Originally Posted by
prawn86
Would i be right in saying that Woodland Hills is probably more 'suburbia' and less 'LA' than Beverly Hills/Westwood area? I'm assuming there are less bars/clubs/nightlife etc but i could be way off the mark. How safe are the subways over there? We took one there once and it didnt look too appealing during the middle of the day
Obviously i dont have a choice what office i work due to the nature of the role, but living and working in BH was appealing due to being in the middle of things.
haha obviously we are also going to have to get used to the scale of things. 20 miles here in Melbourne and we would be out of the city and that would be considered a decent drive
I live Woodland Hills "adjacent", and worked in Warner Center for thirteen years. It is a middle to upper middle class suburb, with decent schools, a fairly low crime rate, good shopping, and moderate housing costs. Moderate is a loose term when it comes to Los Angeles, but it would be noticeably cheaper than Beverly Hills and adjacent Westside areas.
Public transit is not truly functional this far out in the suburbs. Woodland Hills has a transit hub at the Promenade Mall in Warner Center, but really just feeds a busway with a (somewhat) dedicated right of way which heads due east to Universal Studios. Only when you get to Universal Studios can you pick up the subway. There are also local bus lines that parallel the 101 Freeway going east (again toward Universal Studios), but these are not used by the typical middle class resident.
Every family has two cars. It is not impossible for you and your wife to live with one, if you live in an apartment near Warner Center (there is plenty of quality complexes within 2km), and are willing to walk to work.
In regards to your wife working, there are two large regional malls in the Warner Center area. So a retail job would not be out of the question. However, will she have a proper visa that will allow her to work? Due to the "I-9" rules, employers can't take a chance.
Lastly, about the heat and smog. Woodland Hills is the hottest place in the City of Los Angeles. If it is 92 degrees in Downtown Los Angeles on a typical summer day, it will be 104 in Woodland Hills. Humidity would be essentially non-existent though (maybe 12%). Personally I do not consider smog a problem in the South San Fernando Valley. I've lived in this neighborhood for 29 years, grew up in the Southeast Los Angeles area, and remember what serious smog was like. Maybe ten days a year a typical person will really feel the effects. There are plenty of other days that will look murky, but won't have respiratory concerns. That's often related to temperature inversions caught in the San Fernando Valley due to mountains surrounding it, mixed with light fog.
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