ValleyGirlTori

Noralto, like its Old Sacramento neighborhood just to the south, has been hit hard by the Foreclosure Crisis. Foreclosures, many at rock bottom prices, make up a full 80% of all the homes being sold here at the time of this writing.

Unfortunately, these homes are not fantastic residences to begin with. A full half of the homes here were built before 1950. There are some newer homes, but even these are not doing particularly well. Most homes sell for around $100K around here (a little better than its neighbor to the south), but still no homes break the $300K mark (or rarely even $250K).

There are two public elementary schools (and a private one) serving Noralto. One is Harmon Johnson Elementary and it is below average in terms of test scores. The other, Noralto Elementary on the northern end of the neighborhood, however, fairs a little bit better managing to rate average overall in terms of test scores. This actually makes Noralto Elementary one of the best elementary schools in this area of northern Sacramento.

On the far northeastern end of the neighborhood you also get a number of boxy 1970’s style apartment complexes which in part accounts for the high density of Noralto.

Over all, this is not a great neighborhood where to live. Most people would choose somewhere else if given half the chance. That said, it is better than Old North Sac just to the south.

Erickson Industrial Park?

Warehouses, Loading Docks and Big Rigs… Warehouses, Loading Docks, and Big Rigs… Warehouses, Loading Docks and Big Rigs..

That’s it. That’s all.

Ellis and Ellis Signs. McHenry Drapes. American Medical. Floral Supply Syndicate. Sears Auto Parts. Magnolia Upholstery.

Warehouses…

Loading Docks…

Big Rigs…

Period

Okay so it is Ranch house city around here—mostly of the run down variety. On average the southern part of the neighborhood, the median price of the homes is around $325K. These homes are not ugly or terribly small, but the neighborhood feels a little out of the mainstream of Napa somehow.

On the northern end and up in the hilly areas of the neighborhood there are several larger newer homes, some still being constructed. (Some which came to a fairly abrupt halt when the financial crisis hit.) On average the prices in the hills are closer to $650K and they seem much newer.

I can only guess, but it seems as if much of the newer construction here was hit fairly hard by the Recession and that may explain the partially built homes I saw in the area.

Silverado Middle School is the central school in the neighborhood. It is a middling school with so-so test scores—neither impressive nor horrible. Phillips Elementary in the neighborhood, however, is even worse, with tests scores indicating a school that is below average and that perhaps is not fully able to deal with the diversity of its students.

Overall this looks like a neighborhood that may do well in the future, but that currently feels rather stalled out.

This southeastern area of Napa is all about three things: the college, the golf course, and the industrial area.

Although you may think of Napa as being wine growing 24/7, the 75,000 residents of Napa do have lives that are occasionally independent of the whole grape culture thing. One such sign of this is Napa Valley College. Napa Valley College is the local community college; it offers a variety of preparatory classes and two year programs for students.

Just south of the campus is one of the many Napa golf courses. There are so many golf courses in the area that this one is noteworthy only for being named after the city itself, although it is a perfectly passable golf course as far as I can tell.

To the south of the golf course is an industrial area filled with warehouses and non-touristy sorts of businesses like a granite supplier and a dental equipment supplier for the local area. There is also a large lot where refuse is piled, the local DMV, and even some non-descript wineries.

On the far southern end of the “neighborhood” (if we can even call this grab bag a “neighborhood”) is the Meritage Resort and Spa and another smaller college—Boston Reed College a career training institution.

Put simply, this is one of those areas that no one comes to visit on a wine tour (for the most part anyway) but that is necessary to keep the city going. It is the unseen gears of the machine which is Napa.

Rancho Palos Verdes is the seaside city along the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Palos Verdes Drive, the shoreline drag, takes the place of the Pacific Coast Highway through Palos Verdes, offering up the ocean views that the PCH claims on most other sections of the Pacific coast.

This is a highly affluent city though it skews just slightly younger than the hillside residents inland.

Many of the communities in Rancho Palos Verdes are joined together into seaside enclaves of layered streets with similar looking homes. There are lots of Mediterranean style homes packed together into planned communities—al very cleaned and well-organized, but lacking any real feeling of individuality to my mind. Like most things in Palos Verdes, everything is immaculate and beautifully maintained. And, of course, everything will cost you an arm and a leg.

There is no lack of entertainments for the residents who live in Rancho Palos Verdes. There are a number of very expensive restaurants that take advantage of the view to keep prices inflated and portions small. Mar’sel a Donald Trump restaurant, is a typical example. (Like all things Donald is a lot more about phony baloney image than actual value.) Actually, you are much better off heading up to Redondo Beach for food than sticking around in Palos Verdes.

One of the major features of this affluent area is the Los Verdes Golf Course. This sprawling facility offers amazing greens that overlook the ocean. Amazingly, for Palos Verdes, it’s a public course. Golf purists will find the course a touch beaten down from over use, but if you love a good view while you making your way to the next hole, then you will love this golf course.

For those looking for an amazing wedding venue, you might try the Wayfarer’s Chapel. The chapel is made of glass with redwood beams and is nestled in a woodland groove and garden right at the edge of the ocean. It is a stunningly beautiful spot to get married. The chapel is sponsored by the Swedenborgian Church and focuses on creating harmony between nature and spirituality. Another interesting footnote is that it was designed by the son of the famous architect Frank Llyod Wright.

On a personal note, I remember coming here as a child, and being amazed by its beauty. In fact, it was so beautiful that as an adult I thought that I must have just dreamt such a location. But a few years ago I went to a friend’s wedding here and rediscovered these beautiful grounds all over again.

A beautiful location but way overpriced.

This tiny neighborhood on the southern portion of Torrance is a fairly typical middle-class neighborhood, filled with Ranch homes and pleasant leafy streets of the kind you might have found in the Valley some 30 years ago. I’ve not spent much time in this neighborhood, but it looks like a pretty standard So Cal neighborhood—pretty much like a million other places.

As far as the offerings that Hawthorne and Sepulveda might offer to potential residents, they too are largely of the mediocre variety. You can find all the usual things you would like out of a middle-class suburban area—a See’s Candy, a place to fix your car, a supermarket, the whole boring shebang. Even Torrance Heights’ attempts at breaking from this mold are middle of the road. For example, as far as nightlife in this neighborhood, all you will find pretty much is National Sports Grill—a very run-of-the-mill bar-n-grill that depends on its many screens to attract a clientele. (Another tacky feature of this bar is that it requires its female wait-staff to wear referee uniforms.)

In my opinion, the only place I know of that somewhat breaks away from this bland mood is Sully’s on Hawthorne. It has a Hawaiian theme and can sometimes be fun.

Overall, however, I would not go out of my way to visit anywhere here.

Pacific Colony is a gated community in the find the tradition of the OC. The simple idea is to create a little community behind protective walls and a security guard so that those within can feel safe. (You know like in Medieval times when the village would close its gates at night to avoid being sacked by marauders.) There is something about this set of arrangements that makes those of us of a more liberal persuasion more than a little nervous that the real reasons for wanting to hide behind these protective walls are more reprehensible. It is a no coincidence that gated communities should be so popular in the conservative OC to the south.

Before I continue, I should also admit that I have never actually been past the “guard house” of their little citadel so my review is purely based on what I could find out through other sources. Overall, the whole thing feels somewhat like a vacation resort from my perspective (at least when looking through binoculars from the trees across the way). They have a palm tree lined pool, for example, whose high back bushes could give you the impression that you are in any number of resorts south of the border. There is also a clubhouse (that can be rented, I’m sure they would like me to advertise). It has an exercise room and a little living room area with some of the ugliest furniture I have ever seen—I think they are going for a sort of safari theme and not quite getting there.

The condos here are very similar, but, you do get your driveway and dedicated palm tree. And each floor plan has slight variations so you can really feel like an individual once you enter your “home.” (Wait! Be sure to check the number so that you don’t end up in your neighbor’s house. Remember how embarrassing that was last time when you spent half the evening ignoring his wife instead of yours, before you both realized that you are Stan the stockbroker, not Dan the banker. Ohhhh! Good times... Good times...)

I’d love to tell you demographic information about this location or even sales prices, but they keep those locked up just like everything else.

When residents dare to venture forth into the dangers of Torrance (whose crime rate, by the way, is way lower than both the state’s and City of Los Angeles’ crime rate), they can cross the busy street to the high school, to grab a burger, or to play some tennis. Then they can hurry back to the safety of their walls and armed protection.

The high school across the street, Bishop Montgomery, residents will be happy to hear, is a private school so you can avoid the riff raff there as well.

If you love pristine streets and the feeling that you are living in completely artificial environment, then you have found home.

Like much of Torrance, Northwest Torrance is yet another conglomeration of 1950’s style Ranch homes. It reminds me of the Valley of my youth, circa 1980. It has that kind of slightly boring middle class feel to it.

Alondra Park is just to north, which means that much of the northern border is a sprawling golf course. El Camino College is also there, though it is not the kind of college that draws students to live close by. Being a community college, it just draws from the nearby populace.

One thing this area definitely does not lack is shopping malls. There are strips malls within its border and the Galleria Shopping mall to the west. (Not to be confused with the famous Sherman Oaks Galleria up in the Valley. This is not the one made famous in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.) In fact, this is a fairly uninspired mall with not much to it. (Unless you think TJ Maxx or Target are amazing stores.)

There are also a number of auto dealerships along the edges of this neighborhood.

On the south of the neighborhood is the behemoth Exxon Mobile Refinery. It stretches across the southern border like a city onto itself. Its proximity is part of what drives would-be residents away.

The 405 cuts diagonally across the neighborhood, packing with commuters twice a day.

North High is the local school. It’s pretty mediocre.

Overall, this is a pretty forgettable neighborhood, with nothing particularly great or terrible about it. If you like a sort of middle class existence of this kind, then you may have found home.

When I was little, Compton had the reputation of being Gangland. It was the kind of place that you didn’t want to be a part of at any time of the day, but especially at night. I would like to say that it is no longer the kind of place that average middle class folks are afraid of today, but that is simply not the case. Compton and West Compton remains one of the more dangerous areas in LA. West Compton is in the top forty in both violent and property crime categories. In terms of murders there have been 7 since 2007, though this is a little misleading. 6 of the seven happened in 2008 and the vast majority of these were within a few blocks of one short stretch of Tarrant Avenue that I can only assume to be a gang territory. Most of these were drive by shootings.

Driving along this section of Tarrant, you might not, at first, think of it immediately as being a gang neighborhood. The squat, cozy 50’s era Ranch homes don’t seem particularly gang-like. But a closer look reveals bars on the windows of many of the homes, and many dried up lawns of homes that seem to have been abandoned. In fact, this description of this section of the neighborhood can be carried over to whole neighborhood.

West Compton is home to some 6,000 people and is one of the less dense areas in this area of LA. Largely this is because the entire western half of the neighborhood is made up of office and factory buildings. There are several businesses here dealing with things like metal work, and glass works. You will often see lots with pieces of scrap metal just laying around.

The schools in the area are also ranked as some of the lowest in the area, with terrible objective criteria.

One of the few positives of this neighborhood, however, is JayBee’s BBQ. It’s a bit of an ugly hole in the wall but the BBQ is great. Well worth braving Compton.

Like West Athens to the south, Westmont is another highly dangerous gang neighborhood. According to the LA Times, it ranks 7th in terms of most dangerous neighborhoods in all of LA. Given that hundreds of people get murdered in this city every year, this is not something to take lightly. How bad is it? In the last 6 months 7 people have been killed in this neighborhood. There have been 4 rapes reported as well, and hundreds of robberies and aggravated assaults. Since 2007, there have been 68 murders in this neighborhood of 31,000. 68! That means that they average 16.5 murders per year. So if you live in this neighborhood, your chances of getting shot are 1 in 2000. Your chances of being assaulted, 1 in 90 (and that is just in one year).

Even more depressing, many residents say that things are getting worse, not better.

The schools in the area are just as bad. George Washington and Morningside High are both ranked at the very bottom of academic standards. Both having API’s of 1 out of 10 and showing only very small percentages of their students as passing the STAR test. The one positive thing to say about Morningside is that despite its inability to fully prepare its students, it has managed to pass all of its No Child Left Behind standards last year—which means that it is slowly beginning to improve (certainly doing much better than George Washington).

Given these conditions there is little point in me telling you about the Ranch homes that make up the neighborhood or to me talking up the palm trees and the pleasant stopped-in-time quality of many of the streets in this neighborhood. Unfortunately, when crime is out of control as it now is in Westmont, there is little that will draw people here to notice the finer point of this neighborhood.

Back when I was growing up, Inglewood was associated with two things, the Great Western Forum where Magic and Lakers were in their heyday, and gang violence. So what is it known for today? Unfortunately, for the exact same things. (Not that I have anything against the Lakers, regardless of what I may think of Kobi).

Now Inglewood is a very crowded place. More than 100,000 people live here. It really is a city onto itself. So that needs to be kept in perspective when I tell you how many people have been murdered there in the last four years. 92. That’s right, that not a typo. 92 people have met their makers through violence in the last four years. Even if you just consider this in terms of the yearly average—23 murders per year, this is pretty high. That is basically one out of every 5000 residents roughly. If you were told you had a one in five thousand chance of being killed each year that you lived somewhere, you might not want to live there I think.

How does this compare to other places in LA? Let’s take Glendale with roughly twice the population of Inglewood. How many murders have they had in the same period? 10. Not 10 per year, ten total. So you are 18 times more likely to die in a violent way in Inglewood than in Glendale. But perhaps this isn’t fair, Glendale after all is known as one of the safest areas in all of LA. In all categories of crime, compared to the overall LA average and national average Inglewood comes out on top in every category for the entire previous decade (the only exception being rapes where Inglewood came out below the average twice).

Put simply, when you go to the Lakers game, just get back in your car and get out of town, because this is just short of a war zone. (I realize I am slightly exaggerating the threat. I know that most of this violence is contained to rival gangs, but people do get caught in the crossfire and armed burglaries are common as well.)

I should say that some of the residents that I’ve met say it isn’t any worse than anywhere else (though I think the statistics speak for themselves). There is also a general feeling that with their newly elected mayor things will begin to improve again. I hope so, but frankly, until the issue of crime is addressed I don’t think there is much point in talking about the positives of the neighborhood.

The tiny Little Tokyo neighborhood has benefited greatly from its central location in what is basically Downtown LA. I don’t know much about living in this area, its mostly hotels and high rises around here, but as far as coming here—this is a great spot for eating out and going to museums. Two thirds of the buildings in this area date from the 1970’s and after, so this does not have that old, run down look of much of the Downtown area.

You, of course, have a number of great Japanese restaurants here from the sinus clearing Curry House to cheap but yummy Mr. Ramen. If you want something a little more unusual try Shabu Shabu, (Japanese fondue). Those are just a few of a number of places, I could go on and on about--like Chin Ma Ya, Kushi Shabu, Teishokuyo and Shehiro. And, if you are just looking for cool nightspots to have some saki or take in the atmosphere, here are two recommendations, The Lazy Ox and Sushi Gen, I have great memories at both. In addition, with the nearby hotels and the great though overpriced shopping at little malls like Weller Court Shopping Center (where Curry House is located), this is a great part of town to stay in if you are tourist here (and have the dough to pay the higher prices).

As you might expect this is also the location of the Japanese American Museum. The museum is kind of fun—if slightly small—place to visit. They offer compelling exhibits celebrating Japanese life and achievements in the United States and fun programs like their popular sushi making working shop so that you can buy your own ingredients and make your own home made sushi. Much larger and fairly impressive is the Geffen Contemporary Museum (one of whose facilities is here in Little Tokyo). The Geffen Contemporary features contemporary art done after 1940 and has not only a large selection of contemporary art in its collection but also a fair representation of architectural exhibitions. For those of us who are amateur lovers of architecture like I am, this is just smorgasbord of intellectual and aesthetic delights.

In fact, the whole area in the Downtown area has really grown to reflect the central place that Los Angeles has come to occupy on the West Coast. No longer can San Francisco or Seattle claim to have a leg up on Los Angeles in terms of culture or commerce. This is the New York of the West Coast.

This area is definitely not to be confused with Westlake Village to the far west of the San Fernando Valley. In fact, you might say that this is the exact opposite of that area. Whereas Westlake Village is filled with the rich and the affluent, Westlake near Downtown LA is poor; where the Village is filled with home owners who have, in many cases, paid off their homes, 19 of 20 residents of Westlake are renters; where as the average age in Westlake Village is close to 40, Westlake is much younger, averaging 27. So it is definitely a study in contrasts.

Those familiar with the much maligned song, MacArthur Park, will be interested to know that this is also the neighborhood that is home to the park that gave inspiration to that song. For those of you have forgotten the lyrics, here’s the part you must know about:

Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don't think that I can take it
'Cause it took so long to bake it
And I'll never have that recipe again

Ahh! Wonderful aren’t they? No wonder so many artists have chosen to cover it. It is always good to put cakes in songs, makes them sweeter. Like when Sting rewrote the ending of his famous Police song, “Every Step you Take,” and ended with “Every cake you bake/Every leg you break.” But I digress.

Unfortunately Westlake, and the MacArthur Park area (which was once known as the Champs-Elysees of Los Angeles) have taken a turn for the worse. There have been 50 murders in this neighborhood in the last four years. That’s 12.5 per year. In the last six months there have been 6 murders, so they are right on pace to meet their sad average. In the past six months, there have also been two dozen reported rapes, and hundreds of assaults, and just in the last week there have been warnings about spikes in violence in this neighborhood. Even if we take into account the large population of this neighborhood—120,000, making it as big as Pasadena, though all crammed together—we still have to consider 50 murders as an extreme number.

The neighborhood is basically still a gang epicenter. Several of these gangs use the suffix, “Locos” at the end of their location name, as their gang name. So, for example one of the granddaddies of the modern gangs was known as the Macarthur Street Locos.

If that hasn’t scared you away yet, then you should also consider that the local public schools—outside of the magnets—simply aren’t cutting it in this area. Belmont High, for example, misses Federal and state assessments on the order of 20 every year with virtually no sign of progress.

That said, I have met Westlake residents who say that this whole view of the area as dangerous is overblown—that it is perfectly fine place to live and that they have not had any problems. Some even say that it is the fault of police and clanking down on them too strongly. I am more than a little dubious of these claims, especially since they will follow this up by talking about prostitutes they saw near their homes or how the sound of gunfire woke them in the night. Sometimes we just don’t want to admit what is obvious to everyone else.

Given all these problems, no one in their right mind would want to live in this neighborhood. Put simply, you would have to be a “loco” to want to live in this neighborhood.

Yet another of the neighborhoods that I consider part of “Hipster Heaven,” because of its large population of artsy hipster types. Atwater Village is squeezed between Griffith Park on the west and Glendale on the east. On its northern end the streets start to break down, so most of the homes and shops are on the southern end.

It is there that you will find the really nice, smaller bungalow style homes that make Atwater popular. This is a pretty middle class neighborhood, though the push towards gentrification may yet push prices up and change its character. It is also a pretty diverse neighborhood.

Down by Los Feliz Blvd., you get a lot of the nightlife that makes this is popular destination for hipsters. There is The Roost, a dive bar, and the Griffin, a cool lounge. You also find a number restaurants like the Acapulco and Canele.

Overall this is a great little neighborhood that looks like it is up and coming.

Griffith Park is a great spot to go experience the outdoors right in the heart of Los Angeles. It has great hiking trails the LA Zoo is there and the Griffith Observatory. I don’t know much about the LA Zoo—I’ve heard bad things about the zoo here so even though I have lived here all my life I have never actually been to it. I just hear the facilities are very outdated and the animals look sickly. When I go to zoo I generally head down to San Diego Wild Animal Park, where the animals get to live in similar conditions to those of their natural habitat.

That said, the Griffith Observatory is really fantastic. As a teenager, I used to go up there to watch the Pink Floyd Laser Light show—basically, they use the planetarium facilities to play Floyd songs and to project a light show up onto the dome ceiling. Even in the 80’s this was considered a little hokey, but if you like Pink Floyd and are in the right state of mind (I don’t necessarily mean “stoned”), then it is really rather enjoyable. As I remember it was always held late, so by the time you got out it was either Denny’s or—if you didn’t mind the crowds—Jerry’s Famous Deli on Coldwater. (I don’t know if they do the light show anymore.)

The observatory is also famous for having been the location for the knife fight in Rebel Without a Cause—Dennis Hopper fans will know that he was one of the knife wielders in that. And, more recently it was in that Jim Carrey movie, Yes Man.

On the outside of the observatory you get great views of Burbank and Glendale. The architecture is sort of Art Deco, I think. On the inside, you get the typical exhibitions. My favorite is the pendulum that swings and slowly knocks down the domino like pieces.

Overall it, and the rest of Griffith Park during the day--is a great place to go with kids or if you have an interest in astronomy. At night, the park gets a little dicey. I once had a midnight picnic there—but quite frankly I felt more like I was in a Friday the Thirteenth film than a Romantic comedy. It is hard to enjoy that kind of a romantic gesture when you think someone might grab you, chop you to bits and feed you to the squirrels.

In most other places in the country, Pasadena (like Burbank and Glendale) would be considered either the premiere location around or the strongest secondary city. It is a testament to how monstrously large and powerful Los Angeles is that it sustains so many satellite cities in its orbit.

Pasadena, however, truly has the size and complexity to be considered in its own terms. It has a commercial sector, a beautiful hill section with a grand football stadium and amusement park. It has more than one excellent museum, two very good colleges, and also a run down area where shootings and police aircraft are a common occurrence. It has a main shopping drag where you can get great first class food, or go at night to dance and get a drink. It has great historic buildings and neighborhoods, and it also has boring suburban neighborhoods filled with Ranch Homes.

Put simply, Pasadena is a microcosm for the whole So Cal area, containing in miniature, the complexity of the entire South Land. If you can’t find it in Pasadena, then it probably doesn’t exist in So Cal.

This is not really a neighborhood. These hills overlooking the city in a location that might make for great homes is actually the home to a giant landfill where the solids wastes from the surrounding areas area kept. It is literally a mountain of garbage—the cost of maintaining a large metropolitan city.

Next the landfill is Scholl Canyon Park, featuring a ginormous golf course (complete with driving ranges), a baseball court and tennis courts. This is a great public place to go to play ball and get some sun—although it is a strange place for a landfill.

Chevy Chase Canyon is one of the major residential neighborhoods in the hills on the northeastern end of Glendale. The neighborhood is largely made up million dollar Mission Revival and Ranch Style homes.

The neighborhood has a more organic feel than many of its neighbors. The homes and streets feel more as if they have been adapted to the hilly environment than as if the hills have been forced to fit the builder’s original design. Thus streets curve, homes a placed below street level or up ivy cover hillocks above the roadside. This affect is a welcome break from the meticulously planned neighborhoods nearby—like Rancho San Rafael just to northwest.

The other big difference between Chevy Chase and some of its other hilly neighbors is that it actually has a market to get food (St. George’s Mini Mart) and a library and other signs that it isn’t just a bunch of houses thrown down where some chaparral used to be. You actually feel as if there is something more to the community than putting a roof over your head and living.

One of the other features of the neighborhood that gives you a sense of its vibe is the Chevy Chase Gold Course. The golf course sprawls in the middle of the neighborhood, forming its heart. It’s a nice course, though given the other golf courses in the area, it is hardly necessary.

Overall, a good place to raise kids away from the hustle and bustle of LA.

The San Rafael Hills stretch to the east of Highway 2 and are almost completely empty except for Verdugo Hills hospital to the north—an okay hospital. Those that do live here must live there, because the rest is almost all chaparral along the hillside.

In the neighborhood’s southern edge you will find the Glendale Sport’s Park, where everyone locally goes to watch their kids play soccer or baseball. It is basically just a bunch of sports field. The rest of the area is begging for development, but so far has managed to escape it.

Planconi is a residential neighborhood whose main feature is the Planconi Park at its western edge, just across the street from Glendale Business College. The triangular park doesn’t have much to it, being mostly just a baseball field occasionally occupied by local kids.

The rest of the neighborhood is made up of a nice middle class neighborhood. The residential streets are leafy, the lawns well-kept, and the homes mostly of the modest ranch home variety. It is very pleasant if not more than a little bit boring.

Glen Oaks is a beautiful boulevard on its northern end, with palm trees, but both it and San Fernando Road have nothing particularly distinctive in terms of restaurant or stores. They are perfectly serviceable, but no one from outside of the area would drive in to go to them.

All in all, however, it is exactly the kind of boring place that is perfect for raising kids.

The Blanco-Culver Crest neighborhood stretches out just south of West LA College. On its western end there is a rather bland shopping complex with all the usual suspects, such as PetSmart, Starbucks, and Burger King. You will certainly not lack parking in this big strip mall, but it is not the sort of place that will attract anyone from outside of Culver City.

In the midst of this there is one lane, Kinston, that is all 1970’s style boxy apartments, which are just as bland as the stores. To the east of this strip mall that lines Sepulveda, you get a series of surface streets with Ranch style homes all along them, much in the style that is so common in much of the San Fernando Valley to the north.

As you get up into the hills of Culver Crest, the Ranch homes do tend to get nicer of course. Up there, you will also find Marycrest Manor, a nursing facility run by the Carmelite Sisters.

On the southern end of the neighborhood, near the border with Fox Hills there are several condominium complexes and the large sprawling, Holy Cross Cemetary. While yet another Ranch House filled section of neighborhood is located on the southwest corner at Playa Street. El Rincon Elementary is also in this area, an extremely diverse grammar school that is very well regarded for it ability to prepare students for academic success.

Millwood is a residential area just away from the main coastal action in Venice. Around Electric Avenue at the western border of the neighborhood, things have a rather run down look to them, with a fair number of 1970’s apartment complexes. The area is relatively safe, although it was the site of senseless 2007 murder of a pregnant woman in a home invasion of her apartment. Another man was also shot at the edge of the neighborhood after coming out of a club in what was probably a gang slaying. To the east of here there is a prominent gang problem which most of the time stays put to the east of Lincoln.

As you go inland and slightly north, you find homes grow larger, nicer and more secluded with tall hedges and other sorts of barriers to easy surveillance. The neighborhood still has the characteristic signature of the Venice neighborhood, the narrow alleyway that is named as a street.

Like Windward Circle, this area too has a European style traffic circle, though this one is much smaller and less prominent. A nice effect but not really that big of deal.

The Venice Canals are without a doubt the most cherished of Venice locations, perhaps only second in fame to the Boardwalk. The homes in the area are nice without being extravagant, but their location along the canals makes them so picturesque as to be difficult to resist. The rental prices also rise accordingly, with single bedroom homes going for $2,000 per month. Despite the cramped spaces and the alleyways instead of streets (the canals are where the house fronts face), this is a neighborhood popular with the artistic set. Jim Morrison started the tradition way back in the 60’s when he was just getting together with the rest of the Doors. Many of the current residents are famous actors as well—like Nicholas Cage.

Because of the narrow alleyway like streets, and difficult access most businesses prefer to stay outside of this neighborhood. This semi-seclusion also works as a protective barrier, keeping the worst of crime out of this section of Venice—which is not to say that residents don’t get their share of disturbances from the drugged out or the lost. The Canals neighborhood also gets a lot of foot traffic from beach goers coming through and from tourists coming to take a peak a place they can’t quite believe is real. “Is this a theme park?” is a common question from those who come here.

The area is sort of a theme park is the truth about it. Venice was the brainchild of developer who wanted to created a entertainment city like Coney Island on the west coast. The idea for the canal system was a bit of a gimmick to lure people. There used to be many more of them actually, but LA County filled most of them in when they acquired the area. Venice used to have a pier just like Santa Monica, but when it closed down—Venice went to the dogs and then, eventually was revived in the 70’s.

Today, most residents are satisfied with the trade-of for the opportunity of living in such a beautiful place.

Culver West is a bit of an strait of a neighborhood extending out from Culver City, dividing Playa Vista and Mar Vista as it straddles Washington Blvd. Why someone would chose to extend a neighborhood out like this in a narrow band rather than sampling straighten out the borders between north and south right at the Blvd. is beyond me—but I guess Culver City was just not willing to give up this patch of territory.

I guess I can understand why. If you had cool gastropubs like Waterloo and City in your neighborhood, would you want to let it go without a fight? Or how about a lounge like the Alibi Room—worth the visit just for the name, but definitely for an upscale sort of a Gossip Girl kind of a feel. There is also Café Brasil, a great little authentic place. And for the actual café experience, you might try the nearby The Rumor Mill—the outside décor isnt’ inviting, and the inside is a little bit too sleek and washed to be really cozy, but with great coffee, a next door coin laundry and occasional live music, it definitely has its plusses.

As far as the housing and all that, it pretty much like the rest of Playa Vista and Mar Vista. (But don’t tell them, Culver City really wants to keep this stretch of gourmet heaven.)

This was my alma-mater, so it holds a special place in my heart. I don’t know if I would call this the best college town ever—in fact, it is in many ways not a college town at all. It certainly doesn’t have the small town feel of other college towns where everything revolves around the college. UCLA is also not a “party school” the way Santa Barbara certainly is. In fact, the entertainment industry seems to have as much of an influence on Westwood as the college, and although the streets get packed whenever there is a game and the university has an active life, it is possible to come into Westwood without really thinking too much about the beautiful hillside campus or the Bruins.

Downtown Westwood to the south of the school is a playground for students and for the young and affluent. It is not unusual the see the sort of crowd you would associate with Rodeo Drive in the streets, getting out of their Lamborghinis or making their latest deal on their cell phones. Frat boys in class would often call the downtown area Silicon Valley because of how many breast augmentations were visible on Westwood Blvd. There are lots of restaurants, some bookstores and great movie theaters—all at prices students can afford, but there are also several high end restaurants that are outside of most student’s budgets. This mix of the student life style and affluence make for an unusual combination that I think serves UCLA students well—reminding them of the materialistic values of the real world, and giving them a gentle extra nudge to keep their goals sensibly focused. (Something that is not always easy in a college known for its Film Department.)

There are lots of places to talk about in Downtown Westwood, but here are some of favorite spots. The corner of Westwood and Weyburn where the Westwood Village Theater is with it towers statue is a great spot. Across the street, there is the Gypsy Café where I spent many a late night with friends laughing before and after films. There is also a wonderful little alley way where vendors sell little knick knacks and an assortment of entertainments. Much of Westwood has changed, of course, since I was a student there. I notice there is Starbucks and an In-N-Out which have made the neighborhood less distinctive but the attractive, clean street with the Mission architectural theme still remains a big draw.

Unfortunately, Westwood’s popularity makes it not the best place to live for many students, the rents being outside of most students’ budgets. The prime location makes it well worth the attempt however. I lived there one year in one of the local apartments just south of Wilshire Boulevard with three other roommates. Even then, it was fairly expensive. There is also a bit of crime in Westwood—mostly car break-ins and that sort of thing, which makes you feel a little less safe than you would like. Murders, however, are fairly rare, except in 2007 when four murders occurred. Most fairly south of Wilshire.

The other thing that makes it less of a full college experience is the fact that LA really requires you to have a car. At times this gives UCLA a bit of commuter school feel with students living so far away from campus that there is not the sort of cohesion I’ve noticed at other colleges. Don’t get me wrong—this is not Cal State Northridge, but it’s not UC Berkeley (my husband’s school) either.

UCLA is a diverse school with lots of students from just about every economic, racial and national background which really adds to the college experience and makes it a great place to open your horizons.

Beverly Glen is the small neighborhood at the border of Bel Air and Beverly Crest. The neighborhood’s name derives from the fact that most all the homes in the neighborhood are on tributaries from Beverly Glen Blvd. which is a long house lined road that takes commuters all the way into the Sherman Oaks area of the San Fernando Valley. Unfortunately, this also makes this road an alternate to the overcrowded 405 Freeway that runs parallel to it to the west. On your average day Beverly Glen Blvd. is packed to the gills with traffic trying to find a more pleasant (though in no way more time effective) way of avoiding the 405. When it is not rush hour, motorists treat the road like a race track, making it unsafe for pedestrians and for the Beverly Glen Blvd. residents trying to pull out into the traffic flashing by.

Off this main thoroughfare the hillside streets are quieter and the homes are modest by Bel Air standards, which means they are far above average for most neighborhoods. This is hillside living, so residents should be prepared for fire scares in the summer when the Santa Ana winds kick flames up near their homes (the big 1961 fire ravaged Bel Air and Brentwood) and in the winter the rain leads to mudslides and the like. However, the hillside location tends to be a full ten degrees cooler than down in the valley below and there are some pleasant views (although mostly not as fantastic as those in other areas of Bel Air—you will not get views down into LA or over the Golf Course from here, for example).

It is expensive here and you will spend a lot of time driving to get home—even small errands down to town will take you the better part of an hour because of the constant traffic. Beverly Glen, however, is fairly self-sufficient with a supermarket and your usual set of everyday stores, so you can limit your trips down into town. If you like being a little secluded while remaining close to the action, this is definitely the neighborhood for you.

Playa Vista is a small middle class neighborhood to the east of Marina Del Rey. Its northern half is sometimes designated Del Rey. Overall is is nice quiet diverse neighborhood although it does have some gang problems around the Mar Vista Gardens, a housing project known for being in the “sotel gang” territory. Like its coastal neighbor, much of Playa Vista is made up of condos on planned, manicured streets. Rents are somewhat on the high side at these condos but not so high as to be out of range for middle class folks.

For a long time this upscale neighborhood has been best known for the O.J. Simpson trial (this being the site of the major events in the trial). There is, of course, much more to Brentwood than this classification. Brentwood is one of the preferred areas for people to live in the LA areas. Brentwood has a commercial area with tall office towers where it borders Westwood, but the choice areas are scattered along the hills, where you get the larger gated communities and occasional mansions. The sea breezes tend to make Brentwood a bit cooler than the inland cities. Property prices rise along with the altitude so that you can find moderately priced apartments in the areas bordering Westwood along Wilshire (some UCLA students live in the area), but as you climb into the hills it is not unusually to find homes with rents in the thousands of dollars.

University High School is the main public school for Brentwood teens, but most Brentwood residents prefer to send their kids to one of the many private schools in the area such as the toni Archer School for Girls (where the student teacher ratio is 7:1) or Milken Com. High school (where the ratio is 8:1).

There is a vibrant shopping district along Wilshire Boulevard and with all the green spaces, you get your fair share of golf courses as well.

The crime rate is, as you would expect for such a neighborhood, very low, with most of the crimes taking place in the commercial areas near Wilshire—the main artery coursing through Brentwood.

Mid-City is a swath of real-estate cut from the middle of Santa Monica to indicate the highly urbanized area at the heart of the city. Sometimes it includes downtown Santa Monica, although I will mainly be reviewing the area east of Lincoln.

One thing that you find a lot of in this area are car dealerships—something that makes it rather ugly for residents and visitors. This is certainly not the area where tourists come to visit and take pictures.

You will also find a lot of apartments and lower end hotels in this section of town, catering to tourists who cannot afford the high beach prices but still want to enjoy Santa Monica. Residents tend to live in the many Seventies style apartments that populate the area. Most streets have pleasant palms and are clean, but this is certainly not the leafy areas north of Montana. They are really fairly average and mainly have the proximity to the ocean and other spots in the city going for them.

The major freeway in the area is the Santa Monica 10 that cuts right into Downtown LA, so you are right near the heart of just about everything.

Along Santa Monica Blvd. you will also find Saint Johns Health Center, a very solid medical facility that serves this area. The hospital also means that many of the nearby Santa Monica apartments are occupied by nurses and interns who want to be close to work so that when they are paged in the middle of the night they don’t have far to go to be at work.

One of the notable companies that calls Santa Monica home is the Playboy Publishing Group that has offices on Broadway.

The real action however are at the smattering of night clubs that take advantage of the slightly lower rents in the area. Notable are V Lounge and The Room. V Lounge is one of those slick looking, glassy dance lounges while The Room is one of those dark, dungeon like red bricked deals with big drinks.

You might as well think of Oak Park as Agoura Hills north—that is basically all it is. If you thought Agoura Hills was a boring town with nothing to do, then this goes ten times for Oak Park. Although, I must say that things feel just slightly more manicured in this part of town than they did in Agoura. I’m not sure that this is a positive, however. The whole town feels a little bit like it was built on a golf course—that same kind of green, gently sloping aesthetic. I suppose it is nice and its insulation from the rest of the world certainly justifies the high cost of living. But it just feels sort of like Deadsville to me.

I’m not sure when this area came to be called Valley Glen, I remember no mention of this growing up here. It seems like it is yet another attempt to break areas of the Valley up into smaller, more manageable chunks so that they can be more easily managed. What you end up with is a place like this—with no true character as of yet. People I have met from the area have one thing in common though: they love to complain about the mess the local city council made of Victory Blvd. when they tried to fix it up. Apparently they ended up just driving business away with the prolonged construction project, closing up areas for weeks on end and diverting traffic just as the economic crisis hit. So now you find lots of boarded up buildings instead of businesses here.

You can pretty much tell what kind of a neighborhood you will get by the area it borders. So you have nicer areas bordering Sherman Oaks on the southwest and a lot more of a run down industrial feel up by Sun Valley. Near North Hollywood, you get the usual blend of young people looking for nicer areas to live at affordable prices.

Valley College is also in Valley Glen. It’s a community college—a good one—but it does not really attract students to live here or give the area a college town feel. It does provide jobs and you will find Valley College instructors who live in the area and it also attracts a lot of young people on the way to class—a fact that local businesses could take better advantage of.

It’s hard to judge which way Valley Glen will go or what character it will take. It definitely feels like a community in transition however. It could become a sort of transitional area between North Hollywood and Sherman Oaks—which might be a nice place to live—or you could end up with just the lower regions of Pacoima and Sun Valley—which would definitely not be nice.

Arleta has definitely seen better days. Many people who grew up in the area speak fondly of it back in the 60’s and 70’s, at about the time it became a community of its own. It is still an okay place to live, although it is more than a little boring with very little to do for entertainment.

Arleta looks much as it did back then in terms of housing. It has lots of larger 1950’s style ranch homes with large yards in the front and gates in the front.

Arleta has largely managed to avoid the worst of the gang problems from the surrounding areas, but not by much. Arleta High School, like the other nearby high schools, is not well-regarded.

Put simply, this seems like a place that has seen its best days. On the other hand, the fact that a company like Juicy would choose Arleta perhaps suggests they may still have a rebound in them. Time will only tell.

San Fernando is a working class city just south of Sylmar and the east of the 405 Freeway. This is the city that gives the whole Valley its name, deriving it from the Mission that now resides in Mission Hills to the west. Like its northern neighbor Sylmar, San Fernando has its share of dirt side-walks make it a bit dusty. It has many trees but the whole neighborhood has a bit of a desert feel to it. The houses tend to be flat, unadorned, box-like and old. In many areas of San Fernando, there are rows and rows of stripped down 50’s ranch houses. In other parts of the city, there are fallow unclaimed lots and boarded up houses. Such signs point to the moribund nature of much of this area.

San Fernando High School’s main draw is in athletics. It has a strong football tradition and its wrestling team is considered amongst the strongest in the county. Unfortunately, the academics side of the school is considered among the worst in the Valley. Furthermore, because San Fernando has one of the lowest median incomes in the Valley, the schools have not done well in fund raising, thus exacerbating an already bad problem.

The local government has started to institute plans to revive the city, but it is unclear whether the economic downturn will put the kibosh on plans to gentrify the area.

North Granada Hills covers the section of the Granada Hills that reaches up into the Santa Susanna mountains above the Ronald Reagan Freeway (Highway 118) and stretches towards the Antelope Valley Freeway and the water treatment plant that borders Granada Hills on the north side. This is the more expensive part of Granada Hills. Because the peak of the Granada Hills’ fame came in the 1970’s, the homes here are mostly in the Brady Bunch kind of architecture that was popular during those less than energy conscious days. In other words, you will find lot’s of large homes, often with two stories and high attic spaces (remember how Greg moved into the attic even though Marsha wanted to?). Most homes in North Granada hills have pools, garages, and large driveways. (They were made, after all, for the large gas guzzlers of that era.)

One of the pleasant aspects of this seventies aesthetic, as opposed to the uniformity of the next door Porter Ranch for example, is that the homes are each unique. Although they are all large, they were all clearly allowed to develop in an organic manner according to the dictates of the architect or future homeowner. This makes it much easier to find the home of your dreams.

This is still, of course, a neighborhood with upper middle class ambitions and so you must have the mandatory golf course that stretches through the community at its eastern end.

One of the central attractions of North Granada Hills, however is O’Melveny Park, one of the largest parks in the LA Area. O’Melveny has great hiking trails and a wonderful view of the Valley which is clear once the Santa Anas sweep out the smog. However, you should be aware that this is a truly wild park. Cougar attacks and encounters with rattlers are not that uncommon.

All in all, this is a great place to live and to raise kids, although it does tend to skew a little bit on the old side because so many of the households have been here since the 70’s.

Topanga Canyon is the name unofficially given to the handful of neighborhoods that hide just off of the Topanga Canyon Blvd. as it exits the Woodland Hills/Calabasas area and starts to wind its way through Topanga proper and towards the beaches by the Pacific Coast highway. There is a mix of construction styles up here as you see the succession of architectures from the flat Brady Bunch like seventies look to the 90’s town-home look. You are fairly hidden away up here, and you will get your share of pests from coyotes to strange neighbors, but if you like to be just slightly hidden away this is the place for you. Of course, you need a car here because nothing is near enough to walk to and there isn’t even the vaguest attempt at public transportation.

But there are some nice homes and the home prices are not as out of hand as Calabasas or even Woodland Hills.

Santa Clarita is technically not in LA County, but you might call it a satellite community—so close that it is worth mention when thinking about when you’re looking for a great place to live in the LA Area. Santa Clarita is actually a very old community, having been founded by a successful SF investor way back in the 19th century. It took a hundred years though for it to officially become its own city.

If you live in the San Fernando Valley, you probably only know Santa Clarita as the home to Six Flags Magic Mountain, this city’s main claim to fame and biggest employer. However, if you are looking for a great community that is just far enough away from the problems that plague LA County, but still want to be close enough to LA to commute to work or enjoy what LA has to offer, then Santa Clarita might be just the solution. Now, I would not recommend it if you work south of say Westwood or in LA itself, the commute might be a killer then. But if you have a job that allows you to telecommute on some days, or if you work in the Valley, Santa Clarita might be a great place to set down roots.

Although it is an old community, you would not know it from big rancho style houses here that all seem to date from the 90’s or newer. These are beautiful well-kept neighborhoods with green lawns and lots of open spaces. You are literally in the middle of the mountains here, so you have that as a backdrop and also as a bit of a barrier against the worst temperatures of the Valley. Air quality is also much better here than in LA whose smog belt you can see from the freeway as you head south.

There is a commuter train line that connects Santa Clarita to the rest of LA, so you might keep that as an option for commuting to work. You can use commute time to work on a laptop and thus increase your efficiency. Santa Clarita also has a strong business community as well—Princess Cruises, for example has their HQ here.

This is also a great place to raise kids. Not only will they always be able to find employment at Magic Mountain, but the schools are good and well financed. Santa Clarita also has three business oriented colleges, the College of the Canyons being only the most prominent.

The city is just developed enough where it has everything you could want from a suburban area: nice malls and good restaurants. In addition, I imagine that you can’t beat the hiking and outdoor life around here.

In a nutshell, Santa Clarita is a great little underappreciated gem, just north of LA County.

West Hills is one of the five areas that border the western end of the valley (the others being high end Calabasas and Hidden Hills, the upper middle class Woodland Hills, and the somewhat run-down Chatsworth). West Hills is a sort of middle ground between these other areas. It is neither hyper wealthy nor run down. It is actually a nice upper middle class neighborhood that is often overlooked for its better known neighbors. Houses here are modest but well kept. The neighborhood has its share of high end homes near the hills but it is not gaudy. You won’t see celebrities roaming the streets or see pictures of the latest starlet in Westhills—no paparazzi here. But you also won’t here about the latest gang activity here either.

West Hills has two main draws. One is the great hiking trails that you can find on its western end. Just like Chatsworth, West Hills is a great place for outdoor recreation. It also has a few historic sites dedicated to San Fernando Valley historic figures that not even people living here remember. In other words, you will not find anyone coming to West Hills to visit these sites.

The other main draw of West Hills is the Fallbrook Mall. Although it is much smaller than the Topanga and Promenade mall in Woodland Hills, the Fallbrook Mall is much less of a hassle. Less traffic, fewer teenagers. It isn’t quiet exactly, but locals much prefer it.

West Hills does not have its own high school, so locals end up either at Calabasas High or, in some cases Canoga Park High. If you intend on living here, try to live in the part that feeds into Calabasas and avoid Canoga Park High which is run down and gang-ridden.

Overall, however, this is a good, moderately priced place to live. The only truly middle class neighborhood of those that border the western end of the Valley. I real hidden treasure

Simi Valley, just to the west of Chatsworth and technically outside of Los Angeles county, is Cop City. This is one of the safest places that you can live since it is populated by current and former law enforcement officers from L.A. County. But don’t try breaking the law or looking suspicious around here, they’ll be on your case before you know it.

Simi is surrounded by mountains and has a real sort of Arizona feel to it all the way through from the hot weather, cactus décor and the conservative politics. This is definitely pick-up truck country. On the weekends half the town is gone fishing on the big motorboats they tug around at the back of their big pick-ups.

Simi is also most famous for being the home to the Reagan Library, which is up above it in the rolling mountains that surround the city. You might remember it from the Reagan funeral. You will also find that they try to name everything after the Big Gipper around here.

If you are a square law and order type who likes nineties style southwest architecture and crew cuts, this will seem like heaven to you. I have only actually come here once or twice. It’s the kind of place you would never actually go unless you lived there (or if you were some sort of Reagan fanatic).