Clear skies over Wilshire/Western.

Ask almost anyone what the best part of living in Los Angeles is and you’re bound to hear one answer:

The weather.

It’s hard to deny when you consider that so far this month — in the dead of winter — day-time temps have struggled to dip below 70°.

Now ask anyone what the worst part of Los Angeles is:

The traffic.

Which begs the question: Why are we wasting our time inside cars when we’ve got the most ideal weather in the country for walking, biking and waiting at bus stops?

And why are people in the Northeast, where the temps are currently struggling to stay above freezing, more likely to use transportation alternatives that involve interfacing with the nasty weather?

Here’s some census data that I’ve mashed up with Weatherbase and U.S. Census Bureau data to show how Los Angeles compares to other cities when it comes to weather and transportation:

How to explain this phenomena?

In a post over at Think Progress, Matthew Ylgesias dubs this question “the American urban paradox.” The answer? Simply put, most sunbelt cities were settled and, more importantly, matured in the age of the automobile. This lead to sprawling cities with infrastructure geared toward cars and not mass transit or walkability.

As someone who has spent time in some of the great walkable and transit oriented cities of the world – places like New York City and London – and suffered through their less than ideal weather I can’t help but fantasize of a walkable city where you rarely have to worry about carrying an umbrella. With an average of 35 rainy days per year, Los Angeles could be that place.

Of course, it’s not that place… yet.

As Yglesias notes in his post, it’s up to policymakers and the citizens they count on for votes to decide if they want to take the necessary steps to transform car-centric cities into places that fully take advantage of their moderate climates.