"A place of exaggerated promise and endless disappointment, people come expecting to find their destinies, and when things do not pan out they stay anyway, forming the existential fascia across the sprawling Southland; one elastic enough to admit the next batch of hopefuls, as well as those running from poverty or oppression, people willing to work crappy jobs for low wages for a chance to latch onto the American experiment in the most cosmopolitan city on earth."
https://reason.com/2025/06/19/los-angeles-is-beating-trump-by-not-punching-back-dispatch-from-l-a/