Old-timers say new arrivals from Northern California are inflating rents, homogenizing neighborhoods, and bringing a sterile startup culture that clashes with LA's creative, laid-back vibe. Is the tension real, or is every generation of newcomers just the latest scapegoat?
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Add your commentThe real culprit is the city council allowing massive upzonings near tech corridors without ANY affordable housing requirements. But sure, blame the guy with the laptop at Intelligentsia instead of the developers writing checks to your councilmember.
The funniest part of this whole debate is that a lot of the loudest voices defending 'authentic LA culture' are themselves transplants from Ohio and Texas who arrived in the 90s and 2000s and have apparently earned their authenticity credentials by now. Every generation pulls up the ladder behind them. Classic.
Born and raised in Silver Lake, watched my block go from muralists and musicians to guys in Patagonia vests talking about 'disrupting' things on their lunch break from some WeWork on Sunset. My landlord sold the building in 2021 and every single tenant got pushed out within a year. So yeah, the tension is VERY real, this isn't a generational scapegoat thing, this is documented displacement.
grew up in Boyle Heights, first in my family to go to college, now I work in tech and make good money and I STILL cant afford to buy a house within 25 miles of where I grew up. so when people act like this is just a xenophobic thing against tech workers I want to scream. this is about economic exclusion of the people who were actually here.
My uncle owned a taqueria in Culver City for 22 years. Twenty two years. His rent went from $3,800 to $9,400 in like 36 months after Amazon and Apple moved offices into the area. He closed last spring. You want to tell me there's no connection? I'll wait.
lol Snap, SpaceX, Riot Games, Dollar Shave Club, Beats Electronics, Hulu, Tinder — all LA. The person asking what tech companies started in LA maybe needs to Google before posting confidently. LA is actually a huge tech hub on its own terms and has been for over a decade.
My hot take nobody will like: the laid-back creative LA vibe people are mourning was itself built on cheap rent, which was only cheap because of redlining and decades of disinvestment in certain communities. The 'authentic' LA that artists colonized in the 80s and 90s was someone else's neighborhood first. The nostalgia is selective.
The thing that actually bothers me isn't the people, it's the aesthetic creep. Venice used to feel like Venice. Now half of Abbot Kinney looks like the Caltrain corridor got a juice bar. Everything is raw concrete, exposed Edison bulbs, $18 matcha, and a QR code menu. There's no TEXTURE anymore. You could be in SoMa or South Lake Union or Culver City and honestly not know the difference.
okay but can we be honest for a second — LA has been 'ruined' by outsiders approximately every 15 years according to whoever was already here. the beatniks ruined it. then the hippies. then the yuppies. then the hipsters. now the tech bros. at some point you gotta ask if the city is just... changing. like cities do.
I think the nuanced take that nobody wants to hear is: the transplants aren't the problem AND the displacement is real and those two things can both be true at the same time. Bad urban policy is the villain. The humans are just responding to incentives. Direct your energy at Sacramento.
Nope. Hard disagree. LA was never some pristine authentic paradise — it has always been a city built by transplants. The original 'locals' were literally displaced by the Spanish missions and then the railroad money guys and then the movie industry. Every era has new arrivals who change things. That's the whole history of this place.
I relocated from San Francisco two years ago and I genuinely did not come here to colonize anyone's culture. I came because SF became unlivable and I love LA's arts scene, the food, the energy. Am I the villain? I take the bus, I go to local shows, I spend money at small businesses. Not every transplant is a soulless algorithm monkey.
I moved here from Seattle in 2019 for a music job, NOT tech, and I cannot tell you how many times I've gotten the side-eye at parties when I mention where I came from. People assume I'm some software engineer here to ruin everything. It's a real social dynamic and it gets exhausting. Judge me by what I actually do here, not my origin story.
Someone below said LA was built by transplants and I just want to challenge that — can you name one major tech company that actually originated in LA proper? Because Silicon Beach is mostly satellite offices and satellite people who still culturally identify with the Bay. Snap started here, sure. What else? Genuinely asking.
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