Crime in your area?

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My car got broken into last week. Second time in 12 months.

What about hit and runs? From what I have read it sounds like a real nightmare on LA roads. Im more of a walker myself.

Illegals without insurance. Unfortunately that does happen more in California.

What part of SoCal do you live in, Moderate? Do you have a nice car?

The part of Nashville I live in has fairly low crime I think. I haven't heard much about crime around here at least. The area I work in is a mix between non-immigrant working class and hipsters, so there is a fairly high crime out there, which concerns me more than where I live which is mostly immigrants and middle class whites.

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What I read said that 48% of Los Angeles road incidents are hit and runs.

That's what happens when you don't allow illegals to get drivers licenses.

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My car got broken into last week. Second time in 12 months.

What about hit and runs? From what I have read it sounds like a real nightmare on LA roads. Im more of a walker myself.

Yeah, hit and runs are bad here. Not to sound racist, but there are a LOT of illegal immigrants around LA driving cars without licenses or insurance. If you're going to drive here, you def want uninsured motorist protection, and you definitely want to assume that cars will hit you when you try crossing the street.

What part of SoCal do you live in, Moderate? Do you have a nice car?

I live in Encino, a fairly affluent, heavily Jewish town in "the valley." My apartment has a gated underground parking lot, but management left the gate open for a week last month when they changed gate code. That's when my car was broken into. The earlier incident happened in Van Nuys on a road lacking street lights.

My car isn't that nice -- it's a 2005 Honda Civic. I don't usually keep a lot of things in my car (and I keep my trunk locked), so the theft was limited to a pair of old Ray Bans I left on the dash, a canister of my pre-workout supplement (I'd assume the thief knew what it was, because it's expensive to buy and holds 0 value for 90 percent of the population) and sadly, my Nintendo 3DS that I stuffed in the glove box after I took my car in for servicing a week prior.

Encino is a fairly nice area, so I'm surprised that happened there. Perhaps the sunglasses were too visible, I dunno. My sunglasses are usually pretty visible, but they are also fairly cheap (but they work well).

Also, LA traffic and driving habits are terrible. I always assume the drivers around me are going to F up in some manner. Also you must watch out for the freeway trash. Random sh**t just tends to pop out at you on the freeways there. There is a price to be paid for living in SoCal.

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At least according to crime statistics (and not just from LA but the cities surrounding it), LA does not seem to be as crime ridden as one may think. There are obviously areas to avoid, but overall it seems to be fairly safe. I think you will find more property crime than violent crime, in any case. I would just steer clear of South LA and the North Hollywood area in the Valley. Otherwise, you should be fine, though it can get pretty suburban out in the valley (nothing wrong with that, but it all depends on what you want). I wouldn't mind living in the areas south/south east of Hollywood, and I think those areas will get gentrified next, if they haven't already. Korea town is exciting too, though I think rents are likely sky high there already.

I an in Tennessee for school and my plan is to move back to California or maybe the Pacific Northwest. Mostly likely it's going to be California.

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Oh, I know Silverlake is totally gentrified. I was just wondering whether the area south/south east of Hollywood, sort of between it and Koreatown was gentrifying yet.

Also Napoleon, you should look into Pasadena. It gets a little warmer in the summer (average high in the upper 80's with no humidity), and it also gets smoggier than the basin (but so does the valley). Downtown Pasadena is a exciting place to be though, and will be cheaper than other gentrified places in LA. Also, the apartments are newer and nicer there.

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Downtown Glendale has some new apartment buildings from what I have seen. Not as desirable as Pasadena though.

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Oh, I know Silverlake is totally gentrified. I was just wondering whether the area south/south east of Hollywood, sort of between it and Koreatown was gentrifying yet.

Also Napoleon, you should look into Pasadena. It gets a little warmer in the summer (average high in the upper 80's with no humidity), and it also gets smoggier than the basin (but so does the valley). Downtown Pasadena is a exciting place to be though, and will be cheaper than other gentrified places in LA. Also, the apartments are newer and nicer there.

Koreatown is to the SW, and in general no. I have not seen much change east of Western, and south of Beverly Blvd, say along Vermont, if that is what you have in mind. Echo Park however seems to be undergoing some gentrification. And East Hollywood definitely is - in fact all of the flats of Hollywood are. And the area around the Staples center in south downtown is a whole new chic world. Another area gentrifying is the Adams district.

Pasadena is getting rapidly more expensive. A friend of mine owns 16 units there, and rents are skyrocketing.

Actually Koreatown is southeast of Hollywood, at least the Kodak theater area. I don't know what area you are thinking of.

I was thinking of areas a little more northwest of there when I was wondering if there was gentrification. Like say Santa Monica or Melorose and Western.

Also, another place I did not mention is Eagle rock, along Colorado Boulevard. At least there are a lot of hipsters around there.

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Oh, I know Silverlake is totally gentrified. I was just wondering whether the area south/south east of Hollywood, sort of between it and Koreatown was gentrifying yet.

Also Napoleon, you should look into Pasadena. It gets a little warmer in the summer (average high in the upper 80's with no humidity), and it also gets smoggier than the basin (but so does the valley). Downtown Pasadena is a exciting place to be though, and will be cheaper than other gentrified places in LA. Also, the apartments are newer and nicer there.

Koreatown is to the SW, and in general no. I have not seen much change east of Western, and south of Beverly Blvd, say along Vermont, if that is what you have in mind. Echo Park however seems to be undergoing some gentrification. And East Hollywood definitely is - in fact all of the flats of Hollywood are. And the area around the Staples center in south downtown is a whole new chic world. Another area gentrifying is the Adams district.

Pasadena is getting rapidly more expensive. A friend of mine owns 16 units there, and rents are skyrocketing.

Actually Koreatown is southeast of Hollywood, at least the Kodak theater area. I don't know what area you are thinking of.

I was thinking of areas a little more northwest of there when I was wondering if there was gentrification. Like say Santa Monica or Melorose and Western.

Also, another place I did not mention is Eagle rock, along Colorado Boulevard. At least there are a lot of hipsters around there.

I thought yuppies were the real drivers of gentrification, not hipsters.

Yeah, and I don't know if people would consider Eagle rock to be gentrifying. There aren't a lot of new condos going up there but it's still a very lively place.

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Oh, I know Silverlake is totally gentrified. I was just wondering whether the area south/south east of Hollywood, sort of between it and Koreatown was gentrifying yet.

Also Napoleon, you should look into Pasadena. It gets a little warmer in the summer (average high in the upper 80's with no humidity), and it also gets smoggier than the basin (but so does the valley). Downtown Pasadena is a exciting place to be though, and will be cheaper than other gentrified places in LA. Also, the apartments are newer and nicer there.

Koreatown is to the SW, and in general no. I have not seen much change east of Western, and south of Beverly Blvd, say along Vermont, if that is what you have in mind. Echo Park however seems to be undergoing some gentrification. And East Hollywood definitely is - in fact all of the flats of Hollywood are. And the area around the Staples center in south downtown is a whole new chic world. Another area gentrifying is the Adams district.

Pasadena is getting rapidly more expensive. A friend of mine owns 16 units there, and rents are skyrocketing.

Actually Koreatown is southeast of Hollywood, at least the Kodak theater area. I don't know what area you are thinking of.

I was thinking of areas a little more northwest of there when I was wondering if there was gentrification. Like say Santa Monica or Melorose and Western.

Also, another place I did not mention is Eagle rock, along Colorado Boulevard. At least there are a lot of hipsters around there.

I thought yuppies were the real drivers of gentrification, not hipsters.

Yeah, and I don't know if people would consider Eagle rock to be gentrifying. There aren't a lot of new condos going up there but it's still a very lively place.

What about Northeast Los Angeles? Home of Occidental College...

Yeah, that's the area I am talking about. There aren't a lot of new projects going up around there, but it's still fairly hipster and perhaps in the first stages of gentrification.

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Oh, I know Silverlake is totally gentrified. I was just wondering whether the area south/south east of Hollywood, sort of between it and Koreatown was gentrifying yet.

Also Napoleon, you should look into Pasadena. It gets a little warmer in the summer (average high in the upper 80's with no humidity), and it also gets smoggier than the basin (but so does the valley). Downtown Pasadena is a exciting place to be though, and will be cheaper than other gentrified places in LA. Also, the apartments are newer and nicer there.

Koreatown is to the SW, and in general no. I have not seen much change east of Western, and south of Beverly Blvd, say along Vermont, if that is what you have in mind. Echo Park however seems to be undergoing some gentrification. And East Hollywood definitely is - in fact all of the flats of Hollywood are. And the area around the Staples center in south downtown is a whole new chic world. Another area gentrifying is the Adams district.

Pasadena is getting rapidly more expensive. A friend of mine owns 16 units there, and rents are skyrocketing.

Actually Koreatown is southeast of Hollywood, at least the Kodak theater area. I don't know what area you are thinking of.

I was thinking of areas a little more northwest of there when I was wondering if there was gentrification. Like say Santa Monica or Melorose and Western.

Also, another place I did not mention is Eagle rock, along Colorado Boulevard. At least there are a lot of hipsters around there.

Below is a mappie for you sbane. And here is a link to a fantastic site for checking out the LA hoods. You might want to bookmark it. Santa Monica/Melrose and Western still looks rather drab to me (and I drove right past it the other night on the way to a "leather dance" affair with one of my boy toys just west of Vine on Santa Monica Blvd), but sometimes that is misleading. Parts of Sunset through Silverlake were the last to spruce up, even as the homes on the hills on either side were.



And another courtesy of Dave Bradlee. You can see Western and SM/Melrose is about 75% Hispanic. It changes as you go west a bit. It is still a pretty drab pocket.

So you're saying it might be getting more hipsterified (is that a word?).

I wonder if all of LA west of downtown and north of interstate 10 will get gentrified one day. I think that will probably happen. I also wonder if gentrification will follow the expanding light rail network. One of the cool things about Azusa is that it will have a LA metro station by 2015. Then you can go to downtown LA within 40 minutes without worrying about driving. They also need to build a line all the way to the beach. If Santa Monica doesn't want it, they should at least build one to Venice.

Also, "leather dance"? I didn't know that's how you rolled.

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Wow. Read this article. Scary stuff!

Yeah I heard about this over spring break when I was in SoCal. LA is definitely not a very bike/pedestrian friendly place and the drivers are crazy, probably due to the incessant traffic.

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So how much snow is on the ground currently?