I grew up in Monterey Park, in the end house on a cul de sac where our back yard dropped off into a canyon, and at night we could see the lights of L.A. off to the right, when facing east.
So there, I loved it, but yeah, I always noticed the stark difference between the night sky in L.A. and the night sky in the southern Colorado mountains, where my grandparents took us camping in the summer when we were kids.
Then I moved to Tampa Bay, which was similar in that in the city the sky was always light, but an hour out of town, or even better, twelve to fifteen miles offshore, and the night sky was amazing. Even five miles out made a huge difference.
Although the clearest sky I have ever seen, anywhere, was on a trip to the Keys from late June through early July 1997. We were staying in a house on a canal in Ramrod Key, and every night of our ten-night stay, there were so many stars that we literally couldn't pick out a single constellation. They were dense for that to be possible.
I've always assumed it must have been some sort of atmospheric conditions that caused the anomaly, because we took many trips to the Keys afterward, and never had that same experience. And even on a cruise ship, in the middle of the Caribbean far from any land, I had no trouble picking out all the constellations I recognized.
Before I got my sailboat, I used to drive to Ocala to watch the stars, because at the time, there was NO light pollution there. As fast as it has grown, I'm sure that is no longer true.