Village Green, Los Angeles, California

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Village Green is a South Los Angeles neighborhood near Baldwin Hills, Baldwin Village, Baldwin Vista, and The Crenshaw District.

North of Coliseum Street and west of La Brea Avenue, Village Green, a "garden city" housing development, was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 2001. The units seldom have more than two bedrooms, and tend to attract seniors and younger professionals as residents.

Next to Village Green, east of La Brea Avenue, lies Baldwin Village. Baldwin Village consists largely of two-story, apartment buildings of ten or more units, often originally surrounding a swimming pool, built in the late 1950s. Called "The Jungle" because of its lush landscaping, since the mid-1980s the city has promoted use of the name "Baldwin Village".[1] Originally occupied mostly by adults, young families not yet able to afford home purchase began to move in around the same time that de-segregation evoked white flight in the early 1960s. In the 1970s, black gangs took up illicit drug trade in the vicinity. "Sherm Alley", near Coliseum Street and Santa Barbara Avenue (now Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard), became a notorious drive-through drug market (a "Sherm" is a PCP-laced cigar in U.S. slang). By the 1990s the area had become a low-income, predominantly African-American and Latino neighborhood, its glass entryways gated, and its swimming pools filled in.

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  1. ^ Hayasaki, Erika (2006-09-30). "Gang Violence Fuels Racial Tensions". Los Angeles Times.