Immediately north of Venice, Santa Monica is the oldest and biggest of LA's resort areas, perched on palm-tree-shaded bluffs, or "the palisades," above the blue Pacific. Once a wild beachfront playground, it's now a self-consciously healthy and liberal community, with a large expatriate British contingent of writers and rock stars, ranging from Rod Stewart to John Lydon. The Santa Monica beachfront grew into a giant funfair city when it was linked to downtown LA by the suburban streetcar system. It was the location for many of the underworld stories of Raymond Chandler, most memorably as "Bay City" in Farewell My Lovely , but today Chandler wouldn't recognize the place. The gambling ships and bathing clubs have gone, and Santa Monica is now well known for its tight rent control policy and stringent planning and development regulations. For these perceived infractions, local right-wingers refer sneeringly to the city as the "People's Republic." Hotels in Santa Monica |
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