O/T Where to live in Los Angeles

as someone said earlier- pasadena and burbank are fantastic places, the san fernando valley is ok too. theres lots of little houses for rent in that price range. you just have to look for them. if you havent already, get on to craigslist los angeles and go to the housing section.

 

I'm kinda biased, but I love living in Torrance. Its basically inbetween Los Angeles and Long Beach , It's usually 15 degrees cooler than the valley and always has an ocean breeze.It's close to all the major freeways and prices are alot cheaper than the Santa Monica and Hollywood area and your only 25 minutes south of Dwntown.

 

My wife lived in Glendora while we were dating 5-6 years ago. Most of it is fairly nice. Schools are ok. Has a great old town area that's pretty cool.

The only thing is that it is a way from the ocean so it can be hot during the summer.

 

hey homey, come on down to Orange County.

Check out Fullerton & Anaheim & Huntington Beach. it's in the middle of LA & San Diego, so no matter where you get called for work, you wont be on one side of it or another... I know alot of Union Welders & Ironworkers who live in the OC and do the same thing.

the weather is 10 degrees cooler than LA and Glendora & you get a lil bigger yard for your money & there is less traffic. not to mention down here people are not trying to be a star or wipe someone's ass who is...

 

So where in OC in a place where our kind can exist somewhat (what I would consider) peaceful. Without some jackass telling me I can't work on my car in my own garage??????

 

If you can, I think you'd wanna rent month-to-month for awhile and scope out which areas you like and what your commute's gonna be like. I lived in Anaheim and worked in Irvine (both in "the effn OC") and the 15 mile commute took a minimum of 45 minutes. 45 mins of driving versus crawling makes a big difference. The apartment I had was the only one I could find that seemed decent and didn't have a rule against working on a car in your tiny garage.

Thanks,
Kurt

 

The farther you get from LA the better. The traffic sucks. The drivers suck. It will take you a half hour or more to go 5 miles down there. The West side (Santa Monica, Wilshire district, Hollywood, etc) is worse.
The San Fernando Valley sucks as a whole and is very expensive. Your rent money would buy you into a bad part of town. The rents out here in the desert are mostly higher than that, but places can be found.
If you move to Simi, Ventura, etc, the freeways coming into LA do not move.
If you are East of LA, the freeways dont move either. East of the 15 gets pretty smoggy and those areas are getting overpopulated as well.
Since I moved out of the San Fernando Valley, I no longer sit through two or 3 stop light cycles to get through an intersection.

I'm not saying the High Desert is a good place to be if you have to go into LA, its not.It sucks. Bumper to bumper for 75 miles.

If you can afford to get into Pasadena or Glendale, Monrovia, they are nicer,
But in the end it all depends where you will be working. If you are close to the 210 freeway, you can pretty much get anywhere from there.
I suggest private school for your daughter. Unless she speaks Spanish.

 

I live in Long Beach and I love it. Right by the 405, LB airport. Good old hoods and you might actually be able to get a 2Bdm 1 bath to rent for your price range. And no one complains about working on your ride. Mofos right, though, there are definitely places in Anaheim, Garden Grove, Orange, and HB, that are older neighborhoods. Just stay outta Irvine or anything farther South than HB...Good luck!

 

I was in California last week ... ( GNRS ) ... and I liked Pomona ... and around there. Close to the Fairplex ... good resturants ... and I could get around fairly good ... even if I was a tourist.

Down side was it was 2 and 1/4 hours ( About 40 miles ) to get to LAX ... on the 10 ... to get home

 

I have heard alot of good things about Long Beach. Considering it's past i've heard that it has made a large turn around...... is this true

 

The San Fernando Valley. It's cheap, it's hot, the people suck, but a least they are real.

 

my opinion? minneapolis.

 

Yeah I live in STL now and I hat eit so I would really wan to move to minneapolis where I will freeze my ass off even more..........get right on that one... JK

 

I Grew up in Claremont, about 7 miles east of glendora, right next to Pomona. There really isn't a hell of a lot to do out there but it's a pretty decent place to live. Close to the mountains etc. If traffic's not too bad, you can be in Pasadena in about 25 minutes. Half my family lives in the Valley and I can zip out there no problem on the 210. Just don't expecth the greatest night life.

 

I'd say the Valley is best for lower cost housing. I pay 850 for a 3 bedroom, but that's a steal. There are a lot of ranch properties, houses sitting on a good chunk of land that you could use to get way too many cars, get overwhelmed with too many projects and do nothing. Some neighborhoods are good, others really bad depending on where you live. The schools are the same. Traffic is so so. But anywhere in So Cal traffic is going to be bad. It gets hot as hell here in the summer (we're talking 100-120). But alas, I love the SFV. It's the home of the SFVISBF.

Long beach is more "hip" but I've never really liked that place. They have been trying to reduce the "snoop dawg" factor on knuckle-heads down there. I have freinds there and they like it.

The asshole neighbor thing is unavoidable. My neighbors were yelling at me not to shoot green metal flake in the cab of my econoline. No love there. Lots of cool old cars about close to just about everything in the SFV.

To cut down on traffic hassles which seems to be on the mind of most Hambers posting is to live very close to where you work so you could (dare I say it?) ride a bike to work. That is asuming of course you'd want to.

 

yeah, i know. it's actually my own jealousy of getting to ride their bikes year 'round that motivates my razzin' ya! i can't even imagine not spending 4 to 5 monthes a year sitting in my garage, dreamin' away with my nutz shrunk up into my stomach from the kinda cold we're having this week...
best of luck to ya Jk, maybe someday i'll wise up and leave the midwest in the (frozen) dust myself!

 

youre over LA. it sucks. go long beach or something.

 

Whadya mean over LA ????

 

hey homey. I got your PM & will cal you on Monday...

you can work on your car without worry in OC as long as you dont move to the "South County" ( Irvine, Lauguna Niguel, El Toro, etc.) like i said before in the other post as far as OC goes, Anaheim, Fullerton, Costa Mesa, Fountain Valley, La Habra, city of Orange, Tustin and Yorba Linda are the ones to be looking at... you need to remember that all of these citys are in a 15 mile radius.

also Huntington Beach & Long Beach are good, but the cops are dicks & love to pull over cars & bikes with loud pipes...

 

Sounds good man. You guys think you can handle another fuckin' hoodlum. ha If everything works out I may be there beginning of the summer instead.....

 

i live in Anaheim hills. i am a union heavy equipment operator so i have to work all over socal. i would recommend Fullerton,Brea,Anaheim. they are pretty much central for all the work going on here. as a iron worker you are going to have to drive to where the work is like i do so id say stay centeral.

 

I live here in Whittier and you can have it all here. Old homes, old cars, alot of custom shops and parts places too. I live right down the street from LimeWorks and Dragon kustom shop. There are alot of cars everyday that I see around here. Not to mention fellow HAMB'rs too that have helped me out a great lot. KNUX!

 

You might look into Long Beach. It's still affordable, you can live near the beach, and your near some great car shows and great cruising. My husband's a union glazier, so he travels alot, but usually doesn't have any longer than an hour commute on a bad day...
We live in downtown Long Beach and you can find a cool old place for not too much $

 

I'd look at Fullerton, Anaheim or Orange. They have nice downtown areas. HB is cool but close to the beach... read $$$$ for rent. I'm sure you could find a deal there if you really wanted to stay there.

 

I really like Whittier. Check it out on a map. The 10 & 60 fwy will get you West to downtown/caost and East to Chino/Riverside

The 605 will get you North to Pasadena and South to Orange County.

 

Being from Long Beach i figure i'll throw in my two cents. Long Beach is a pretty big place, so like any big place its all about where you live. There are some very expensive (million dollar plus) homes in Long Beach and there are some shit holes. I live in Cypress now, which even a lot of people around here don't even know about. It borders Long Beach but its technically in the OC. I call it South Long Beach. I've got my 50 Buick project in the driveway and the chicks primered 57 Ford and i've never heard nothing from the city about it. The northern parts of the OC, like Anaheim, are mostly working class. Its when you're on the coast and farther south that you'll be more likely to find asshole neighbors. For refernce my place in Cyrress is about 25-30 minutes from LAX, and i work in South LA everyday and the commute isn't bad.
Unless you are into doing the whole LA thing, i wouldn't live in the actual city of LA. There are a lot of nice places just outside of LA that are less crowded, less expensive, and often safer. Best of luck to ya on the move.

 

Yah I have been looin' real hard at Long Beach. Everyone talks bout how dangerous it is but I live in fuckin STL now And there are 5 of the most dangerous towns (pop. 5000+) around me as well (East STL)

 

Yea, Long Beach's rep comes mostly from rap music, and while there are places i wouldn't want my girlfriend walking around at nite by herself, i've never had a serious problem in all the years i lived there (although i was out of town for the Rodney King riots...). The other cool thing about Long Beach is that a lot of the housing was built and bought for and by soldiers coming home after wwII. So a lot of it has a nice old timey look. And of course the best thing, its Feb and it was 70 degrees and sunny here today.

 

i live in the LBC near Belmont Shores and CSULB. my wife always wanted to move to the LBC and i refused for yrs cause of the bad vibe it had. i grew up in South Central LA and the last thing i wanted to do was move back into the "hood". well once i saw how Belmont shores and the surronding cities looked like. i gave in and i'm extremely happy. i'm 5min from the beach and i go for a bike ride on the beach every saturday with my 13 yr old girl.

the downtown area is pretty ruff. but they are cleaning up the city. within the next couple of yrs this will be the next hot spot.

Hell Echo Park was a bad place to live and now it's high priced area.



stay away from Newport and further south in OC.... my sister lives in Newport Cove up the hill from fashion island. i hate going over to visit her, cause of the snobby attitude the city gives off. you almost have to get a credit check before you walk in to a store.

 

Yah I heard really good things about Belmont shores, How far is the commute to LA during traffic usually...