From the ghetto to Bel Air

I was planning on giving you an apartment tour today but I had an interesting morning that I thought I would share with you instead. Jason, Sean and I headed out today to visit the L.A. science center. We never made it due to traffic. Wow traffic, that could be a whole blog on it's own, it is soooo bad down here. There are 36 freeways in L.A., there are 3 in the Seattle area. Aside from the congestion I really enjoy the drivers down here, the most aggressive wins. If you hesitate while driving, you lose, and by lose I mean you lose another 20 min trying to turn. Everybody uses their horns, and nobody uses their signals. It really keeps your attention on the road. At home I can drive with my knee while on the phone handing a toy back to Sean (sorry mom), that is not wise down here. Ok, ok, it is not wise anywhere, but it is possible at home.

Ok, back to our morning. We got lost trying to find the right freeway and since there was ton's of traffic congestion and we were dealing with a toddler we decided to abort the science center mission and just drive around a little. When we were trying to find the right freeway we pulled off and found ourselves in a very bad part of town. Now honestly, it is probably nothing compared to several other parts of L.A. but it was far worse than what we would consider ghetto at home. This was really ghetto!

I do not have very many pictures for two reasons, one: I didn't think to get my camera out until we were almost back on the freeway, and two: I didn't feel comforatable with my Canon Rebel xti hanging out of a car snapping pictures in the ghetto.

Since I didn't get very many pictures I will give you a few highlights, there are boards and barbed wire on everything, everything is spray painted. Every home or business has bars on every window (if they had windows) and doors. There was filth on the ground all over. I am quite positive that there were several condemned, shut down, uninhabitable buildings with many inhabitants living in them anyway. Unfortunately, I only got a few pictures and they are not very representative of what I saw.



It may be hard to see, but there are bars on all the windows, not to mention a fence in front of a brick wall and there was barbed wire between them.


Getting back on the freeway we saw this traveling restaurant. Mmmmm

Talk about ghetto, look at the crack in our windshield.


So once we were back in the right direction we decided to pull off the freeway on Sunset, this leads to UCLA,


and Bel Air. There are several entrances like this getting into the Bel Air neighborhoods. Not too shabby.


It looks like this is where a good majority of the wealth in L.A. resides. You really can't see the houses, they all have fences to keep those annoying camera happy tourists out.


Talk about whiplash! From the ghetto to Bel Air in less than 10 miles. This "house" was a magnificent massive mansion. Imagine the ones we couldn't see.


I actually don't know very much about the residents in Bel Air, but I do know that Nancy Regan is on this road somewhere.


This was quite a fortress, we looked on Google maps when we got back to the apartment and from the air this is a massive estate.


Nope, not a hotel, a house.


They really like their walls here (no barbed wire).


We drove up the hill as far as we could and this is the view from Bel Air back towards downtown.


An interesting note, the houses up at the top of Bel Air are tiny, old, and not nearly as extravagant as the ones at the bottom. Apparently due to the lack of acreage these houses are not as desirable.


Most of you who know me know that I have not traveled abroad, therefore my world view is limited, with that in mind my observation could be wrong. It seems to me that in places of mass wealth there are also places of mass poverty and crime. Why is this?

I have read about places where extreme wealth resides next to extreme poverty, such as South Africa, but I tend to think that it is due to a different government system, or a corrupt government in some areas of the world. Here in America, tax dollars from areas such as Bel Air (not to mention the entire Hollywood industry) surely must filter to the areas around them. Of course that would only impact the schools, roads, and services.

Is it possible that extreme wealth is socially depressing? Does it tend to stifle the desire to improve your situation since you could never achieve such a standard? Hmmm

Or does it have nothing to do with what is socially around you and everything to do with the attitude of entitlement. What is given is not earned and therefore not respected. Don't get me wrong, the concept of entitlement transcends the lines of wealth and poverty, that's why the Hilton girls are running around with there panties on there heads right!