Core LA (Alameda: neighborhoods, assessment, area)

[mattfromfl]

I look at google maps of LA a lot. Sometimes I zoom in and get all into certain neighborhoods. Other times I zoom out, trying to get an overall perspective. Here is my assessment of the latter. I would include downtown to be all the streets that are on that different angle. For instance after Hoover the streets switch to a north/south, east/west angle. It also looks to me that downtown isn't exactly in the center of the city but more like the northeast end. Then that grid extends westward and south, but not really southeast. It's like east of Alameda the grid angle changes, and doesn't have that same density of streets. There's a tendency for me to use freeways of dividing the area up. But I try to imagine them not there since they came way after these neighborhoods anyway. I mean when you pan out, there is as much density below I-10 as there is above it! So if I was to define the city of LA it would not only include downtown, hollywood, and wilshire, but that whole dense grid extending to I-105, and west of Alameda. The sounds of the city must be great there.

[Charles]

Originally Posted by mattfromfl

I look at google maps of LA a lot. Sometimes I zoom in and get all into certain neighborhoods. Other times I zoom out, trying to get an overall perspective. Here is my assessment of the latter. I would include downtown to be all the streets that are on that different angle. For instance after Hoover the streets switch to a north/south, east/west angle. It also looks to me that downtown isn't exactly in the center of the city but more like the northeast end. Then that grid extends westward and south, but not really southeast. It's like east of Alameda the grid angle changes, and doesn't have that same density of streets. There's a tendency for me to use freeways of dividing the area up. But I try to imagine them not there since they came way after these neighborhoods anyway. I mean when you pan out, there is as much density below I-10 as there is above it! So if I was to define the city of LA it would not only include downtown, hollywood, and wilshire, but that whole dense grid extending to I-105, and west of Alameda. The sounds of the city must be great there.

I think the reason that section of downtown streets is at an angle has something to do with the arrangement of streets at an origin of the church or mission down there or something. I think the church was oriented one way and the streets had to some how line up with the church.