[ozone]

It all depends on your definition of grit. If you are imagining something that looks like the South Bronx of the '70's- with lots of graffiti-covered brick, boarded-up buildings and oppressive relocation housing (urban concentration camps) for rights-demanding blacks and other poor minorities- aka 'the projects' - then you won't find that much on the West Coast - certainly not in California. First off much of our brick buildings have been felled due to poor performance in a leading earthquake. Besides it was never as prevalent as the country backeast -for houses anyway -due to the abundance of stuccoable wood. While we do have a couple of insurance company housing projects that look a little Bronx-esque they have always been market-rate.

To me there is a particular 'grit' that comes over parts of the east side of Los Angeles Co.and the older towns of San Joaquin Valley during the hot time of the year when the smog is real bad and everything and everyone looks sun-burnt-out. Poorman's stucco-ugly, dusty, rusty, graffitied, barbed-wired places. That is a particularly California grit to me.