here just to see the Hollywood equivalent of the Spiral Jetty?

As Curbed LA noted, the new installation shares real estate with my other favorite Hollywood sign. In case you can’t read Beachwood Pidgin, that sign says: “No trespassing private property violaters will be persecuted.” That’s right. I had no idea that the violaters in our midst had such ideological or religious differences from the rest of us that they needed to be persecuted. But with this type of grasp on seventh-grade English, I doubt the signmaker did either.

But I’m not going to send you to the land of “GO AWAY TOURISTS,” whatever that means, because, in all honesty, that’s not the best place to see the sign if you want to get EVEN CLOSER. The best place is near Lake Hollywood Park, located at 3204 Canyon Lake Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90068. I made a map of the area to help you find it. To prove how great this location is, I’m going to show you a photo taken of me and Keith here.

Look how close we are to the sign! See how famous we look! We even appear younger and thinner! This photo was taken exactly where that camera icon is on my map. You do not have to drive through Beachwood Canyon to get there. You can get there from the 101. It is absolutely the best option if you’re driving. You can relax in a secret dog park and check out Madonna’s old house and Moby’s current house. Then, if you must, you can keep walking towards the sign for as long as you want, unencumbered by your car and fear of potential persecution. You violater.

But I’m not going to lie to you. Since we’re talking about the best way to see the Hollywood sign, I have to say that the very best way to see the Hollywood sign is like this. Hopefully as part of an awesome three hour round-trip hike from Bronson Canyon where there’s plenty of parking. Or as part of a shorter hike from the end of Beachwood Canyon Drive where there’s access to transit only one mile from the trailhead (while you’re there, hike the Beachwood stairs). Or most preferably, as part of the Big Parade, the 40-mile urban hike through LA that ends at this very spot. Tourists are, of course, welcome.

I put all of these tips, plus a car-less way to get to Griffith Observatory, another great viewing and hiking-to-the-sign spot, on the Google Map I made.

Tourists Go Away photo via Curbed LA