Walking in LA? Yes, and heres why its magical

A windshield is a poor introduction to Los Angeles.It gives you brake lights, billboards and other people trying to get somewhere.Step outside, and the city offers a different introduction: oranges hanging over a garden wall, the scent of coffee drifting through a café doorway, a neighborhood conversation you were never going to have at 40 miles an hour.This is the Westside I love.

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By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.Never miss a story The claim that Los Angeles is unlivable without a car is conflated with getting across the city in one.

Nobody needs to pretend the intersections are gentle or the sidewalks smooth.But there is a difference between needing a car sometimes and surrendering every outing to one.Not to mention, staying fit and healthy matters to me, and I would rather get my steps in exploring a neighborhood than spend an hour in traffic exercising nothing but my patience.I spent years in Brentwood, and my love of the neighborhood has never subsided.

On Sunday mornings, its farmers market on Gretna Green Way supplies the warmth I associate with Hanukkah and Christmas: flowers, families, something delicious cooking, the sense that people have decided to linger.Except, you don’t even have to wait until December.

(Talk about being spoiled.)Driving to a grocery store is an errand; walking to a neighborhood market is a ritual.You arrive intending to buy tomatoes and leave with eucalyptus, lavender and considerably less urgency.

Santa Monica’s Wednesday market on Arizona Avenue offers another version of that pleasure: a morning organized around what is ripe rather than what is running late.The coffee matters, too.Iced or extra hot, it gives you an excuse to occupy a little piece of the neighborhood.

As a mother, I appreciate the room that walking leaves ...