Unlike just about everybody who has ever written about Los Angeles for east coast markets–most of whom write with the single purpose of assuring New Yorkers of their innate superiority–Jonathan Leavitt has been writing and photographing Los Angeles for the Boston Globein terrific photo essay. Los Angeles is the type of city that requires you to get to know it. It unfolds like flower from a bud that, at first glance, seems merely squalid and prickly.

Go check it out.