York Street in LA and American Sprawl

LA is one of the biggest cities in the country and it is basically flat. The buildings are typically not high and people live in neighborhoods not too different than the one I live in South Austin. This is York Street in northeast LA. Austin is kinda flat too. Downtown Austin is getting denser, but so are most American cities like LA. I come from a small town  in Wisconsin and the small city of Madison so I tend to think Austin is big but LA is way more spread put than Austin. LA has a ton more neighborhoods with a lot more ethnic and cultural diversity. Still, neighborhoods all tend to look alike to me but with interesting differences. A mix of commercial spaces and homes in lots with a yard. I love the old look to many of the houses. I can't imagine cities like this can survive due to their dependence on autos and gasoline. It seems unsustainable but who knows what technologies might fuel the vehicles of the future. I hate driving a lot and I loved biking up and down these streets to get the pics. But I drove around so much I can see getting use to it so you can do all kinds interesting things there is to do in cities like LA. I would just need more money.                                          

Hotel Congress in Tucson

Years ago I lived in Tucson and visited the clubs in the Hotel Congress complex of bars. Now I stay in the hotel when I travel west. These pics show the inside and outside. The price of the room in these historic hotels is a little higher than the Hotel 6s of the world but it feels so much better staying there. A Hotel 6 and their ilk feel rundown even if they're recently built. There is run down in the surrounding area in central Tucson but the Hotel Congress has avoided becoming part of it. If more people wanted to stay in a historic hotel then there would be no room for me. Ironically I want these businesses to do well but I'm glad most people stay away. The room pics show a fascinating part of the building - the old and new cooling and heating systems. The small modern AC unit works well to cool the place but it looks so cheap and chincy compared to the old and authentic feel of the old systems but which were inferior in effect. For example that little window above the door would have been kept open so the swamp cooler could blow cool air into the room from the hallways. Not as cool as AC and its harder to avoid your neighbors loud voices and hacking coughs. Still I've seen the old system work just fine.

Mt Washington Neighborhood in LA

On my first drive up to the street I stayed on in LA I was shocked how close the streets were to the homes and how little room there was to maneuverer. The small avenues winded and twisted around so you couldn't see what was next. You had to be ready to stop on a dime or risk backing up - on a windy road. These homes are so expensive that they lend credence to the idea that people move to Austin from California think the house prices are reasonable. When these homes were built covers many decades. I'm not sure if that means some have been rebuilt over time or there has been in fill. I think I can see a difference in style that connects to when it was built. The homes seemed way too compacted to me. But I stayed in a one-room apartment in the basement of a house and I didn't get to roam around a couple thousand foot house with a back yard which I could get to and you don't see in these pics. It probably feels a lot better to live in the whole house. And many houses probably had a nice view of some part of LA.

More Than Two Cities in LA

Visiting my brother and his family in LA is a fantastic adventure every time. I stayed in the Mt. Washington neighborhood and these photos come from a major street about a mile and a half from the hill that I stayed on. Deja vu, dude. Downhill deja vu. The homes up on the Mt. are about a million, more or less. Even the homes you see on the street are close to that. Some businesses seem to thrive. Others are the run down and that's what I focused on here. I didn't look up how much the properties of the run down are. You see poor and homeless people too, but not many.

Silos Near Downtown JC

Silos are all over rural America. I see these kinds of six- or twelve-packs more often in the South these days but I travel more there also. I'm not sure how old these are but its not infrequent to see them near RR tracks by the old downtown (and JC's old downtown is kind of visible to the left of the structures), although I see it more often in a smaller town than Johnson City, Tennessee. Maybe JC was much smaller when they were built. My friend told me they used to collect and mix ingredients for KFC and its secret ingredients on the site. You can see in the later pics that its being redeveloped. Apparently the city and local neighborhoods have recently considered various proposals to reuse the land. The final deal was remaking the main building into corporate offices. I saw the building before and it looked like the whole thing should get torn down. I guess the structure is better than it looked. I'm fascinated with that situation and want to know why they keep it or destroy it. And who knows what will happen to the old silos. I would tear them down because what could you do with them? Unless they are made into works of art. Paint them with murals or something interesting. But my friend said there are numerous options. This whole street is rundown in many places but there's also interesting sites. More to come.