City Reviews #1: Why I Want to Nuke LA
The first of my totally objective and unbiased city critiques
People tend to have strong opinions on the cities they have visited or lived in (or even places they have never stepped foot in).
Last month I wrote a tweet on my own city rankings, which resulted in a lot of fun discussions with my Twitter mutuals. Some reminisced about wonderful times in their favorite places. Others lamented how their once wonderful town has unfortunately stagnated, or worse.
The past few months I’ve written often on my travels around the world, and the pieces have been well-received, especially my review of China’s Guandong province back in May. I love cities and city-living, and have decided to do a series deep-diving into the subject on Substack.
After doing a bit of reshuffling, here is my city rankings as of July 2025, born from my experiences as a Chinese Taiwanese and Chinese American who has spent 11 years in Taiwan and 21 in the states:
Favorites: Taipei, NYC, Shanghai, Osaka
Loved Visiting, Will Not Live There: Tokyo, Paris, Edinburgh, Mexico City, Amsterdam
Mixed Feelings: San Francisco, Portland, Shenzhen, Seoul, London
Absolutely Hate: Rio, Seattle, Milan
Nuke The Entire Place Out Of Existence, If It Were Up To Me: Los Angeles + surrounding areas
(Don’t have strong enough opinions on other cities to bucket them)
I will begin with the bottom tier and work my way up in follow-up essays.
Tier “Nuke The Entire Place Out Of Existence, If It Were Up to Me”, Sole Winner: Los Angeles
Ah, Los Angeles. I lived here for an ungodly 16 years.
“Why did you spend so many years there if you hate the place so much? Are you retarded?”
8 of those years were for K-12. 5 college. 3 my most recent job.
I had no other options for my K-12 education. Among my target colleges, there was only one located in LA that I wanted to attend, which happened to be my number 1 choice.. and I was accepted. Not my fault!
As for the final 3 years, that job was my dream job. The sacrifice I made moving back to the area ended up being worth it, as outside of being unhappy having to live in LA again, everything else had panned out wonderfully.
Anyways, here are the reasons why I want to nuke Los Angeles out of existence.
LA is Woketard Central
Let’s get one low-hanging fruit out of the way: LA turned into leftist woketard central the last 10 years, just like its neighbor up north SF.
Woketards are the fucking worst.
They have turned these formerly vibrant, cultural powerhouses in California into war zones. From violent homeless and fentanyl addicts scattered all over the streets, to thieves carrying santa bags of loot out of Target (shoplifting got turned into a misdemeanor in 2014), the sheer amount of clown world shenanigans one has to deal with living in these cities is staggering. I will never forgive these people for turning these beautiful, thriving places into dangerous shitholes and criminal playgrounds.
Nothing illustrates the state of LA and its crazy residents better than Seth Rogen in this gem of an exchange:
Urban Planning From Hell
Having spent so many years in a very walkable city like Taipei with superb public transit, LA’s urban setup could not have been more different. You *must* drive in order to get anywhere - schools, groceries, restaurants, hospitals, banks, you name it.
Want a bottle of water from a 7-Eleven? 10 minutes. Want a banana from Trader Joe’s? 20 minutes. The amount of friction from going through daily life makes me want to jump off a bridge.
“This is just how most American cities are! Shouldn’t you want to nuke them too?”
While most American cities are indeed composed of nondescript roads, freeways, strip malls, and cookie-cutter single-family houses, LA blows that up to the Nth degree. That sprawl stretches, for miles and miles, on and on to infinity and beyond. Combining the sprawl of single-family homes, car-centric urban design, and extremely high population, the resulting infamous LA traffic is simply hell on earth.
This hell on earth is a sprawl that basically consists of 7+ cities, with each city more like a giant suburb than a real “city”. Decentralization is the name of the game for LA. You’re more likely to see a pig fly there than see a pedestrian walking on the streets (obviously exaggerating here, but still). There’s just something so sad about a city with such temperate weather where everyone is stuck inside a car all day.
The Most Fake and Insincere People on Earth
LA has the most superficial and fake people on this planet, bar none*. They’re the type to tell you, gushing with excitement, how thrilled they are to meet you, but forget your existence 8 seconds later. They are the type to tell you how wonderful it is to see you and how they would love to hang out again, only to never to contact you for the rest of your life.
This artifice affects NorCal too, but to a lesser extent. After all, LA is the HQ of Hollywood and social media influencers, where status and fame are the city’s core values.
* A few might argue that Miami is a contender for this title, but I disagree. During the height of covid madness with mask mandates and vaccine passes and other bullshit, Florida, along with Miami, did a great job pushing back against all the totalitarianism. These people have proven they can be based when it matters.
Segregation and Ethnic Tensions
I’ve actually lived in a lot of places outside of LA in America, but LA has got to be the most segregated city I’ve ever lived in. I’ve witness the following:
Growing up, only the Mexicans and the Vietnamese went to the big park nearby. Whites were nowhere to be seen.
A Vietnamese 30+ year old male who spoke English with a strong accent even though he has been in the states since 7, because he always lived in the Vietnamese enclave of Westminster.
LA is also a major sanctuary city, which means it protects illegal immigrants and limits cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. The illegal population is so big that when ICE under Trump’s 2nd term is finally making moves to deport the illegals, the city plunged into chaos from the protests that turned into riots.
Ethnic tensions suck ass, but when they turn into full-on riots and race wars, the place becomes uninhabitable.
Honorable Mentions
Southern California is famous for great sunny weather, but the truth is that once you are inland enough, say 7 miles away from the beach, the weather becomes lackluster. Sure, it doesn’t snow, but the temperature difference throughout the day can swing wildly due to Socal being a desert. Not to mention the entire valley gets no sun for weeks or months on end due to the marine layer from the Pacific Ocean.
They don’t tell you you don’t actually see the sun in “Sunny Socal”. Yearly forest fires have become a fact of life. Large swaths get burnt to a crisp and ashes fall from the skies like it’s armageddon.
LAX is the worst airport on the planet. The traffic within the airport can easily take 30-60 minutes to navigate through. Every driver is honking and cutting each other off as if they were playing a very slow version of Mario Kart. It’s a total mess that I have not seen at other airports. Due to the horrendous traffic within the airport’s premises, travelers must take a shuttle to a spot outside LAX in order to call their Ubers. My eyes glaze 10 times over every time I need to go to that cursed airport.
Socal is famous for its beaches. Yeah, some beaches are scenic. But the water is cold as balls, even during the summer (learned to surf and scuba there, I experienced firsthand). I’m sensitive to cold, so it’s hard to stay in the water. Also, driving to the beach can take quite a while, depending on where you live. Parking at these beaches is usually a nightmare on weekends too, when folks from inland areas come out in droves. For these reasons, I rarely go, which means I (voluntarily) miss out on a core aspect of Socal life.
My Own Vendetta
The last reason for my hatred towards LA is very personal. It’s a long-held vendetta against the city. The decline of my quality of life moving from Taipei to LA was too stark.
Let’s hone in on just one aspect - personal freedom. Even at 8 years old, I could run around Taipei with my twin and not need an adult chaperone. Since moving to LA, I became completely landlocked in a monotonous LA suburb. I could not go anywhere without someone to drive me.
Combining that plus a boatload of other factors, I quickly grew to despise my new life on the other side of the globe and emotionally froze up for a long, long time.
Wrapping up..
Had my family moved to the suburbs of Atlanta or Arlington, they most likely would have replaced LA in my “Please Wipe this Place Off the Map” Tier. But fate put me in LA for almost 2 decades, and into the garbage tier this city goes. If anyone who has control over the nuclear launch codes, please kindly contact me and I’ll put the warheads to good use.
Now that I am done lambasting LA and moving to the next tier above, I swear I’ll be less negative going forward 😉
How deep does the sprawl go? Do you think it’s too far for Poseidon to finish the job? As you may already know, that’s a Russian nuclear torpedo that creates radioactive tsunamis.
The childhood photos are very revealing. But there are kind of too many foreigners in Taiwan now, especially in the north.