List of districts and neighborhoods of Los Angeles

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Map depicting boundaries of the city of Los Angeles as a part of Los Angeles County

This is a list of the districts and neighborhoods of the city of Los Angeles. The districts are organized by region.

Contents

[edit] Overview

Map of Los Angeles in 1970
Downtown Los Angeles skyline

Los Angeles neighborhoods display a degree of diversity well befitting the second-largest city in the United States. Much of this is an artifact of the city's history of growth by annexation and horizontal development, which allowed distinct environments to arise in many areas; indeed, many Los Angeles neighborhoods, such as Venice, Hancock Park, Silver Lake and Boyle Heights are fairly close-knit, culturally distinctive communities.

Many communities do not have defined or commonly accepted boundaries. Yet there is a broad consensus that they belong in particular larger district-wide groupings.

The city is oddly shaped—surrounded and punctured by unincorporated areas, other cities and state parklands. The city began in what is now downtown, in what had first been a Tongva village named Yang-na located in what is now the Los Angeles State Historic Park near Chinatown. It later became a Spanish pueblo and eventually grew to a metropolis based on manufacturing, aerospace, and entertainment industries. The city, and indeed the county, radiated outward from downtown, and geographic names referencing cardinal points or relative directions tend to be determined by their relationship to downtown rather than directions proper. For example, East L.A. is not all of the city east of West L.A., but rather the portion of the city east of downtown (and the Los Angeles River in its proximity).

The origins of L.A. neighborhoods are varied. Angelino Heights[1], for example, with its 1880s-era Victorian houses, was within view and walking distance (although a long one) from downtown Los Angeles, while distant Playa Vista is the city's newest manufactured neighborhood, conceived and birthed by developers. Chinatown was originally an ethnic-based community whose population and businesses were forced to move wholesale from a few miles away when L.A.'s newly built Union Station displaced Old Chinatown in the 1930s. San Pedro was once an independent city that voted to be annexed to Los Angeles: San Pedro benefited from L.A.'s access to water and the larger city got access to San Pedro's harbor.

The City of Los Angeles is divided among several telephone area codes. Area code 213 encompasses Downtown L.A. and adjacent neighborhoods; most remaining areas of central L.A. fall within area code 323, including Hollywood, Mid-Wilshire, and South Los Angeles; area code 310 and area code 424 cover West L.A., other westside cities, and the Harbor Area; and area code 818 covers the San Fernando Valley.

[edit] Downtown Los Angeles

Downtown as seen from Elysian Park
Chinatown gate
Main article: Downtown Los Angeles

Downtown Los Angeles marks the geographic, political, and historic center of Los Angeles. Although the smallest region of Los Angeles by area, it includes a great variety of diverse neighborhoods, ranging from the many modern skyscrapers of the Financial District to the historic structures of the Historic Core to the ethnic enclaves of Chinatown and Little Tokyo. It also contains many cultural attractions and entertainment venues. Downtown is also a center for local and regional transportation, with several freeways passing through and Union Station connecting regional trains to local buses and the Metro Line.

[edit] East and Northeast Los Angeles

Moon rising over Eagle Rock; the rock itself is visible in the bottom right
Main article: East Los Angeles (region)
See also: Northeast Los Angeles
See also: East Los Angeles, California

(Unincorporated area)

To the east and northeast of Downtown Los Angeles and the Los Angeles River lies Eastern Los Angeles. The region may sometimes be defined to include adjacent areas outside of the city boundaries of Los Angeles, such as Montebello and East Los Angeles. The communities listed here, however, all lie within the city of Los Angeles.

Many of the neighborhoods of Eastern Los Angeles house large Latino populations, although several neighborhoods, especially in northeast L.A., have more mixed populations. In the northern portions of Lincoln Heights and Montecito Heights there is a decent amount of white populations of Italian and French Decent. Highland Park with Eagle Rock also have a significant amount of white people. In Monterrey Hills nearly half of the population are white. The population also ranges from working-class to affluent. The predominantly residential neighborhoods of the region contain many hills, especially in northern regions.

East Los Angeles neighborhoods

[edit] Echo Park & Westlake

MacArthur Park, with the Westlake Theater and downtown in the background

Immediately west of Downtown Los Angeles lie some of the city's earliest suburbs. Angelino Heights and Echo Park were the locations of some of the first film studios west of the Mississippi. Now mostly populated by Latino immigrants, a great amount of distinctive architecture has been preserved from the early 20th century, including the restored Victorian homes in Angelino Heights. This region also includes the most densely populated ares in Los Angeles.

[edit] Greater Hollywood

The world-famous Hollywood sign
Koreatown
See also: West Hollywood and Universal City, California

Formerly a religious colony, then an independent city, Hollywood was annexed by Los Angeles in 1910. Its name is synonymous with the motion picture industry, yet much of movie production has moved out to neighboring cities. Tourists flock to Hollywood Boulevard to gaze up to the Hollywood sign in the Mountains. The last decade has brought new life to the once-struggling parts of the Hollywood district, with various developments taking advantage of new subway stations. The wealth of the neighborhoods here is strongly influenced by elevation; some of the wealthiest tracts in the country are up in the Hollywood Hills, with gradually less affluent population leading to pockets of large working-class and transient populations further southeast.

[edit] Harbor Area

Satellite image of the Harbor area
Main article: Harbor Area

Following the Harbor Gateway south to the port leads to the Harbor area, an enclave of L.A. surrounded by independent cities and annexed so the city would have full right-of-way to the port. The leading neighborhood of the harbor area is San Pedro.

[edit] Los Feliz & Silver Lake

Griffith Observatory in Los Feliz.

Nestled between Hollywood and the Los Angeles River are a group of the city's older residential neighborhoods that house Griffith and Elysian Parks, the city's largest public parks.

Similar to most of the city, communities in this area are significantly wealthier closer to the hills. In this fashion, Los Feliz retained its expensive reputation while other districts further south and closer to Westlake were plagued by gang wars or crime. In the last decade, the area particularly around the Silver Lake Reservoir and now Sunset Blvd has become closely associated with gentrification, a process which has pushed working class families out due to high housing costs. This is also the location of Chavez Ravine, a focal point of local history where the Latino neighborhood was demolished to make way for the Dodger Stadium in the 1950s.

[edit] South Los Angeles

Gateway to Jefferson Park
Watts Towers
South Central
Main article: South Los Angeles
See also: View Park-Windsor Hills
See also: Compton, California
See also: Inglewood, California
See also: Willowbrook, California

South Los Angeles, formerly called South-Central, includes most of the city directly south of downtown, the I-10, and Wilshire, but not those areas as far south as the Harbor Gateway, Harbor Area or the Port of Los Angeles. Most noted for its modern legacy of crime, and urban decay, South Los Angeles still harbors struggling areas. An example of this is Watts. More genteel communities are situated near USC in West Adams/University Park, as well as in the westernmost part of the region in districts like Crenshaw and Leimert Park.

[edit] San Fernando Valley

Mission San Fernando Rey de España is the only California Mission located in Los Angeles. It is in the community of Mission Hills.
Lake Balboa, namesake of the neighborhood
Victory Boulevard in Van Nuys
View of Woodland Hills with Warner Center in the foreground
Main articles: San Fernando Valley and Crescenta Valley
See also: Agoura Hills, Calabasas, Burbank, California, Glendale, California, and San Fernando

The largest region of the city is the San Fernando Valley, often referred to as "the Valley," and which includes portions of the Crescenta Valley. It is mainly suburban, and houses a wide-range of socioeconomic groups. It comprises about forty percent of the city's area and population. Mulholland Drive in the Santa Monica Mountains forms its southern boundary. It has gone through periodic clashes with the rest of the city over policy, culminating in a failed effort to incorporate as a city in 2002.

[edit] West Los Angeles (The Westside)

A palm-lined boulevard in West Los Angeles
The Getty Villa Museum in Pacific Palisades
Century City skyline
Venice Canals
Venice Boardwalk
Main article: West Los Angeles (region)
See also: Beverly Hills, Culver City, Santa Monica, and Malibu, California
See also: West Hollywood, Marina Del Rey, and Topanga Canyon

West Los Angeles is the part of the city encircled by Beverly Hills and Wilshire on the east, and Santa Monica and the Pacific Ocean on the west, the Santa Monica Mountains on the north, and Culver City and El Segundo on the south.

While the area is inhabited by a wide range of socioeconomic groups, it undoubtedly houses the largest concentration of wealth in the city. Attracted by its rolling hills on the north end, and close proximity to the ocean, early developers succeeded in establishing some of the most upscale residential districts in the city and the county. Pre-eminent among these are Bel-Air and Pacific Palisades. Yet further south, pockets of working class areas remain in those areas closest to former industrial areas like those near South LA and Culver City.

The term Westside, though often debated, refers to both the western parts of the city of Los Angeles as well as adjoning cities, such as Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, and West Hollywood. West L.A. or West Los Angeles also refers to a specific neighborhood south of Brentwood and east of Santa Monica.

[edit] Wilshire

Carthay Circle
Canter's Deli in the Fairfax District
This Streamline Modern building at the corner of Wilshire and Fairfax houses part of the L.A. County Museum of Art
Main articles: Mid-City West and Mid-Wilshire

The Wilshire area lies north of the Santa Monica Freeway, east of Beverly Hills, west of Downtown and south of Hollywood.

It is a collection of wealthy, middle, and working class neighborhoods that cluster around Wilshire Boulevard. Unlike other parts of Los Angeles the wealthier neighborhoods are set not in the hills, but rather on leveled land north of Wilshire Boulevard, east of Beverly Hills such as Larchmont, and Hancock Park. On the lower end, Koreatown is an example of a somewhat struggling neighborhood undergoing a revival.

[edit] City Map & Data

[edit] Other areas in Los Angeles County

[edit] References

  1. ^ By Jennifer Mena, Preserving L.A.'s past in Angelino Heights, Los Angeles Times, February 13, 2005
  2. ^ [1]
  3. ^ [2]
  4. ^ [3]
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[edit] External links

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