Mr. Rogers ... L.A. Dodgers / The local mall ... Disney Hall

You have to suspect something’s wrong with your city’s image when other towns try to lure tourists by pointing out they’re not you.

San Francisco’s visitors bureau last fall launched a “Not in L.A.” ad campaign touting its attractions.

Now a rural burg more than 2,000 miles away is dissing us. Chamber of Commerce officials in Latrobe, about 35 miles east of Pittsburgh, have composed 13 couplets contrasting the City of Angels with the town of 9,000.

Here are some excerpts, as printed on the back of 15,000 pamphlets shipped to Pennsylvania tourist centers this year, contrasting L.A., described in the first part of each couplet, with Latrobe:

“Concrete jungle, lots of sound.... Natural beauty all around. Wallet-lifting in the park.... Drive-in movies in the dark. Shopping, dining mean big bills.... Idlewild Park for many thrills.”

And the penultimate comparison: “Fake and phony to the core!.... Family, friends and so much more!”

Why don’t they love us in Latrobe? To find out, I phoned Andy Stofan, president of the Latrobe Area Chamber of Commerce.

Latrobe is where Rolling Rock beer is brewed, the Pittsburgh Steelers hold summer practice, Fred McFeely Rogers (“Mister Rogers” of TV fame) was born and the young Arnold Palmer learned to play golf.

Some civic boosters also say it was the birthplace, in 1904, of the banana split, although at least one other town, Wilmington, Ohio, makes a similar claim.

Idlewild and Soak Zone, an amusement and water park just outside Latrobe, seems to be the biggest local draw, although Stofan said he didn’t know how many tourists visited his city each year.

I already knew most of these facts because I’ve been to Latrobe. It’s a tidy little town.

Stofan has never visited Los Angeles. He wasn’t sure anyone else on the chamber committee who wrote the couplets had been here either.

Perfectly personable on the phone, Stofan insisted he bore us no ill will.

“By no means were we trying to be derogatory or defame L.A.,” he said. The pamphlet was meant as an amusing take on big town-small town differences, he explained.

“Near as I can recall, four or five of us got together over lunch one day and started to throw some ideas out,” he said. Because Latrobe is sometimes pronounced LAY-trobe, they hit on the L.A. connection.

The rhymes grew from “general impressions that seemed to be shared by people around the table.”

In L.A.’s case, Stofan said, that meant “big, impersonal, lots of freeways, the smog, millions and millions of people going about their business and taking forever to get from one place to another.”

He and his colleagues apparently aren’t the only ones who feel this way.

For an informal online poll published last year in Travel and Leisure magazine, people were asked to rate 25 big U.S. cities on various traits. Los Angeles was ranked last for “friendly people,” “ease of finding your way” and “city attractiveness.” (The city did better on “family trips,” at No. 7, and “activities,” at No. 12.)

The poll, called “America’s Favorite Cities,” was answered by 500,000 AOL subscribers.

And yet the people come.

In fact, in 2003 the metropolitan Los Angeles area was the fourth-most-visited U.S. destination by American travelers, according to the Travel Industry Assn. of America, a trade group based in Washington, D.C.

Last year, Los Angeles County hosted more than 24 million overnight visitors, according to LA INC., the Convention and Visitors Bureau, a private, nonprofit agency that promotes travel here.

LA INC. spokeswoman Carol Martinez got a laugh out of some of the couplets from Latrobe. While declining to respond in rhyme, she wasted no time in coming to L.A.’s defense.

“We’re one of the top visitor destinations in the U.S.,” she said, “and a couplet from Latrobe can’t change that.”

She added: “They probably have had a wallet-lifting or two at the park in Latrobe too.”

As for San Francisco’s “Not in L.A.” campaign, she said, “They have things we don’t have. They have fog.... If I want to wear my coat in July, I can go to San Francisco.”

For the record, Laurie Armstrong, spokeswoman for the foggy city’s tourist bureau, said the ads meant no harm.

“We made it a point never to pick on Los Angeles,” she said. The idea was to tell Angelenos why they should visit her city.

“Isn’t that why you go someplace else -- to see something different?” she said.

Armstrong and Martinez agreed with Latrobe’s Stofan on this: L.A. is big. Maybe too big.

Asked to name something wrong with the city she promotes, Martinez said, “I think sometimes Los Angeles is a bit overwhelming to people.”

Armstrong, a Southern California native, said, “The thing about L.A. is it’s so large.... It’s hard to fall in love with the whole place.”

For tourists, Los Angeles isn’t a place so much as a collection of places: the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, the Venice Beach boardwalk, Disney Hall, Watts Towers, the Hollywood sign.

Getting from one place to the next is rarely scenic and often arduous, especially during rush hour, which it seems to be most of the time.

Martinez has her own theory about why people poke fun at us.

“I think that’s because they’re jealous of us,” she said, “especially on Jan. 1, when they see that parade.”

Oops. Well, Pasadena is just over the hill from Los Angeles.

As for Stofan, he said he might even pay us a visit next year.

If he does come, Martinez said, “I’d be happy to show him around Los Angeles and really introduce him to our city.... He might even be tempted to move here.”

Hear tips from Jane Engle on Travel Insider topics at latimes.com/engle. She welcomes comments but can’t respond individually to letters and calls. Write to Travel Insider, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A., CA 90012, or e-mail jane.engle@latimes.com.