need LA town/neighborhood ideas for story ideas (Los Angeles, Long Beach: homes, neighborhoods)

[harrisoncr]

i need suggestions as to where in los angeles i should set a story i'm writing.

background:
-the story revolves around suburban housewives of the 1950s who fight crime
-the group is racially diverse, so integrated/mixed neighborhoods of the time would be preferred
-suburb should be middle class
-the more idealistic 1950s aesthetic the better, even if this was historically just a facade
-should be within approx. 30 min driving from metropolitan LA

thanks and if you need any elaboration let me know!

ps. sorry for redundant thread title, not sure how to change it yet

[nightlysparrow]

Forget the Valley. Not racially diverse in the 1950's.

In fact, if you want realism, you might want to forget the race angle, as extremely low racial diversity in most of LA then and people didn't hang around with other races so much:

1850 to 1960 Census Records by Ethnicity

[California Vagabond]

I'm too lazy to hunt for background on 1950s L.A. demographics, and suspect that nightlysparrow has made an excellent point -- but, with that said (and because no one else has suggested an area), how'bout: East Hollywood/Los Feliz, Silver Lake, Echo Park?

[adr3naline]

Burbank still has quite a few 1950 era looking homes which would make sense from a visual perspective.

Can't comment on diversity as I wasn't alive in the 50's. If the demographic of this story is less than 35 yrs old, they probably wouldn't know the difference anyway.

[MordinSolus]

Segregation was still in effect in the 1950s so there wouldn't have been any racially diverse middle class neighborhoods here at that time.
But your premise is obviously a silly one(crime-fighting housewives in the 1950s) so why strive for realism in this regard?

[nslander]

Originally Posted by nightlysparrow

Forget the Valley. Not racially diverse in the 1950's.

In fact, if you want realism, you might want to forget the race angle, as extremely low racial diversity in most of LA then and people didn't hang around with other races so much:

1850 to 1960 Census Records by Ethnicity

Pretty much. A more fertile angle would be tackling segregation head-on, see Glendale, East LA, Watts, South Bay, Lakewood, and on and on and on. Compton was mostly white- George H.W. Bush lived there (look it up), and it doesn't get any whiter than that. Even the beaches were segregated. There was portion of the LA River the local Chicanos would use as a beach instead.

Supposedly, the jazz clubs along Central Ave were unique in that there was some intermingling. The closet place I can imagine would be Long Beach, and even that would be a stretch.

[ryanms3030]

Nothing in LA was racially diverse in the 50s. Crack open a history book if you want to be a writer instead of trying to get people to do your research for you

[harrisoncr]

Originally Posted by ryanms3030

Nothing in LA was racially diverse in the 50s. Crack open a history book if you want to be a writer instead of trying to get people to do your research for you

lol

[KarlGerber]

San Pedro and Boyle Heights were racially diverse in the 1950s. Pacoima was a little diverse then, yes the Valley.

Surprisingly there were restrictive covenants in place in Lakewood which was built in the late 1940s and 1950s and other places.

If you have questions about Los Angeles history feel free to contact me.

[RosieSD]

The Los Angeles Historical Society has a list of resources on their website that will help you dig out the answers you need for your story and also find photos/maps/etc. to help you visualize what LA was like during that time period:

http://www.lacityhistory.org/archives.shtml (click through the links on the left hand column)