any good urban areas in long beach to live with in?

[EscapeCalifornia]

When was the last time you were in LA? Why don't you take a weekend to drive around and check places out in person instead of trying to classify everything as urban/suburban/exurban over the Internet?

[the city]

Originally Posted by EscapeCalifornia

When was the last time you were in LA? Why don't you take a weekend to drive around and check places out in person instead of trying to classify everything as urban/suburban/exurban over the Internet?

i happened to have been in los angeles and san diego over thanksgiving, and we drive by alot. so now my question still remains...

after me living in the urbanized suburban community of Cal State Northridge, where should i go next? i want to move to an urban community and then to a suburb. which suburb?

Oxnard(ex-urban)-Templeton(rural) -Northridge, Los Angeles (suburban w/ urban)-? (urban)-Agoura Hills (suburban)

besides downtown, r there any other true urban parts of LA?

[EscapeCalifornia]

By the definition found on Wikipedia, the entire LA basin is urban. What definition are you using for urban? Clusters of tall buildings? You can find those in downtown LA, Westwood, Long Beach, Glendale, etc. Someone from New York probably wouldn't consider LA urban. Someone from a small town would consider all of LA and Orange counties plus big chunks of San Bernardino, Riverside, and Ventura to be urban. Forgetting labels, what are you looking for exactly?

[EscapeCalifornia]

I find the terms urban and suburban really hard to apply in a place like Southern California. I've used "urbanized suburb" to describe a lot of the areas where I live in Orange County. These are areas that were built as suburbs 30-50 years ago but have become increasingly urban. So you get a mix of single family tract houses, apartment buildings, duplexes, and even a few multistory office buildings mixed in. The apartment I'm living in now was originally a single family home on a 2 acre lot on a quiet residential street. Today its a 40 unit apartment complex. The rest of the street is still single family homes. I can walk to a McDonalds and a Japanese market. There's a Jiffy Lube and a 10 story hotel at the end of my street. Is that urban or suburban? It all sort of blurs together after a while.

[the city]

i dont know what i consider urban. i guess u can consider all of LA a low-urbanized urban area. and then some areas r more urban than others. so where r other areas with tall buildings clusters which i consider urban and suburban is a cluster of homes.

so i guess

Oxnard, Ca (ex-urban)
Templeton, Ca (rural)
Northridge, Los Angeles, Ca (urban-suburban) and maybe i could move into a more urban area my last year? downtown?
Agoura Hills, Ca (suburban)

[LivingLikeAGradStudent]

These labels are exhausting and don't really apply to large swaths of Los Angeles (the city as well as the first ring of "suburbs"). Our street is filled with 1920s bungalows and duplexes (urban? suburban?) but is two blocks from auto shops (urban? blighted?), two blocks from high rises (urban?) and office buildings (exurban?) and a block from Starbucks (suburban?) and a cute bistro (urban?).

[Lorilorraine]

to the city-Just thought I would chime in. If you are in Northridge now, why not take a drive to Long Beach and check it out. Many areas are transitioning from rough to family and there are some good prices. Rents are coming down and so are home prices. Eastside is nice, some neighborhoods have a suburban feel but Long Beach is small geographically and densely populated..very city. Lots of diversity, art and closeby water