Los Angeles has long been a magnet for young people like 23-year-old Sean Walsh from Oklahoma, who many days can be found standing in line for a job as an extra on a film set. How does he afford the rent in L.A.? He doesn’t. He found a 9-hour parking spot where he and his brother can sleep in their car.
People like Sean will probably continue to move to L.A., but the overall trend here and throughout California is for lower-income people to leave while the wealthier move in. In the last decade, Los Angeles lost 250,000 people at or near the poverty line, and saw a net gain of 20,000 people with college degrees.
Will Los Angeles become just a playground for the wealthy?
Meet Lizzie Brumfield, who’s settling with her fiancé and baby in the desert ex-urb of Hemet after she was evicted from her gentrifying building in Highland Park. She’s now 90 miles away from the rest of her family. “It sucks because we’re not anywhere near home,” Brumfield says.
Others who leave L.A. could afford to stay, but don’t see the point. Los Angeles native Mason Cooley says that he's left the city for the last time to move to Asheville, North Carolina.
“I just kind of realized that when you leave L.A., you're essentially already replaced by so many other people coming in. I never really felt like Los Angeles was the kind of city that was going to miss you,” Cooley said. He likes Asheville, and he advises newcomers to buy property there if they can. Why? The city is filling with gentrification refugees like himself — and Asheville’s median home value is up 10 percent over last year.