Customer Reviews

Newcomer's Handbook For Moving To And Living In Los Angeles: Including Santa Monica, Pasadena, Orange County, And The San Fernando Valley (Newcomer's Handbooks)

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I just moved to Los Angeles and had bought this book a couple of months before the move. My copy is pretty well-thumbed thru at this point. There's a lot of really good basic info here, to give you a clue as to where to start (e.g. how to set up your utilities, what neighborhoods are like) and it did a pretty good job of helping me with ideas/expectations of what life would be like here. It's not a be-all, end-all book but it'll give you a very solid jumping off point if you're moving here (and i moved cross-country) and i think it was definitely worth the $15 or so.

Los Angeles is absurd sprawl of quasi-independent towns that can easily overwhelm a newcomer. Make a mistake, and you could end up living in Sun Valley - a nice name for a rather ugly place, and just wait until summer: the low rent won't compensate for the bill from the electric company. Add in a bizarre city government and top it off with California's own unique way of doing things (visit the DMV), and you'll begin to understand why a guide like this is essential to a newcomer.

You may think, "I can find all this on the Internet for free," and you'd be right. That is if you can get the Internet to function. The cable company and the phone company are not exactly customer oriented in Los Angeles. It might help to have a guide book like this when you're trying to set all that up.

Maybe you've got Internet on your phone so you can just go to Google and... yeah, I'll see you in Sun Valley. Since you're not a savvy resident you didn't know that the particular "Apartment Locator" site that you looked at was actually a scam or that a particular "church" was really shilling for Scientology.

If you're moving to Los Angeles I'm sure this book will save you time and money. It'll also reduce your frustration (though it won't eliminate it--wait until you talk to the phone company).

I just bought and read this book. Being a foreigner temporally moving to LA, I appreciated all the general information on buying or renting a house, plus neighborhood information, since I had no clue where to start looking. Now I can confine the area searches to those that (supposedly) match my income and living expectations. The last edition (4th) is from 2005, talking about how the house and estate market will keep rocketing to the sky (and how you get a subprime loan)... Maybe time for an update?

Very very good pocket (not pocket sized thought) book which covers things I would never had thought of. Great websites and contacts provided for all topics and the content is well thought of and carried off well in a nice manner.
Am buying the New York one.... you never know.

I grew up in LA, and I assumed I knew everything about all the secret spots and the do's and the don't of LA. However, this book blew me away on how much I don't know about LA. It was a ton of fun rediscovering LA with my girlfriend.

This book is filled with all kinds of information that can be written about moving to any city like how to find a realtor. Has uninspiring reviews about neighborhoods.

I have a hard time believing that the authors were even there. Has no more information than can easily picked up on the internet.

This book gives you a bit of everything, but don't expect to get any detailed information. The information on schools is very limited.

Although the book provides a useful summary on a number of areas (for example descriptions of various villiages around LA) I missed practical information, such as:
- How does the school system work in USA?
- At what age need children go to school?
- Practical information regarding moving to LA /USA such as can I use my European electrical equipment there (such as waching machines, etc)?
- Practical tips on medical system, doctors, etc.
I have seen better.