Chandavkl’s significant write up on how housing discrimination still affects your Chinese food in Los Angeles

https://www.menuism.com/blog/how-housing-discrimination-shaped-chinese-food-in-los-angeles/

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Good read!

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Ah…the good old redlining

So to my fellow Angelinos, you live in the city with the country’s best Chinese food. But since you probably can’t reach any of that food without a long and exhausting drive …

Take the Gold Line to Sierra Madre and grab a Lyft the last few miles.

Depends entirely on where you are starting and where you want to go, but for many people these trips on public transit + Lyft can equal 4-5 hours round trip. For many people, there is at least one transfer, too. Sure. Transit saves you a lot of driving grief, but 4 hours is 4 hours. That’s still a long haul for toothpick lamb, hot pot, etc.
So normals are just not going to do that. They often aren’t even up for driving out during low-traffic hours and cutting transit time down to 2 hours or so.
I think David’s point stands.

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If you live near the Purple or Red line, or the Expo line from around Culver City east, or a few other places with train lines protected from traffic, it’s a good alternative. Lots of other places, not so much.

Interestingly the article has generated a little discussion on Twitter contrasting the urban sprawl of Los Angeles to the compactness of New York (presumably in particular Manhattan). I recall New Yorkers complaining in the past that even if you’re in the San Gabriel Valley you still need a car to get around to sample the Chinese places.

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Yeah, from Manhattan you can get to most outer-borough places foodies want to go within an hour on the subway.

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That’s why Chinese office workers on Wall Street who are mostly of Mainland background are bummed by their local food options. Chinatown is close by but there’s not much there that suits their tastes.

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IIRC you are from up north and are used to BART. many angelenos still won’t take the metro and the amount of time that typically elapses between transfers is apparently a large part of that. i know someone who drives from arcadia all the way down to la mirada to catch the metro into el segundo - because it’s faster that way (and it guarantees her a seat).

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LA commuting patterns are insane. For most of my career my commute was from Los Feliz to Century City, a grueling, surface street only drive of probably 40 minutes. Then I learned that a co-worker who lived in Canyon Country, got off of I-5 at Los Feliz and then basically took my route to Century City, characterizing that as a short cut alternative to catching the I-5 and then taking the 405 to the Westside.

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needing to get to santa monica by 7pm once a week, i discovered that during evening rush hour, it can be less time consuming to take the 210 to the 118 up to granada hills and then take the 405 down (using the carpool lane) than to take the 110 and 10 through DTLA. fortunately i don’t have to do that anymore.

Only in LA could a 25(?) mile detour be a time. saver AND a ‘normal’ thing to do. :roll_eyes:

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San Gabriel’s “Magic Mile” along Valley Blvd. has dozens upon dozens of restaurants and is easily walkable. Really, there aren’t many stretches along Valley that aren’t anything less than quite walkable. The Garfield & Garvey area is. Garvey from Garfield to Atlantic. Further out Garvey, not so much. For all their comments about “walking”, seems no one can handle a walk of half a mile to a mile :smile:

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I feel like I heard this on SNL’s The Californians.

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You may remember a thread years ago on the predecessor board where one of the New York posters was asking for transit information from downtown LA to the SGV and suggestions as to the best place to get off the bus to maximize his SGV eating experience. I mention that because I doubt if very many visitors would consider such an alternative.

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This is true and it’s good to remember!

Haven’t owned a car in 15 years since leaving LA for the DC area. Bestest thing ever. It’s crazy how much Angelenos’ lives revolve around cars. It’s the number one reason I don’t want to move back.

Of course the food scene is a big trade-off.

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After college one of our daughters lived and worked in SF. She made decent money and a friend suggested she buy a new car. I still love her reply: “I rarely drive the car I have. I’m sure not going to buy a new one.” So totally not an option in LA it seems.

I also see on this site that parking and then walking much of a distance isn’t liked very much.

one walkable hub is the intersection of las tunas & mission in san gabriel. tasty noodle house, golden deli & ye olde luscious make it a destination in and of itself,but there are other places worth trying. southern mini town is underrated for shanghaiese. then there’s kingburg kitchen (soups & dumplings) & golden leaf (taiwanese - i usually order the oyster pancake) on the NE corner. hui tou xiang (sp?) near the old luscious would go into the rotation if i had to eat there lunch & dinner for a week straight. not so sure about q38 (the old emperor cafe (?) with the overly carb-y shen jian bao). but it’s there. along with bonchon korean friend chicken. i’m not a big fan of the recently opened bopomofo cafe but it’s made that parking lot for golden deli even worse; if i wanted boba, there it is. and you have sibling to golden deli vietnam house on the SE corner and of course benten ramen between golden deli & tasty noodle house. and it’s pan-asian to boot: chinese, japanese, vietnamese & korean.

despite the plethora of establishments, i would NOT recommend las tunas/main between atlantic & garfield. (did mr fish szechuan bistro close? it was dark on a wednesday night.) even though that stretch contains a coupls of asian chains including pepper lunch & greedy cat. FWIW the newest spots i can recall: chicken coop and new republic are not asian. there IS nadi myanmar on fourth and for those of you who like lunasia, lunasia. and borneo kalimatan (sp?) and saigon cafe (old pho 79) as well as road to seoul on garfield to be fair, a main objection is an 'old town" commercial feel to the strip.