This is a list of the districts and neighborhoods of the city of Los Angeles. The districts are organized by region.
The neighborhoods and districts of Los Angeles possess a degree of diversity that is 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 districts of Los Angeles, such as Venice, Hancock Park, Silver Lake and Boyle Heights are somewhat culturally-distinctive communities.
Many of the districts of Los Angeles have their own U.S. post office. In some cases, the U.S. Postal Service has officially designated the name of the station to reflect the corresponding name of the district. In these cases, the community's name is an acceptable part of the address, being the place name and replacing the city name in the address field, thusly forgoing the need to specify Los Angeles. For example, to mail a letter to someone in Canoga Park, California, Tarzana, California, or Van Nuys, California, it is not necessary to include Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, or United States, simply specify the community's name (Canoga Park etc). Likewise, in telephoning to summon a policeman, an ambulance, or the fire department to some location, it is only necessary to state the street address and the district name such as Brentwood, Hollywood, Northridge, Panorama City, or Studio City.
The writer Dorothy Parker once described Los Angeles as "72 suburbs in search of a city." Bob Pool of the Los Angeles Times said "it's not surprising that residents take their neighborhood names so seriously. Those designations are part tradition and history -- but also part economic and political." Pool added that many area residents see a significant difference in property values if a place is considered to be within the wealthy Hancock Park versus if a place was considered to be in the working class Mid-City area. In the San Fernando Valley some communities separated from existing communities to form new ones. For instance two portions of Van Nuys renamed themselves Lake Balboa and Valley Glen, and one portion of Canoga Park renamed itself West Hills. The City of Los Angeles posted signs indicating names of communities within the city, but the city has not officially defined the boundaries of those communities. On February 19, 2009, the Los Angeles Times newspaper published its map of neighborhood boundaries in Los Angeles, and the creation of this map had been a project in progress for three years.[1]
The City of Los Angeles began in what is now downtown, previously it was the site of a Tongva village named Yang-na that existed at the current site of 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,[2] 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 covered by several different telephone Area Codes. Area code 213 includes the Downtown L.A. neighborhood. 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 western Los Angeles, other towns on the westside, and the Harbor Area. Area code 818 covers the San Fernando Valley neighborhoods.
Downtown Los Angeles marks the geographic, governmental, and historic center of Los Angeles. Although it is the smallest region of Los Angeles by area, it includes a great variety of diverse neighborhoods, ranging from several 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.
To the east and northeast of Downtown Los Angeles and the Los Angeles River lies East 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. Many of the neighborhoods house very diverse residents. In the northern portions of Montecito Heights there are white populations of Italian and French descent. Eagle Rock also houses significant Latino, White, and Asian (in particular those of Filipino descent) populations and is one of the most diverse neighborhoods in Los Angeles County.[3] In Monterrey Hills nearly half of the population is white. The population also ranges from working-class to affluent. The predominantly residential neighborhoods of the region contain many hills, especially in northern regions.
Northeast Los Angeles neighborhoods
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 River. 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 is one of the most densely populated areas in Los Angeles and serves as the former site of Chavez Ravine which was historically a Latino neighborhood until it was demolished in the 1950s in order to construct Dodger Stadium.
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 and towns. Tourists flock to Hollywood Boulevard to gaze up to the Hollywood sign in the Santa Monica 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.
Following the Harbor Gateway south to the port leads to the Harbor area, an enclave of Los Angeles that is surrounded by various cities and towns. The land of the Harbor Gateway was annexed to the City of Los Angeles so that it would have a contiguious land connection with its seaport. The most prominent neighborhood of the harbor area is called San Pedro.
Nestled between Hollywood and the Los Angeles River are a group of the city's older residential neighborhoods that houses Griffith Park, one of the nation'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 Boulevard has become closely associated with gentrification, a process which has pushed working class families out due to high housing costs.
South Los Angeles, formerly called "South Central Los Angeles", includes most of the city directly south of downtown, Interstate Highway 10 (the Santa Monica Freeway, and Wilshire Boulevard, but not those areas as far southeast as the Harbor Gateway, the Harbor Area, or the Port of Los Angeles.
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 almost half of the city's land area and about forty percent of the city's 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.
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 adjacent cities and towns, 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.
The Wilshire area lies north of the Santa Monica Freeway (Interstate 10), east of Beverly Hills, west of Downtown, and south of Hollywood.
The Wilshire area 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 and south of Wilshire Boulevard, east of Beverly Hills such as Larchmont, Hancock Park, and Fremont Place. Koreatown is an example of a neighborhood undergoing a revival, with new condominiums being constructed on Wilshire Boulevard.
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