Oh yes, there is money there and all over LA. It's juxtaposed with extreme poverty. West Hollywood has a thriving richer gay community and a lot of artsy type Hollywood folks take up residence there. Its near enough the studios that the b-list actors and studio hands can live there in some of the houses. Within blocks of some of the nicer spots you have homeless folks, illegal aliens ten to a room, drug dealers, prostitutes, etcetera. This "earthiness" and contrast is actually appreciated by some of these richer folks because they feel so clearly superior.

The same thing exists in Beverly Hills. I used to go to Beverly Hills and the German consulate near Rodeo drive regularly. I'd stop by Rodeo drive, go shopping, got to lunch, etcetera. The haves and have-nots are divided by just a few square blocks and at night time the have-nots come out in force. Beverly Hills is highly patrolled and policed, as soon as you are outside the gilded cage you feel in mortal danger. The Beverly Hills regulars keep within the known perimeters of the cage and save the displays of wealth for inside the cage. Outside the cage you take the low profile SUV instead of the Rolls or the Mercedes.

The extremely rich surrounded by the desperately poor. It makes the rich feel richer and the poor feel poorer.

But Art, the whole difference between AZ and CA is the bureaucratic mindset of the latter. In CA the CHP have no illusions. One officer once rhetorically asked me why he shouldn't fine me when the state needed the money and his job was obtaining it. If you look like you are wealthy they practically feel noble about ticketing you and bringing in revenue. Parking "meter" maids in La Jolla were 'wonderful' too. There is a twenty minute time limit for parking in downtown La Jolla during most of the day. But La Jolla didn't have meters everywhere (they were considered unsightly) and so they would drive in circles around the streets and make a little chalk mark on your back tire every ten minutes. once they got around to the second mark they would write you up a $85 parking ticket whether it was exactly twenty minutes or fifteen minutes or however long their loop took. They loved to ticket people and it was so easy because 20 minutes was such a short time to do anything and because there was no meter to feed, you couldn't extend it or argue with the meter maid who "defined" the 20 minutes by her watch. Parking was hard to come by downtown and it was FAR, FAR cheaper to actually pay for reserved parking in one of two parking garages in the area than get ticketed several times a month. Without half trying you could be paying $500 a month in parking tickets. Crazy stuff like that is what makes CA so special. ;-)

AZ has nowhere near the "revenue generation" practices employed by the police state of CA. It's revenue generation is old school - like CA used to be circa 1970.

And if one has to endure 120 degree temperatures a few months of the year to enjoy 'old school' living - so be it! ;-)