Here in my small town, we have a little joke. The name of our little city begins with aan L, and so we say we are “from the greater LA” or “from east LA”, where A stands for area. We also roll our eyes at each other when we say it, although lately, we have rival traffic, and wish for the salaries that go with actual jobs in Los Angeles. Oh well.
Did I mention we laugh hysterically if someone actually hears the accent and still asks, “oh, California?” Yeah. We do.