As a New Yorker, I find the social culture out in LA to be super flaky and pretty annoying. People are non-committal, or cancel, or complain that you're staying in an inconvenient neighborhood for them to see you in. I blame it partially on the physical landscape of the place, just a bunch of suburbs smashed together trying to pretend to be a single city.
In NYC people might show up late, but generally I find New Yorkers to be good at keeping plans and the city lends itself to spontaneity. In LA if the restaurant in the strip mall you tried to go to is full, it means driving to another strip mall and interrupting the flow of the night. In the city you can just walk down the block and change your plans on the fly. In LA I've had friends cancel plans to later find out they got an invite to some famous person's house. In New York, you'll likely end up getting invited along because who cares if you were in a movie.
As a relatively new New Yorker (I've been here for five years) I agree with your assessment. New Yorkers commit to engagements and follow through, in my experience. I've had new acquaintances here follow through at a higher rate than old friends back in California. It is one of the things I like most about the city.
> People are non-committal, or cancel, or complain that you're staying in an inconvenient neighborhood for them to see you in. I blame it partially on the physical landscape of the place, just a bunch of suburbs smashed together trying to pretend to be a single city.
1) No, it's just LA flakiness. It's all about being seen dontcha know.
My weird story about this. I was at a Little Barrie concert. Of course, there is a band before and a band after. We're there up front listening to the first band--Auditorium (Spencer Berger, his brother, and someone else) who were really good. There's the two of us at a bar table like 4 feet from the band, and something like 4 other people. 6 people total. We talk to the band (awesome dudes) afterward.
And, then, suddenly, it's like a hipster sea flows in. Skinny corduroy jeans everywhere. Snaps and flashes everywhere. I had words with the corduroy boys who thought they were going to be annoying as fuck in front of us. Uh, no, we understand that you're going to get a little riled up but you're NOT going to have your phone flash in my face the entire concert (I love the fact that Johnny Marr (separate concert) will call these douchebags out in the middle of a concert and chuck them out if they don't stop.). That can fuck right off--fortunately, I'm huge and make a very nice wall so they can get a nice picture of my back or they can move.
Little Barrie takes the stage about 5 minutes later--awesome super high energy show. And, then, suddenly, the hipster sea flows out.
And there's 6 people in the bar again for the band afterward. We felt so sorry for them. It's one thing to be the opening band and not have people but its another thing to be the closing band and watch everybody leave before you even hit the stage.
That's LA.
2) However, part of it is LA traffic. Your median appearance time is -20 minutes. Your variance is +15 to -Infinity.
If there is an accident between me and you that's going to make me 2 hours late, I'm not coming. I'll text you and tell you why, but I'm not coming unless you are a very close friend.
For sure, each suburb has it's own sort of "downtown" area in LA. But just because you can sort of walk around some parts of LA doesn't make it a place where spontaneity can thrive. As soon as you throw necessitating a car into the mix you lose that.
Yeah. Even if you do go out in a strip mall neighborhood, unless you're in the SGV or something there will be enough of them you can easily hop from one to another on foot (and people do).
And honestly some of the best food in this country is found in these strip malls. This humble strip mall of a half dozen restaurants contains some of the best Thai food in the world (1). If you've ever heard of the chef Jet Tila, this very strip mall is his formative ground.
In NYC people might show up late, but generally I find New Yorkers to be good at keeping plans and the city lends itself to spontaneity. In LA if the restaurant in the strip mall you tried to go to is full, it means driving to another strip mall and interrupting the flow of the night. In the city you can just walk down the block and change your plans on the fly. In LA I've had friends cancel plans to later find out they got an invite to some famous person's house. In New York, you'll likely end up getting invited along because who cares if you were in a movie.