Chicago is good for run-of-the-mill / noir crime stories, but the audience for those is limited. LA is a weird place in that pretty much anything crime-related

Chicago is good for run-of-the-mill / noir crime stories, but the audience for those is limited. LA is a weird place in that pretty much anything crime-related is actually plausible, so the potential breadth of stories is a lot bigger. You could make a story about a group of Croatian street dancers laundering dirty Persian money through Venice beach dispensaries using couriers on electric scooters to move cash around and I would actually believe that's a thing that could be happening right now.