alt Hacker NewsParadise? LA was a big giant horrible underdeveloped wasteland in Spanish/Mexican times which, at the time in 1849, had 1,600 residents. Most of them had a largely pastoral life and life was brutal there.
LA under US rule is the prime example of what industrialized people can do to a place that lacked nearly everything of what it is at this moment: a world-class city.
Objectively, if it had stayed under Mexican rule, it’d resemble Yuma at best or Tecate at worst. I should know, my family lineage goes back to that era to both sides of the border.
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Was it that a big, giant, horrible wasteland because it was undeveloped? That is, was there something bad about it other than being undeveloped? Personally, I love living in the city AND land in its natural state.
Also, GP was quoting a song lyric.
Funny. It's concrete hell.
It's part of a very popular song from the 70s by Joni Mitchell called "Big Yellow Taxi".
Counting Crows did a cover in 2002.
One's "underdeveloped wasteland" is someone else's untouched paradise. Particularly someone like Joni Mitchell.