The Road Between Anonymity and Impressions

If you look at the amount of empty space on this side of the continent you will realize that almost the entire west coast area is full of absolutely nothing.  It can take up to 8 hours to get from one city to another easily, this fact will of course spark your imagination.  I've heard from several people that regularly go on long road trips that when it is late at night in the middle of nowhere your imagination can make you paranoid very quickly.  Los Angeles is also in the middle of nowhere if you think about it cause it is surrounded by desert and is so large that cops can't effectively control the whole city so it makes newcomers a little apprehensive.  This large city atmosphere mixed with the isolation of the city itself has probably sparked the imaginations of the more morbid of the directors at Hollywood making this area one of the prime pulp fiction hotspots.  Both the anonymity of the big city and the vast nothingness are the breeding grounds for movies of this type.