
Santa Monica Measured Residents’ Well-Being for Four Years - lnguyen
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/santa-monica-well-being-index_us_5a572e08e4b0a300f905fa58?m=false
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ipsin
Former Santa Monica resident. The problem with Santa Monica feels like the
problem with Silicon Valley.

It's nice if you can afford to live there, but current residents seem hell-
bent on blocking new housing.

In particular I'm thinking of the Bergamot Transit Village [1], a proposed
mixed-use project that spent years in limbo. Current residents complained
about traffic impact.

Eventually, the developers gave up and turned it all into office space, which
has a similar traffic impact, but didn't involve the same level of scrutiny.

[1] [https://la.curbed.com/2015/1/9/10003866/developer-giving-
up-...](https://la.curbed.com/2015/1/9/10003866/developer-giving-up-on-
bergamot-transit-village-and-it-could-be-even)

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nugi
You basically just said its expensive to live there, and residents should
somehow feel bad for not making their city worse, to support more people.

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oil7abibi
Of all the cities in the 25 different countries I traveled to, Santa Monica is
definitely up there. Great location in LA, amazing food, vibrant
neighborhoods, beautiful (and mostly friendly) people. Biggest downside to me
is that there isn’t enough tech opportunities there. Else I’d move there in a
heartbeat.

~~~
southphillyman
Isn't the Venice/Santa Monica area known as Silicon Beach? I was under the
impression there were relatively many media related software jobs there.

I was just there 2 weeks ago and loved it. I like that area much more than
some of the popular neighborhoods like SilverLake, etc.

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davidy123
Silicon Beach is used to refer to Los Angeles.

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ChristianGeek
No, it’s generally considered to be the area west of the 405 from north of LAX
to the Santa Monica mountains. Hundreds of tech companies, especially
startups. (I work at one of them.)

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maxxxxx
Santa Monica people look like a pretty happy crowd to me whenever I get there.
Perfect weather, lots to do. As long as you can afford it.

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cryptoz
> Perfect weather

People say this about a lot of places in California, but it's not my
experience. "Perfect weather" seems to mean a dystopia of identical days, no
changes, no wind, no clouds, just constant sun. Living in Alameda/Oakland
drove me crazy in the summer. Nothing ever changes, every day is exactly the
same. Yuck.

Santa Monica weather isn't nice for everyone. But I get it, there's a lot of
sun and not much rain.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Monica,_California#Clima...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Monica,_California#Climate)

~~~
outlace
Interesting how divergent perspectives can be on this. Your dystopian view is
my utopian view. As a California native, I literally exclaim "it's a beautiful
day!" every single morning when I look outside and see it's perfectly sunny
and blue.

For someone who probably has mild seasonal affective disorder, sunny days
really make a considerable boost in my mood.

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noir_lord
I live in the North of England, day after day of blue sky/sunny days would
drive me crazy inside a couple of weeks.

I like rapidly changing weather.

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ihaveajob
My friend moved to Scotland and had a baby there. As toddler, one day she
pointed up and exclaimed "look! there's a hole in the clouds!".

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searine
Link to actual data instead of clickbait :
[https://wellbeing.smgov.net/about/wellbeing-
index](https://wellbeing.smgov.net/about/wellbeing-index)

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stickydink
Is it really clickbait though?

The article felt well written and useful enough to stand alone. The data you
linked has nothing to follow, and seems broken for me - several charts are
showing no data and the text is misplaced
([https://i.imgur.com/UzZJdMc.png](https://i.imgur.com/UzZJdMc.png)).

~~~
trevyn
It is! The actual article title is "A California City Measured Residents’
Well-Being For 4 Years. What Lawmakers Discovered Surprised Them."

The simple fact of a city measuring residents' well-being is not really
interesting. Even after quickly skimming the article trying to find the
answer, I _still_ don't know what lawmakers discovered that was surprising to
them.

