Driving anywhere is a major headache. I used to live in the San Fernando valley - just getting to work every day was a chore. By the time the weekends came around, I was so sick of driving that we never went anywhere. Only way around it is to plan to leave early in the day or very late in the evening.
I have lived in the LA area several times throughout the last few decades.
There are benefits of living there, naturally, but I agree that one negative pretty much erases all the benefits.
Of course, it’s the traffic.
Not even Silicon Valley (where I live) compares in terms of LA’s bad traffic.
In LA, there is no time of the day or night that traffic would most likely *not* slow you down. When I was in business school, I tried to live as close to my school as possible. But even then, a five-minute drive on a good day could easily take 40 minutes or more. The bad days outnumbered the good days by a lot. I have many other examples like this.
Just *thinking* about driving some place in the LA area would give me a headache. So, basically, you keep yourself isolated in order to avoid dealing with the humongous hassle that is driving in the LA area.
The weather is nice when it is below zero in other states.
I am in the San Fernando valley and when I had to drive to the 101 freeway on my way to work, it took me about 15 minutes to go 4 miles down Topanga blvd then wait to get on the freeway. At least I was driving to Calabasas instead of Los Angeles!
If you own a home in a nice outlining part of LA and have a wall around the property to keep out the rattlesnakes, it can be nice. The costs are too high for property and utilities and taxes.