BLDGBLOG: Greater Los Angeles

Finally, I'm so sick of people who don't live here recycling the same shit about Hollywood and how LA "doesn't actually exist", just because they can't submit to the fact that LA's too big and weird to figure out.

Los Angeles is where you confront the objective fact that you mean nothing; the desert, the ocean, the tectonic plates, the clear skies, the sun itself, the Hollywood Walk of Fame – even the parking lots: everything there somehow precedes you, even new construction sites, and it's bigger than you and more abstract than you and indifferent to you. You don't matter. You're free.

LA residents given to talking about life in the city talk about freedom a lot. Without a cohesive citywide identity or community structure, without a city center in any sense of the word, you don't situate your life in relation to some imagined ur-community or parental figures. You're just there. But I'd add one thing: it's true that the city as a whole cares about nothing. But there are a thousand communities, more, within the city.

Really useful and loving portraits of LA neighborhoods. They just started, but they say they want to do all of them. Tons of photos, maps, recommendations on places to go, the works. You will feel less guilty about saying the word "blog" after checking them out.

Boring, land-locked Republican citadels like Phoenix growing at the expense of the cool cities. Although I'd like to have more detailed data - ok, the Interior Boomtowns are generally Republican, but within those, how is that broken out? How culturally conservative can Las Vegas be, for example?

Pictures of Cool Shit via the satellite / aerial photographs on Google Maps.

This kind of shit would have been the most amazing thing ever to me in, say, 1992. Maybe even 2000. Now it's "bummer, no time, maybe look at that someday." Maybe I'll never even get around to it, plenty of other stuff to see on the 'net.

Given the amazingness surplus, it's surprising how little time we spend glued to computers. For example, I tend to allocate a certain amount of time to geeking out (it is high) and once I hit my limit for the day I'm done. There's no correlation to the quantity or quality of shit available. It's pure prejudice against screen time. In reality, we should all be spending much, much more time gaping at weird shit on the web. Really. Quit slacking.

Fr'instance, LA Beer Map.

LA rental prices by neighborhood + individual listings, overlaid on Google Maps. Neat.

I want every app I use to have some sort of playlist/smart playlist functionality. Anyway for maps, so far:

• Flagr
• Plazes