The Wild Contradictions (and Beauty) of Long Beach, CA
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- Опубліковано 16 кві 2024
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Long Beach, California. Home of one of the busiest container ports in the world, expensive housing, a very long beach, and...over 2500 active oil wells. Yes, you heard that right.
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Previous CityNerd Videos Referenced:
- The Scandal of Car Harm: • All the Ways Car Depen...
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- Is Los Angeles Salvageable? • In Search of Walkable ...
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Resources:
- cdn.beta.metro.net/wp-content...
- knock-la.com/long-beach-oil-d...
- www.conservation.ca.gov/calge...
- ridelbt.com/watertaxis/
- www.taptogo.net/TAPAgencies
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Be...
- www.greenpeace.org/usa/big-oi...
- www.sierraclub.org/california...
- leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/fa...
- www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local...
- www.dailynews.com/2022/09/16/...
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Images
- Signal Hill oil field panorama, 1923 By The Aerograph Co. - This image is available from the United States Library of Congress Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID pan.6a17401, Public Domain, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
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Welcome to...THE COMMENTS. Read this one first! Bellroy has cool items that improve my quality of life nicely, AND they're made from upcycled materials. Receive 10% off anything from their store using my custom link: bit.ly/49dGfMp
To be fair an hour plus from long beach to dt is likely beating or same as car travel given la traffic
So disgusting that these anti sprawl videos are promoting the climate change agenda. It is no wonder the movement has become so partisan and not much has been done!
@@jerredhamann5646 its abt the same with mild traffic i've done both. Rail would be faster if it didn't street run for so much
Nice sponsor Ray, you’ve got my number 😅
Thanks Ray, I'm glad...TO BE HERE!
A full video examining why New York and Los Angeles are so different from one another would actually be fire.
YES! In particular, I please compare their road networks and their transportation numbers. I want to know why i can scoot everywhere in literally everywhere in North NJ and NYC, but in Los Angeles, I wouldn’t? Im incredibly fascinated to see the fundamental differences in the history leading up to New York York being so walkable all around verses LA. Is think the only difference is Trains and Streetcar history…. But wait LA had train and tram history! Idk!
Why?
Countless reasons. The forces that created both cities were completely different.
@@aygwm exactly why we want a video on it.
Geography but at the end of the areas are pretty similar
Seconded. Though i already did some reading and highly recommend the books by Mike Davis, specifically City of Quartz and Ecology of Fear.
Car-free Angeleno here!! I take Metro to Long Beach regularly and sometimes bring my bike too. I'm part of a community in LA that is advocating for car-free mobility (we worked on Measure HLA, which you should read about if you don't know about it!), and most of my friends here are either car-free or extremely car-lite. I agree with you that there are a TON of contradictions of the amazing weather here and people still choosing to spend it in metal cages, and we are working to make mixed mobility and walkability a reality here. I think that many parts of LA are in better shape, mobility-wise, than Long Beach, and it doesn't really make sense to me given Long Beach's historic grid, Metro access, and bike infrastructure. I think that a lot of it is a mentality issue that needs addressing.
My cousin has lived in LA his entire life and only owned a car for like 5 years. I also have a best friend who lived there car-free for years (he has epilepsy and can't drive). Living car-free in southern California is possible, just difficult
I also live in the area and am car free. It's much more difficult than I had anticipated to get around, but I do love hopping on the train and going to Long Beach or Santa Monica.
Wow, you're bordering on sainthood.
I feel like advocating for car free mobility in LA is like advocating vegetarianism to a pride of lions.
Even with all the LA Metro developments (which have serious built-in limitations) it will still have a very limited impact on the modal share of the city.
Because building "long and thin" transit lines is the sure way to limit the switch in modal share.
It's much less practical and with incomparably less capacity than it could have been.
@@KyrilPG the problem is that the LA metro is both polycentric and also very large so the metro has a lot of ground to cover
I live in Los Alamitos and want to get into urban planning. Can I volunteer with your group?
My in-laws lived in Long Beach, and I used to complain bitterly about visiting there every Christmastime. After my father-in-law died, my mother-in-law moved to Phoenix, where I discovered that I LOVE LONG BEACH!
Perspective is an amazing thing.
Oh, lord... I drove (of course!) through Phoenix once. I decided I'd rather drive through hell!
This past winter, I went to Long Beach to meet up with a friend visiting from France. He was staying with a Long Beach resident who doesn't own a car and not because he is too poor. He happily told me about how he can get anywhere he needs to go via transit. I had no idea that was possible ANYWHERE in the LA area.
LA has been investing insane amounts of money into transit since the 90s. They now have a completely functional subway/metro and they always had an insanely dense bus network.
The US urbanist community is just too suck up to notice the pretty crazy progress that LA and California in general has made on transit in the last 30 years. Now every major California city has some type of metro system, regional rail, and very dense bus networks. Eventually, they will understand. But I still don't understand what makes the online urbanist community so intent on portraying California as it's still the 80s.
@@TohaBgood2 I've lived in California all my life and I can tell you "completely functional" is not an accurate description of our transit systems. I've needed a car everywhere I've lived, including near San Diego and LA.
Not only that but on this trip in Dec, my friends and I were fine in the core of Long Beach, but in order to see the sights around Hollywood and Beverly Hills in a timely fashion, we needed my car. And that meant a fair bit of traffic. I'm proud of the progress my state has made, but we have a long way to go still.
Yes, you can go to universal studio directly if you live close to a station, anywhere
Sadly metro line extend to Beverly hills will be open 2025-2027, they already finished digging all the tunnels
I've been getting by without a car in the area for a while now, but it's not easy.
It's mind-blowing that wind mills, especially off shore wind farms, are constantly hindered by being an "eyesore" but these oil drilling machinery can exist endlessly in the middle of a community
It's as simple as the oil wells got there before the NIMBY's
They've been there a long time. I remember seeing them when I was a kid in the 70s and being fascinated by the "fake islands."
I’m amazed 66 people have liked that comment. It challenges my faith in Democracy.
@nunyabidness3075
The more you interact with that comment, the more visible it will be and more people will like it. I won’t join the faith in democracy discussion.
You really can't understand why people complain about something that can be seen from 20 miles away but not about something that can't be seen from two blocks away? Sounds like a skill issue on your end.
Award-winning definition of the Los Angeles River : « really only a river in the sense that it discharges liquids of unknown origin into the Pacific ocean ».
The LA River is as much a river as any other river--it was actually encased in concrete because it was once too mighty, and would regularly flood, causing tons of damage!
Maybe a little harsh...but my past impressions of the LA 'river" is that it's just another wash
It's upper reaches are still clean water run-off from the mountains, but the further it travels through the city, the more street run-off dominates. Fun fact: Los Angeles was founded in the downtown area because the Los Angeles River provided a plentiful supply of clean drinking water there. There are serious attempts to clean the river up and there are some small successes, so there is still hope.
@@CityNerd It only really gets interesting if you visit during rainy season when there isn't a drought. I've only seen it look like a proper river once lol.
@@SatchmoBronsonMighty is a strong, strong, strong word for that brook. As far as I can tell, it’s roughly the same flow and channel size as 4 Mile Run in Arlington, VA. That stream also occasionally caused damaging floods, but it’s not considered a river by anybody. If you want to see what a river looks like, look at the Potomac, the Delaware, or the Hudson, the Ohio, the Monongahela, or the Mississippi.
CityNerd, Thank you for limiting your grumbling about the $40 ticket price for boarding the Queen Mary. Visiting the Queen Mary when I was about ten years old set me on a trajectory that led to a degree in Naval Architecture and many years of employment in the engineering department of a large shipyard. -GV
You can get it after like 6pm for 10dollars
I never really found my thing. I’m so happy for people who got inspired and then had long careers doing something they love. Well done!
The Queen Mary is an unforgettable experience and worth every dollar. City Nerd does not like history.
Greg!! Love that you're still watching. I should mention that if you go at certain off-peak times, admission is ten bucks, and also the themed tours might be a better value than just paying 40 bucks to walk on.
The Queen Mary was where my high school held its junior-senior prom (like, 40 miles away?!) every year. Wow that was 1972 lol.
"Indianapopolitan" here: lol we have much bigger problems than a giant racetrack two miles out from downtown. Light rail is still illegal, I'm not even kidding. We just got done fighting a senator trying to ban a new BRT line to the airport, over his insistence that a single dangerous rundown stroad remain two lanes in both directions (when there are several much more widely used ways to get downtown). We can barely get anything pedestrianized downtown, and we're not dense enough for the racetrack to even matter. Let us have our brickyard so we can get SOME enjoyment from cars going vroom here
I second this. Indianapolis is so broken, I didn't even notice the race track. I don't know anyone who cares about race cars, but Indiana is about as car-brained as it gets, unfortunately.
This is such a depressing comment. Both the political and urban landscape and that watching wheeled internal combustion engines driving in endless circles during a climate crisis is somehow the only solace that can be found -_-
Indianapolis at least has some things going for it with the BRT routes and bike trails (Cultural and Monon Trail). Better than Boise and Idaho where they can't even run buses past 7 pm or on Sundays...at all. I had the same level of bus service in a rural Idaho college town...
I would pin this comment if I weren't contractually obligated to pin a Bellroy comment lol. So good. Dang I gotta get to Indy
Going to Indy for the 500 weekend would be an epic opportunity to talk about the interaction of urbanism and major events…just saying.
I lived in Long Beach without a vehicle for just about 5 years. I can confidently say that Long Beach is one of the only places in Southern California that I could live. Living within walking distance of the Line formerly known as the Blue Line opens you up to one of the best car free experiences in the country. It is very walkable, but the most frustrating thing is that Long Beach calls itself "The most bike friendly city in America" which is an absolute joke. The bike culture in LB is basically nonexistent and honestly terrifying. I think the number one thing LB shines at though is the fact that there is some of the most affordable housing in the LA area due to the preserved supply of pre-war construction.
Yup, LBC is far cheaper than almost every city in adjacent Orange County, for example.
I live in Long Beach and I made a big push to get around via bike and after some scares and accidents I do it only for instances where I know I can be safer.
Looks like my opinion on Long Beach is here!
salute emoji
I actually wouldn't be surprised if longshoremen lived in downtown Long Beach! Love it or hate it, the ILWU has quite a lot of power in west coast ports and longshoreman salaries are >$100k.
A house I recently sold in Long Beach was sold to a longshoreman! so, it has happened at least once :P
A lot of them live in Rancho Palos Verdes or San Pedro, but also I think many live in Redondo Beach, Long Beach, & Seal Beach. They make bank.
I'm sure there are longshoremen in the region who own a home as a result of being grandfathered in via Prop 13 .
God I wish I was in a union lol
This is a missed point in the video. There are very few longshore workers compared to 40-50 years ago, but labor negotiations have made union card-carrying jobs an easy 6 figures.
The new low-paying blue collar work around the ports is truck driver. The level of abuse that logistics companies dish to owner-operators is horrific. The ports are trying to move more freight by rail, but they are contending with a national market they have zero control over.
I had to pause everything I was doing to watch this!! LB is my hometown and I know it’s pointless to comment on UA-cam videos before watching them but this is a historic event for me
Edit: okay finished the video, you made a lot of good points I agree with. Here’s my few cents as someone who lived there from ages 3-25 (well, with one year of my 20s in another state):
1. It’s absolutely possible to live there without a car, but the ease at which you can do so will high depend on the area of the city you’re in. LB Transit is pretty okay at best, and incredibly frustrating at worst. It does not service all parts of the city equally, so depending on where you’re going it can take anywhere from 20-60 minutes on average. Certainly not always convenient but anyone who tells you it’s impossible is a liar. When I lived there I would joke I was probably the only Southern Californian without a driver’s license. Long story long, it can be done!
2. Oh god, the Blue Line. It is completely insane that it hasn’t been completely overhauled to make getting to LA faster and easier. And you’re lucky if your destination is at the end of the Blue Line, because if you need to transfer to another metro line to get to your final destination, the full journey could take anywhere from 2-3 hours.
3. Fuck the Grand Prix. Even taking your notes on it out of the occasion, it’s so damn noisy. 😂 You can hear it from miles and miles away, even if you don’t live downtown.
4. The housing/rental costs are outrageous. I know so many people in their 30s and 40s who live with roommates, not because that’s their preferred living situation, but because it’s all they can afford. I was fortunate enough to be able to live with my mom the last 6 years before I moved away, but had I wanted to stay, I probably would have left anyways because the cost of living there is astronomical. I’m sure there are other people who grew up in LB or otherwise spent a long time who have had to leave by necessity, and that’s heartbreaking.
5. The oil islands are such an eyesore.
6. You are spot-on about how much people talk about driving and parking in SoCal!
Conclusion: I know it doesn’t seem like it from this comment, but I love Long Beach. The culture, diversity, queerness, food, art, and music scene…there’s a lot going for it. But there’s so much that needs improvement, too, which can feel disheartening. I’m really grateful I grew up there, but I’m very happy I was able to leave. I’m stoked you were able to visit and give us your perspective. If you ever return give the community tab a heads-up so your loyal viewers (me) can give you recommendations!
Love this breakdown! Also from Long Beach (8yo - 29yo minus 4 yrs away for college). Was car dependent pretty much my entire life. Only took public transit during summer camp or if we absolutely had to (i.e. parents couldn't pick us up so we had to take the blue line). It's wild because compared to other places I've lived, Phoenix and Tulsa, LB public transportation is convenient as hell. It truly is just a mindset....Also, I grew up down the hill from Signal Hill and never really thought twice about the oil pumps. It wasn't until I moved away that I was kind of like, what a wild thing to have in the middle of a neighborhood 😂
Still LOVE Long Beach tho!! Fun to see an outsiders perspective
Also, 100% fuck the Grand Prix! Lol. Loudest few days of the year. Could hear those cars all over the city
4:54 I notice this non-stop whenever I'm out and about, it's just staggering how much of life is driving, parking, car car car. My favorite is when they complain about how far they had to park, when the bus I took dropped me off at the front door.
but LA busses. yikes.
I live in Long Beach! Thanks for making a video about us.
Go Beach!
Facts! 562
Even a smaller city is hard to talk about comprehensively, I'm sure I could come back and do more!
Please! @@CityNerd
Explore north long beach next time!
“That means you’re gonna have beaches, especially long ones” had me weak 😂 but silliness aside, I agree.. Long Beach has a lot of potential
I live car free in DT Long Beach. My family loves it and it has been a great place to raise my kids. We bike everywhere. The city is best in the spring and summer during festival season. Every weekend has several events to choose from.
There has been a lot of mixed use infill construction. It feels like the city is on the verge of a major transformation. We have a lot of new residential units and empty street-facing storefronts. I'm hoping for the day when we get a wave of new shops and restaurants.
Getting around LA from Long Beach is pretty easy, though it does take longer than it should. On occasion we will rent a car and every time we are reminded why we don't own one. I would rather spend an extra half-hour relaxing on a train or bus than have to be behind the wheel and then waste time looking for parking. We really need to build a subway that connects DTLB with Cal State LB and the airport. It would also be great to have a direct rail connection to Santa Ana to the east and the bay cities to the west.
Thanks for coming! I thought I'd bugged you about Long Beach before, but maybe not! I've lived here without a car for 3.5 years and got into a nice place with a 95 walkscore in 2023 (and I also work in transportation here). I think you would have liked the Zaferia and Rose Park areas much better than Downtown, and Long Beach Transit punches far above its weight (especially if you live in the right areas). I would say that of all the cities in LA and Orange counties, Long Beach is one of the most walkable and is making steps to emphasize that part of its appeal.
I live in Zaferia and haven’t owned a car for about 10 years
I agree. I was disappointed that he really only focused on the Westside of Long Beach. He didn’t even mention CSULB and how he felt it interacted with the urbanism in the area. Thought that was pretty strange.
As someone who lives in Orange County, Long Beach is the perfect mix of OC and LA. You’re right in between both and Long Beach is far cheaper to live in than LA. I’d also say Long Beach is more diverse than much of OC and also more welcoming to all groups and ages. Long Beach definitely attracts a younger crowd with its Belmont Shore area and the CSULB being nearby but I wouldn’t call it a “college town”. It’s also rapidly improving with dense housing developments going up in a number of areas so my guess is Long Beach won’t be a cheap option for long.
I loved out here to attend CSULB and never left ❤️
I never expected to see a whole video dedicated to my home town! Thanks for showing the world Long Beach!
We were house hunting in LA county and because it's so ludicrously expensive we were looking everywhere including Long Beach, Wilmington, and Carson. Honestly the biggest concerns we had were the health impacts. Yeah, the jacks are scary to look at, but the real concerns come from the ports and the oil refineries. Cardiovascular disease, asthma, and cancer rates are much, much higher for the populations that live downwind of those facilities than they are elsewhere in LA county. The area regularly has some of the worst air quality in the country (it was truly gnarly during covid when the ports were backed up). SB1137 needs to survive referendum. Unfortunately, though the county tried to ban new oil drilling-which would have included LB-the CA Supreme Court struck down a similar ban in Monterey county as unenforceable while the referendum is on the ballot. So the city is trying to push forward new wells while local advocates sue them to stop. It's a big mess.
On the more hopeful side, there are community programs that are actively seeking to remediate the soil around decommissioned oil wells and providing resources/education for at risk communities. Even as the number of pollutants has increased, the rates of cancer have decreased. The drilling will also eventually end. Which is good, because it's a beautiful place with a great community.
another detail when house hunting around LA (the map he uses shows how wide spread the oil fields are beyond Long Beach) is there is a map that shows /capped/ oil wells and it's not advisable to buy a house over a capped oil well, for reasons that are easy to imagine.
I get diesel particulate on my shrubs in long beach☹️
@@WayneBremser oh yeah, for sure. My partner is a geologist so it's something we were aware of. It will be interesting to see what happens in LA as we stop pumping oil. In Ventura they've been getting more tar on the beaches since oil production has dropped as those wells were alleviating pressure in the natural tar seep.
Good point. I've been living in Long Beach for 20 years and I'm contemplating moving because of the air quality.
Really recommend Robert Fogelson’s “The Fragmented Metropolis: Los Angeles 1850-1930” as a great view into how LA’s urban land use emerged. Essentially a story of sprawling real estate speculation preceding the establishment of strong local governance. The electric tram lines were built by speculators to entice buyers, but they were, on their own, money losing propositions. Once they had served their purpose (selling land and cheap houses) the fractured city governments never really treated them as public goods/services and let them wither rather than really knitting them together into a cohesive system. And then automobiles showed up. At least that’s my memory of the thesis.
Long Beach is f***ing awesome. Never been in a city so diverse, beautiful, and complex. Its truly everything that makes the LA area unique but in only 1 city.
I live in Long Beach and would not consider living any where in the City of Los Angeles. And get this I am an engineer for the City of Los Angeles for the last 33 years! Long Beach is a like a big city with small town appeal.
"The expensive housing of New York with the car dependency of.. Phoenix," is so apropos.
tbf the Phoenix comparison is more than a little hyperbolic compared to the New York comparison. Long Beach isn't the best city of its size in the US on car dependency, but its very far from the worst, and probably closer to the best (albeit against some lackluster competition)
Maybe SLIGHTLY overstating it in both directions, but it's really not too far off
@@CityNerd Maybe for Long Beach, but it seems fitting for San Diego; especially for the parts that aren't directly next to the ocean.
@@CityNerd not by much, I live in Long Beach and have been to both a number of times. Getting through Phoenix and New York depending on the time of the day can be worse in Long Beach.
Thanks for doing a video about Long Beach, I was literally wondering a few days ago why this city isn't more like Jersey City when it comes to density and skyline heights.
Long Beach is about the size of Washington DC both by area (80 vs 68 square miles respectively) and population (451k vs 671k). Imagine if Long Beach had its own robust metro and more densely built homes.
Dude, Long Beach has insanely extensive transit and even light rail. Yes, it's not one of the top transit cities, but there's still some kind of transit every couple of blocks in downtown and you can get pretty much anywhere in the area by transit.
It's still in the top 10% of cities on transit in the US.
This is a prime example of why metro area population is the better metric to use. DC is the business hub of their metro area, and as such, they need to serve millions of commuters. This makes them more analogous to LA than Long Beach.
@@jmlinden7 Metro areas in the US go by county borders. This makes random administrative county borders distort your numbers and making any comparison basically meaningless.
The census metro areas are just not that useful for assessing how an urban agglomeration functions. They include too much rural land. In LA's case specifically it includes a ton of completely rural land and a few massive state and regional parks.
@@jmlinden7 Fine. Compare the DMV area to the Southland and my point still stands: we need more trains here.
@@TohaBgood2 Long Beach should be the Chicago of the West Coast
if California had walkable cities and efficient and robust transit systems paired up with its weather and politics, it would be so objectively the best state in the US, it wouldn't even be a competition
edit: didn't think I'd have to state that affordability would obviously factor in.
A friend who lived there (between LA and Long Beach) and loved it, but moved away, just returned from her first visit back in almost 5 years.
She said it pretty much cured her of wanting to go back to live. The traffic, and driving, is so bad now she said she doesn’t think she could handle it. And she’s talked forever about how much she wants to return…🤷♀️😬
you gotta add in affordable housing, we need that too
Doing so would be great but would increase demand so much that the cost of living would compromise any meaningful quality of life. All of the walkable, transit friendly parts of California are practically impossible for average people to afford.
@@PolkCountyWIProgressive which is exactly why we need more of those places across the continent.
That’s why SF is the best city in the US in my opinion
Long Beach is all fun and games until you realize you're constantly stuck behind, next to and in front of big rigs.
So awesome that you got blessed with that fabulous rainbow though! 🌈
This is where I grew up and where my dad lives and where I own property. It's always been ripe for urbanist development. I've been wanting to do a more extensive metro in LBC forever. Seriously, you showed my childhood home in this video and I know every street in this shot. Crazy.
Here's a topic suggestion that I hope you'll look into: city street lighting: what cities do it well and make it easy on the eye, versus cities (like mine) that put up blinding omnidirectional LED "glare bombs" and don't seem to notice how ugly they are. I've met with the mayor and the city engineer, but they don't seem to get it.
The Longshoremen in the port make pretty good money. Plenty live in LB and the surrounding area. There's still a lot of industry in LB with Boeing, the film industry, and the oil industry
Fluor, Worley, and Jacobs used to have a huge engineering presence on Hughes Way.
We also have a massive space industry
yeah, I posted elsewhere, but average FT worker makes $200K/year + $100K/year in benefits
16 year Long Beach resident originally from the midwest. I tell people back home about how awesome it is to live here because of the weather, beaches, entertainment, vast and nearby natural beauty (I'm an avid hiker/camper), economy, heck, it's even easy to garden here but it's ALL almost outweighed by the horrible traffic. I have even learned to plan ahead when driving home Sunday from a campout because you can get stuck in HOURS of traffic on the Cajon pass or through LA. On SUNDAY. It's bad news.
My wife is from Long Beach and I’m from OC near the area. It definitely has its mix - second street is a bit of an urbanist pocket there with second & PCH as well as once second street runs on to Belmont shore. Thanks for covering the area!
Besides the offshore drilling, majority of the oil wells are in Signal Hill. Majority of those buildings were built around the oil wells. Very few of those wells are capped, I'm 52 and I remember most of those wells from when was a little kid. I moved to LB in the mid 80s and back then some areas in Signal Hill didn't have street lighting because of WW2. Some streets/ areas still have air raid horns mounted, nowadays they're getting hard to find due to modernization...
Love your channel and love living in long beach! Thanks city nerd!
I lived in Long Beach for 6 years (2011 to 2017) and LOVED It. I worked in Anaheim, so I did have to drive to work, but on the weekends I often didn’t have to get in my car at all. I was right downtown and could walk to everything I needed. Other things I didn’t need a car for: I could take the train to Hollywood to see shows at the Hollywood Pantages, which I loved. I also would take a regularly scheduled charter bus to concerts at the Hollywood bowl. I loved LB because it was a place where people of all different economic levels mixed and people were genuinely friendly. I mean like talking to each other while waiting in line at the grocery store friendly. I had to move to the Bay Area for work, and let me tell you….people here are NOT friendly. I miss Long Beach. One note about the Queen Mary: unless something changed, I used to take out of towners there for free. We’d just walk in and explore on our own.
When my grandparents and 4yo father arrived in Long Beach in 1939, they rented an apartment at The Breakers.
By dad grew up to be a bartender at my grandfather's restaurant (where Legend's is now in Belmont Shore), and then a cop.
Granddad started the continuing tradition of floating Christmas Trees in the lagoon in 1947.
Then my sister and I were born in LB in the 1960s.
So much history, so much has changed.
As pointed out by others, Signal Hill is a separate city. And that’s why you are seeing the multitudes of transit operators. Each city can and often does operate its own system along with Los Angeles County’s Metro who run both rail and buses.
FYI, going back to when you filled stadiums with your subscribers, you are approaching Indianapolis Motor Speedway's permanent seating capacity of 257,325 (total capacity with infield seating, standing room etc... is about 400,000).
EDIT: I commented before watching. My bad.
7:37
Menu shot. Menu shot.
Right now you're looking at the menu shot.
I know it’s not nearly the best spot in the country, but it’s my favorite place I’ve lived in. I live in a mixed housing neighborhood (single family houses, multiplexes, and apartments) that has some mixed zoning. It’s close enough walking distance to a lot of really great spots. And the rent I pay here isn’t that more than I was paying when I lived in Nashville, where I could only walk to a few spots, and biking was dangerous. So yeah it definitely has its drawbacks, but overall I’m pretty happy to call this place home.
*also I think that there are plans to further expand bike infrastructure over the next few decades iirc
Finally! My city! Also, Signal Hill where there are oil rigs by the streets is its own city surrounded by Long Beach. Bunch of rich people wanted a separate city within a city to hoard the oil revenue.
SH is much better. The police response in SH is like 2 minutes, where LB is like....maybe.
Long beach is a pretty scrappy city. The sort of problem of it being walkable, is there is so many cool shops/bars to check out, but they are spread out blocks and blocks. Go to the Red Room (Closed) on 4th st, Go to Que Sera on (7th), go eat pizza on broadway (Long Beach Pizza Co). Then go to the Pike for whatever gods reason. I mean they did give us these Scooter to ride around on, but I haven't tried it yet. haha If they had something like the OCsteetcar, or a trolly to jump on, it could be a different experience.
An hour transit into DTLA is not bad! It takes 40 mins by car without traffic and excluding time for parking, meaning it is almost always faster to take transit in. It also took me 1:15 to take transit to LAX when I was living on Cherry & PCH. Lots of transfers, could be faster, but so much better than dealing with the clusterfuck of cars there. Having lived in Long Beach, their transit goes tragically unsung.
It’s awesome seeing your photos of the city where I go to college, and recognising all the familiar streets, restaurants, and landmarks I walk by
i visited long beach and seal beach a couple years ago and yeah, there's a real strong sense that southern california _has_ transit, but it always feels like a tacked-on afterthought. the aqualink is a really good example of the attitude... the seal beach stop is outside of town, at the end of a parking lot, instead of off the downtown pier. the queen mary stop is a parking lot, inside a parking lot, behind like three layers of highways. and the "long beach" stop drops you off in a parking lot, with a freeway and a highway between you and downtown
Transit in the LA area was poisoned from the start. Corruption and lobbying led to city building freeways instead of rail lines, and the effects are obviously still felt today.
Re: the aqualink, the Seal Beach stop you mentioned is not a Seal Beach stop at all. It's Alamitos Bay, which is inside the Long Beach city limits. Seal Beach is not only a distinct city, it is across the county line. So it stands to reason that LB Transit wouldn't service it directly. Also I agree that the Queen Mary stop is ugly and not useful, but there is also a perfectly convenient stop in Rainbow Harbor, just a few feet from where he's standing at 1:11 in the video.
I don’t think the Seal Beach Pier is quite up to code to be a ferry stop. Also, it’s like a 5 min walk to Main Street from the stop in Alamitos Bay.
@@Perfectly_Cromulent351 it's a twenty minute walk
@@Perfectly_Cromulent351 and if it's not up to code... bring it up to code
@@curtismcallister9569 it’s a pier, not a dock. They’re not going to tear down a historic pier to make a 5 min walk slightly shorter.
Long Beach is to L.A. as Oakand is to San Francisco and Tacoma is to Seattle. A rough and tumble blue collar port town sitting next to its more famous and glamorous sister city. It’s probably not the worst place in the world to live if you can afford it. Public transit isn’t terrible and as long as you can work in the area and not commute it seems nice enough.
One non-obvious issue for increasing housing density in Long Beach and any place in California within a few miles of the Pacific Ocean is the California Coastal Commission, which limits a lot of development near the coast.
The CCC is unelected and answers to nobody. Some of there restrictions are for environmental reasons, at least nomially, but others are merely to protect ocean views. So, it is nearly impossible to build a tall building between the ocean and a not-so-tall building, for instance.
I live in LB. Started watching your videos about a year back which led me to start using the bus and metro to get around on occasion. I know its not a New York City when it comes to public transit, but it feels so walkable and not as car dependent when coming from the Central Valley in CA. Great video👍🏽
Lived in Seal Beach and Long Beach from 1997 to 2013, then moved to Seattle. We loved living in LB. Our first place in LB was a rental near the peninsula. From there it was an easy walk/skate to the beach path. We would skate from our rental to the Queen Mary most weekends. A five minute walk took us to restaurants and shops on 2nd street. The whole LA basin has improve greatly since we first moved there. I recall only being able to see the mountains after a winter rainstorm. When we left, we could see the mountains year round. Though still hazy.
I understand your points about the racetrack. However, I will say it’s one of my favorite circuits and would love to visit it during a race. Street tracks are so interesting.
I live in Long Beach and I love it! I’m glad you finally did a video on it. I’ve commented on other urban planning videos before on how walkable Pine St, 4th St, Broadway and Belmont Shore areas are to name a few. They’re trying to be more pedestrian friendly. They’re installing more bike lanes and investing more in alt transport. It’s not where it needs to be but I’m glad it’s one of the few cities in SoCal trying to make a difference.
As for the Long Beach Grand Prix, trust me, everyone down here loves it. It’s not like the Las Vegas F1 race lol the Grand Prix is packed and pure joy watching Porsches scream down Shoreline.
Good for you getting such a cool sponsor! 👍
I used to work on the cruise ships out of Long Beach 20 years ago. There were some entertainment staff that had cars when they got off the ship, but the majority had to walk, take public transit or cabs.
I was pretty impressed by the bus service from the port and in town. The buses were free, clean and the stations had digital signs that told you wait times.
i guess all of those postcards of oil drill pylons on La Beachs from the 1950's just got rediscovered.....
We missed you last week! Welcome back, City Nerd!
The one thing about all the bus agencies is they all accept payment from a single transit card (TAP card)
Even when you're roasting the city I'm yelling LONG BEACH MENTIONED RRAAHHHHH with immense pride
Missed you last week!
Hey! Glad you came to my town.
Living in the north end of Long Beach I can confirm this is all pretty much accurate. In the 20 years I've been here though the transit system has beefed up substantially and a lot of people can get by without a car. The problem is by the time you can afford a house here a car as an expense is tantamount to buying a refrigerator. You have the space for one so you might as well offer yourself the convenience.
Still, if less people drive it does us all a favor so it's still worth the effort.
Sucks that they have to charge just to get on the Queen Mary now. After a series of bad ownership and severe neglect, the ship was in critical failure. There’s been a tremendous amount of restoration and repairs done throughout the ship and I think it looks fantastic! Oh, and the Queen Mary was a transatlantic ocean liner, not a cruise ship. It was also used to transport U.S. troops during WWII. Very historical!!
Love your video on my hometown but did want to correct one thing - those Port of LB/LA longshoremen make absolute BANK but they are probably not living in DTLB, they have some big house in San Pedro or Signal Hill
This URGENTLY needs a clip from SNL's The Californians talking about the roads they take
This is random, but given how underused and unpopular downtown Long Beach is, I always thought the Clippers should’ve explored that area for their new arena. They’re building in Inglewood now, which I believe ultimately may overwhelm that small suburb given that So-Fi Stadium and the Forum are already there (making another arena redundant). An arena in DTLB with a new entertainment district nearby would’ve definitely added a boost to the area.
Keep these videos coming! Random rural cities that one has at most seen on a map!
My great grandpa on my dad’s side developed some of the residential real estate in Long Beach back in the 50’s and 60’s. He also built the buyers of his homes dining tables and coffee tables and fancy front doors upon request. I wish I could get my hands on one of those pieces.
Really wanting a Chicago city visit video! I grew up in WI and have been living in Portland for almost 20 years. Ready for new scenery and Chicago is top of my list.
The reason Long Beach looked like a race track when you were there, was because of the Drift car racing series that was there at the end of May.
Love watching this as someone who has gone car free in los angeles recently.. the quality of my life has greatly improved. Saving so much money too. It’s def doable now.
As a complete aside to every thing else in your vid.... I really enjoyed hearing the term "gifted" used in the original meaning, as in positive attributes of a thing.
Many speakers believe that gifted means given or gave.
Thanks.
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The video is good overall, however, many of the jack pumps you showed are actually in Signal Hill which is a separate city and an enclave surrounded by the City of Long Beach. Signal Hill has its own history and land use policies that made it a very distinct place from Long Beach.
I have distant family who live in the Long Beach area. They had settled out there shortly after WWI, a distant time when Los Angeles County was well served by Pacific Electric and other interurban/electric streetcar systems. It is uplifting to see some of the urban form molded by the region's long-lost interurban railways remains in place. Contrary to popular wisdom, LA County has its share of areas that are refreshingly something other than typical SoCal suburban sprawl (e.g., Koreatown, Westlake, Santa Monica, Venice, Manhattan Beach, Long Beach). One can hope the foundation laid in the pre-auto era will continue to foster the spread of good urbanism throughout the region!
Old Long Beach girl here. About the Queen Mary... I remember when it was free to tour her. I left my hometown 30 years ago. I still love her. My childhood in Long Beach was MAGICAL. Musical theatre (Ha'Penney Player's) sand building contest.. I love Long Beach & if I could afford living there, I certainly would. My hometown & childhood friends are there. God Bless Long Beach, my hometown
1. Great video
2. Would love more of a overview/ map of the transit options
3. For some reason I will check out the sponsor
I visited the aquarium. It was pretty cool.
Had to come here from Nebula to read & leave a comment! I’m so glad you finally visited and covered LB!
I agree there are a ton of contradictions with this city in particular. Growing up in the city, I didn’t even think too much about how bad it was to have the oil pumps so close to people’s homes. But anyway, I don’t live there anymore but I used to commute to DTLB from the Eastside on the bus system and miss it so much. After moving back to LB from Australia, living/working there made me realize that it truly *was* possible to live with one car or less in LA/the U.S.
Compared to the surrounding cities to LB, it is one of the better served in terms of transit, and I hope the city continues to make the streets more amenable to everything but cars. Loved this video!
I miss living in Long Beach, 1.5 blocks from the sand-- biking, rolling, running... I do not miss having to drive to/from/around it, wherever I needed to be in LA/OC. Thanks for reporting. Great cat!
Great video! You almost lost me with Outback Steakhouse as no. 3 but the picture of the oil pump behind the Tesla won it. Great content!
Thanks!
No problem!
Long Beach is an interesting place (I go there occasionally because my bank is there). It's simultaneously industrial and residential. The oil pumps have been there for about 100 years now. The ports of LA and LB (really, it's one big port) are massive - pretty much everyone west of the Mississippi owns something that came through that port. It has ritzy parts and gritty parts. It's kind of a cool city, really.
another banger video, I'm afraid
The shot of Toronto at 10:27 made me really happy that winter is finally over here.
I live in Long Beach. You nailed it! One note I wish you had seen, there is an area of Long Beach around and north of CSULB called "Los Altos" that has well separated roads and streets, best city planning I've seen in LA. Non-Grid, Non-Stroad life is hard to find in LA.
Long Beach is one of the weirdest places on Earth. It feels like a hallucination.
Did you know there is a 42 mile long lightrail line in Belgium?
love your cat's "you have got to be f'n kidding me, Long Beach did what?" look at the end, and then just puts it head down
Thank you for putting the advertisement at the end 👍🏻
Love those travelogs. Hope you can do more from Europe and Asia soon.
Local Angeleno here 👋 thanks for visiting our town. There's no place in the US I'd rather be 😃
I'm am a resident of Long Beach, I would have given you a real tour of the The Beach!!!Thank you for sharing
Very accurate analysis of Long Beach. I hope you were able to get an In & Out Burger.
SF here. So Cal, like basically every other part of CA, is just another big suburb…with a beach
Sitting here watching the bellroy ad with my bellroy wallet my dad got me for my birthday my sophomore year of high school 8 years ago chillin on the table next to me was not somethingI expected great sponsor congrats!
Can do you one on San Diego and talk about their trolley system
When I moved to the Central Valley, I was shocked to discover oil pumps and cotton farms. There are oil pumps just off the highway on the way from Bakersfield to LA, right before the Grapevine. I had never seen them in person before. And I thought cotton was only growing in the south.
I've moved to Long Beach two years ago and I love it here. Long Beach feels like it's the sleeper of SoCal.
Car dependency is the fly in the ointment with SoCal. If it had good urban design it would be paradise.
Long Beach is the most walkable and bikeable city. My friends all live in the same borough and we ride our bikes everywhere!