Does Los Angeles Have Any Actual "Suburbs"? (Glendale: areas, cities)

[trojerine]

Originally Posted by puffle

When I think of actual cities, I think of San Francisco or Boston...such as "going to the city". The only time you can really say that is when you say Culver City or Century City,for instance.

Century City is not an independent city; it is part of the City of Los Angeles. Downtown LA is also a part of the City of Los Angeles.

Really, LA does not have a stranglehold on sprawl, in the US or the world. For comparison see Jacksonville, FL and London. Even NYC sprawls as it's a consolidation of five boroughs with Manhattan being but the most well-known.

[timelesschild]

Originally Posted by Texasturkey

Can someone help me out here? Los Angeles is a city. So what are suburbs? Are Whittier, Santa Fe Springs, La Mirada, Downey, Pico Rivera, Montebello, Lakewood, Bellflower and Norwalk suburbs? Most of them have populations of 50,000 to 8,000 people. They are on the outskirts of LA, so are they suburbs or just additional cites? Which is it?

They are suburbs. They are incorporated cities in their own rights, and they are suburbs of LA and Long Beach.

[Texasturkey]

Originally Posted by timelesschild

They are suburbs. They are incorporated cities in their own rights, and they are suburbs of LA and Long Beach.

Thanks. I meant to type 50,000 to 80,000. That was a typo.

[nenes78]

Originally Posted by Castro Viejo

And despite what the movies tell you, there isn't a Beverly Hills Police Department (I'm almost sure of that, actually...).

Actually they do, and its a pain with people who live in 90210 because about half is LA City so when you need police services there can be conflict
http://www.beverlyhills.org/services/police/default.asp (broken link)

[grindin]

Houston has some of the same issues, moreso. There are downright suburban areas that were annexed by the city of Houston years and years ago. It's weird to see Freeway signs that say, i.e., 10 East Houston, but you're well within the city of Houston. The concept of a "city" in the West is a bit more different than it is back East.

Remember, LA is about 465 Sq Mi, so it has swallowed up outside areas that are now a part of the "city", But anything outside the city of LA is a suburb to me to, even the inner ring suburbs.

Now what do you all consider the "Exurbs" of LA? To me, that would be places like Temecula, Moreno Valley, Oxnard, Palmdale, Victorville, etc.

[mini_cute]

Originally Posted by bamba_boy

West Covina is an incorporated city and has its own police department (or at least it did when I lived there awhile back). Very nice place too. Affordable but low crime, pretty, etc. Only drawback was terrible air in the middle of the San Gabriel Valley surrounded by mountains.

West Covina used to be pretty nice. Now it is getting messed up like many other once nice suburban cities in LA County.

I don't recall West Hollywood being it's own incorporated city, they just wanted to be but LA City wouldn't let them break off. People still write "West Hollywood" on their addresses anyway. Kinda like how La Jolla is part of San Diego city but they insist they are "La Jolla".

And yes, San Diego is super suburbia... at least North County. San Diego is 2 miles south of Los Angeles and isn't considered part of the LA Metro like Orange County is. But Orange County is not part of LA County even though people keep referring to it like it is. That area has just become one huge metro area and all clumped together.

[uptown_urbanist]

Originally Posted by calidude

Uh ya are you on crack. Pasadena MOnrovia Sierra MAdre Rosemead are all suburbs get a map you fool

It doesn't work to look at a map when talking about "suburbs" of LA - the city just isn't designed that way.

I'd argue that Pasadena is NOT a suburb - it's a city in its own right. There are connections between it and LA, of course, but it has its own downtown, its own "suburbs" (Altadena, etc.) and has its own gravitational pull in that part of the LA region.

[uptown_urbanist]

West Hollywood is now it's own official city, but Hollywood isn't - people in Hollywood still do write "Hollywood" on things, and things got confused even more when Johnny Grant was Hollywood's "mayor".

[majoun]

Originally Posted by katenik

City of Los Angeles Map - Larger View

this is the city of LA. everything pictured in white is within the city limits. the areas in grey are unincorporated areas, or separate municipalities. that west hollywood and beverly hills are not colored grey appears to be a mistake in the drawing of the map.

we tend to think of some of the bedroom communities in the valley as "suburban," but they are within the city limits, and are not true suburbs. LA developed in such a way that it often defies application of the traditional labels used by urban planners. i find it useful to think of it as a city that, geographically speaking, ate its young. large chunks of what was in now LA were inner-ring suburbs that opted to be annexed by the city of LA at some point in their histories.

Usually because they didn't want to be swallowed up by neighboring cities so they chose to go with L.A. instead. Examples being Palms and some then-undeveloped areas nearby choosing to join L.A. rather than become part of Culver City. or Pacific Palisades choosing to join L.A. rather than become part of Santa Monica. Don't know if Beverly Hills ever sought to expand its boundaries - but if Harry Culver had his way than Beverly Hills and Culver City would have directly bordered with no L.A. in between!

this is why we have cities like beverly hills and culver city that are completely surrounded by LA. they chose to retain their municipal sovereignty while their neighbors hitched their wagons to LA, which continued to expand around them.

Which generally turned out to not be a good decision on the part of those communities. Being under the rule of the city of Los Angeles trashed Venice and made the areas in between Culver City and Beverly Hills worse than they would have been otherwise. (I sense the San Fernando Valley would have probably fared better if it hadn't been part of L.A. as well)

[the city]

for a list of suburbs and communties around LA look at the posts of this thread:

Los Angeles suburbs....

and for a list of neighborhoods in Los Angeles:

City of Los Angeles Map - Larger View

LA has a lot of urban patches, and then there are some neighborhoods that are all urban.

urban neighborhoods: Downtown LA, Hollywood, South Central, Echo Park, Los Feliz, Marina Del Rey, Venice Beach, Studio City, and Brentwood