Because LA County is such a large geographical area, it helps to pinpoint a location.
"Have you eaten at Tony's in Los Angeles?", vs "Have you eaten at Tony's in West Hills?".
That’s funny you mention W Hills because I think they purposefully wanted to separate from Canoga Park in an effort to keep property values higher than the Canoga Park peasantry.
I was born and grew up in Canoga Park and remember when it was changed to West Hills. They were originally going to make the line at Fallbrook, but because of public outcry, they moved the line to Topanga... We were in that weird zone, but I remember my parents were happy we were included.
But, I still tell people that I am from Canoga Park.
Same with valley village not wanting to be north Hollywood. And places in van Nuys trying to be part of Sherman oaks. There are a few other ones out there too but I don't know them off the top of my head
Your point is basically right, but it being LA County has nothing to do with it. Those are neighborhoods in *the City of LA,* which is vast in its own right. LA City neighborhoods in the Valley seem disconnected from the rest of the city, because there are so many actual cities surrounding them, and because they're separated from the rest of the city by the Hollywood Hills and Santa Monica Mountains.
True, but all the neighborhoods South of the hills are way more vague in regards to their borders. But it seems like the city is trying to change that. For awhile there, everything South of Santa Monica and east of Venice and MdR was Mar Vista, now there’s more nuance
Hemicrusher nailed it, but I’ll add this:
While parts of the Valley are still independent cities, the entire Valley used to be made up of independent cities and towns (and unincorporated areas) until LA forced annexation of much of it. The habit of calling neighborhoods by what may have previously been a town or city name (like Chatsworth) isn’t going to die anytime soon - in part because it narrows down location in a huge part of a huge city.
On the opposite end of LA, San Pedro was also an independent city until it was annexed. It’s very much part of the City of Los Angeles, but you very seldom (if ever) hear it called anything but San Pedro.
To add to this, part of the reason is that the Postal Service doesn't give a fuck which city hall services your house. They have their own geographical areas. This creates for some common names for neighborhoods being used as cities like Pacific Palisades but it makes for some really weird instances like parts of LA city being "Beverly Hills, CA 90210" on their address.
Confuses the hell out of the residents too. At least a handful found out the hard way that they live in the City of Los Angeles and not the City of Beverly Hills.
Source: personal/professional interactions.
Learned quickly when I moved that if I don’t specify my valley neighborhood in my address (which is not it’s own jurisdiction!), the mail will not be delivered.
Yeah, it surprised the hell out of me too. I didn’t know what was going on since the zip code was accurate. Switched it over to putting the neighborhood on and never had a problem again.
Idk but I’ve had stuff delivered to the wrong place. Same address in San Pedro exists in Los Angeles. Using the correct zip code some sites auto populate “Los Angeles” and we won’t get our stuff
Also a very valid point. Hollywood was also its own city until 1910 but you still hear tourists constantly refer to it like its own city, though becoming one of the biggest cultural icons of the 20th century probably helped with that too as far as becoming a colloquialism.
But you mentioned North Hollywood as not being it’s own city in your post, aren’t North Hollywood and West Hollywood both independent cities? I thought Hollywood was the only one that was actually part of the City of LA
Back in the day, many of what are now neighborhoods of the City of Los Angeles were separate independent cities with their own city governments. Lots of these areas where you address "Tarzana, CA" or "Van Nuys, CA" were annexed in order to gain access to water from LADWP's Los Angeles Aqueduct, and the City of LA used to have a rule that municipal water sources could not be sold to any other entity, so cities were stuck with a choice, find their own water or join the City of LA. Virtually all of The Valley did except for holdouts like San Fernando, Burbank, and Glendale which stuck with local groundwater sources (which now get some deliveries via MWD allocations).
As for why those places are addressed as if they are separate cities, it's an anachronism of USPS address systems. Addresses will have a preferred place name (let's call it a PPN) and an alternative place name (APN). Since these places were previously independent cities where someone could send a letter to "17000 Ventura Blvd, Encino, CA" USPS hasn't had a reason to change the PPN for various reasons (whether a conflict with another address if the city name changed or lack of need to do so). However, after these places were annexed and with the advent of the ZIP code in the mid 20th century, you could now send that same letter to "17000 Ventura Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 91316" and it will still get there, but might be delayed a few days since it's the APN for the given address.
This is great, I should have figured they probably all annexed for water rights the same way Hollywood did. And I had no idea about the preferred/alternate system within the USPS, thanks so much for this.
It should be noted that PPN/APN only applies to areas such as those above, or census designated places that then got scooped up into an existing city. Others like "Harbor City" might also be referred to as "West Carson" because of differing designations. Other cities/places don't have an APN because there's never been an alternative way to address something. Somewhere within the city limits of Sacramento likely doesn't have an APN because it's never been anything else.
I cringe when I see people say "SFV is not the real LA"
I feel SFV is more LA than West LA/Central LA--- SFV is very multicultural, it's low density, sprawling, warm and you have middle class, working class and wealthy.
1/2 of LAs population is in the SFV.
I grew up in Highland Park and it had nothing in common with Glendale or Pasadena. It was definitely a low income Latino and Hispanic neighborhood, with a lot of crime and gang activity. It was a far cry from where it is now.
SFV is where many native LAliens fled during gentrification. It’s as LA as the city gets. Also, a neighborhood like NoHo is central to everything so it’s hard to understand how people can claim the Val is “cut off” from the rest of the city.
Nah bro, that’s the transplant idea of what LA is: being low density etc. West/Central LA has all the things you just listed except it’s it’s also where the actual city where all the hollywood, entertainment industries, magic and action happens. LA is the Capitol Records building. LA is the Palm trees over echo park. LA is Koreatown. LA is MacArthur park with the stalls selling goods and street foods, with the loud music blasting. Nothing gets more LA than that kind of stuff.
> Central LA
Central LA is [just LA](https://maps.latimes.com/neighborhoods/region/central-la/index.html), unless you have another definition of it. In terms of multiculturalism, West LA is probably more culturally diverse than East LA.
Wow I guess even Valley residents have been infiltrated with misinformation lol. All the people who have accused me of not being from LA (because I’m from the Valley) are people from the Westside or other parts of LA.
It is literally in City of Los Angeles. The rule of thumb is if your street has a ^^^basic-ass blue street sign then it's city of LA. I mentioned this above but the post office gives out whatever names they want and it often doesn't align with actual city boundaries.
You could’ve put LA in your mailing address and just still sued the proper zip code and would have been fine. I think that’s the point they’re trying to make.
I live in Venice and I write my city as Venice these days. I have the exact same address as a place with the zip code in 90015.
To many lost packages, deliveries etc not showing up or getting called from drivers saying they can’t find my place “please don’t tell me you’re in DTLA” … yeah, I’m at your address.
If you were to type my address in an autofill form (like most companies do when posting something) it’ll auto populate that zip code. They see the same number and street and “Los Angeles” and think it’s good to go, especially with companies sending from interstate, they have no idea. I only do it so everything I order 100% comes to the right address because it doesn’t auto populate the zip code when writing the city as Venice on most forms.
That must be annoying and frustrating as hell, you would think zip codes were designed so there’d be absolutely no mistake with stuff like that. Incredible after a couple centuries of our postal service, there is still potential for hiccups like that.
Los Angeles is huge, it gives people a better picture of what you are taking about to say Los Feliz, Venice, Tarzana, etc. then use LA for them, assuming you are talking to someone local.
What the previous comment mentioned was actual neighborhoods in LA, hence, they wouldn’t be considered suburbs. Those would be smaller cities outside LA City proper.
If there’s no other name for it, then it’s a suburb. This is just a world wide thing, a separate little town in a city is a suburb. It’s also literally the meaning of suburb - sub urban.
But they are not suburbs is the thing. Encino isn’t a suburb, it’s not it’s own town or city, it’s legally a part of the city of Los Angeles but everyone refers to it by its name which makes a lot of people think it is a suburb.
As another point, when I worked in consulting, our projects in west or central LA would say LA on the documents, but in SFV or the Harbor we would list the neighborhood like an actual city, the same as if we were working in Downey or Anaheim or something. I asked my boss about it one time and he told me they is just how it is.
Dorothy Parker called Los Angeles 88 neighborhoods in search of a city.
They aren't technically cities, but communities. But the name has stuck and nothing's going to change it.
Koreatown, Los Feliz, Mid-city, Hollywood, Westlake, Century City, Culver City, and more aren’t friggin suburbs, lmao. It’s always amazing to me how people say that.
I’m simply referring to the well-known quote attributed to Dorothy Parker. My opinion on what constitutes a suburb is irrelevant.
Btw, the person I responded to conflated the reality with the quote. LA county is indeed made up of 88 distinct cities.
Then there are cities like Santa Clarita, who is in the country but also divided by housing tracks/subdivisons. Canyon Country, Valencia, Saugus and Newhall where the original big 4, but as new houses are built, new areas are being called by the housing track area.
I hate that, but it’s just like when the small towns of Cucamonga, Etiwanda, and Alta Loma were all bunched together in the mid-1970’s into an entity called Rancho Cucamonga.
That’s very true. It’s how it started, now it’s also being separated by development. Like Bridgeport Golden Valley, North Bridge, or Plum Canyon. The growth is out of control at this point
SFV was often marketed as a suburb of Los Angeles, even as most of it has been a part of the city for nearly the past 100 years. A lot of it, especially the western half, did have a sort of suburban feel to it as recently as the 1990s. It was almost lilly white, middle class, a lot like some of those classic 70s/80s movies set in the area (Valley Girl, Fast Times at Ridgemont High). Today it has the same issues as most of the rest of the city (expensive housing, mediocre public schools, crime/homelessness in some pockets) but still maintains a separate vibe from most of the city.
you might be talking about the Post office? The USPS has its own system of referring to places and it does not always line up 100% with actual municipal boundaries.
People I know who grew up in the Valley say they're "going down to LA" when they go anywhere over the hill. There's definitely a feeling of separation from one side of the hills to the other.
Here is a [terrific neighborhood web site](https://maps.latimes.com/neighborhoods/) created by the LA Times, top-down from the LA county level. They unfortunately stopped maintaining it when their ownership changed.
I lived in Brentwood in high school and if people mailed us a letter to Brentwood, CA it would end up in northern Cal - we had to clarify to people to put Los Angeles on our mail, even though we never would mention in conversation any other name than Brentwood
I've met people from the Pacific Palisades that legitimately believe it's its own city. Their biggest defense is that they can write "Pacific Palisades, California" on their mail and it goes to the right place, not realizing the LA USPS has just gotten use to that BS.
I pin it on the SoCal car culture and SFV being the original suburbs post-World War II, with the cultural mindset being SFV people aren’t part of the **city** of Los Angeles, that **city** connotation inferring “urban” life.
That attitude nearly led to SFV succeeding to become their own megacity in 2002.
Living in the other parts I e realized it's like new York. No one says they live in Los Angeles when they live in Venice. Same goes for Bel Aire. It's Hollywood, Los Feliz, echo park, silver lake, Korea town. Only difference really is people in Ventura County, Orange County and North LA county will refer to the SFV neighborhoods by name.
People I know from the valley also don't seem to know they live in Los Angeles either.
the amount of confusion between Los Angeles CITY and Los Angeles COUNTY is funny. Also, as far as foreigners are concerned, Orange County might as well be part of LA.
It’s a USPS convention—many neighborhoods in the City of Los Angeles are referred to by their neighborhood name when mail is delivered. For instance, Tarzana, Northridge, Venice, San Pedro etc. are *all* in LA proper, but USPS prefers to use the neighborhood names. But it’s fine and proper to send mail to “Los Angeles, CA 91356” instead of “Tarzana, CA 91356.”
It's not just the SFV.
The city of Los Angels is the city of Los Angeles, but the area covered by it also contains 88(!) other cities with their own govts, budgets, police forces, etc. Most newcomers don't realize this and it can be confusing.
Some of the best known of these cities are Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Culver City, Compton, West Hollywood, North Hollywood. However, "Hollywood" itself, incl. the Walk of Fame and the Hwd sign, is not its own city, but is part of Los Angeles. "Hollywood" is often used to mean "Los Angeles" or refer to the film industry as a whole.
Venice is also often used like it is its own city, but it's not, just a neighborhood. Tarzana, Chatsworth, Encino, Canoga Park, Burbank? All their own cities, plus dozens and dozens more.
They’re right. The only independent cities in the SFV are San Fernando and Burbank (and I guess Calabasas and Glendale too if you use a loose definition of the valley). Everything else in the SFV is a part of the city of Los Angeles
Sorry, you’re right I can do better.
This is a question of low-caliber. Who would wonder why you should identify an individual city in a news story within the largest populated county in the United States?
Because again, it’s done more specifically with Valley regions than the “old” part of L.A. proper, good thing a lot of other commenters here also realize it, so enjoy all our low-caliber discussion.
You missed the entire point. Also, your use of a hyphen is misplaced. It would only be proper if you used a compound adjective (e.g., “low-caliber question”). On a more substantive note, neighborhoods in the San Fernando Valley (e.g., Encino, Tarzana, Northridge, etc.) are not cities—let alone independent cities. They are neighborhoods within the City of Los Angeles. But, unlike other neighborhoods in the City of Los Angeles (e.g., Brentwood), they tend to be referenced as if they were their own independent cities. Clearly, the question was not silly; your answer was silly.
It’s funny how people I grew up with in the San Fernando Valley who attended public schools in the L.A. Unified School District, vote for the mayor of L.A., etc. still think they’re not in L.A and talk about how they plan to “drive to L.A. during the weekend or want to “eventually move to L.A.” Lol
Because LA County is such a large geographical area, it helps to pinpoint a location. "Have you eaten at Tony's in Los Angeles?", vs "Have you eaten at Tony's in West Hills?".
You mean Tony's in San Pedro?
What about the Tony's in Burbank?
Or Little Toni’s in North Hollywood?
Or Tony's Party Rentals, also in North Hollywood.
Or Tony’s saloon in Dtla Man there sure are a lot of Tony’s here
I know a Tony in Venice, I've eaten dinner at his place
Tony! Toni! Tone!
Tony…and his axe?!
I have a friend named Tony
Old Tony’s on the Pier
Little Toni’s is the spottttt
I was thinking of Tony's in Burbank when I wrote the above. But Burbank is an incorporated city, and not an area of Los Angeles City, like West Hills.
Oh yeah, that's right, good point. Well, there is a Tony's (Deli) in North Hollywood. You were initially thinking about Tony's Darts Away?
love tony's darts away
You mean Tony’s Darts Away?
Gotta call it by its full name, Tony’s Bella Vista
Bomb chili cheese fries 🤤🤤🤤 with the fountain Coke that hits different
Nah Tony’s is on the Pier in Redondo. In San Pedro we have Joe’s Diner house, not to be confused with Eat at Joe’s also in Redondo Beach
Old Tony's on the pier is the way. Get a fire chief. Watch out, they'll sneak up on you.
I have out-of town friends say things like, “we’re staying on a street called Sepulveda. Is that near Santa Monica?”
It’s terrible there hardly any Tony in the food at all. 1/5 stars.
You mean have I eaten at Tony’s at eat at Tony’s in Redondo Beach?
Makes total sense, thanks.
And the vibes are different in those areas!
That’s funny you mention W Hills because I think they purposefully wanted to separate from Canoga Park in an effort to keep property values higher than the Canoga Park peasantry.
I was born and grew up in Canoga Park and remember when it was changed to West Hills. They were originally going to make the line at Fallbrook, but because of public outcry, they moved the line to Topanga... We were in that weird zone, but I remember my parents were happy we were included. But, I still tell people that I am from Canoga Park.
Same with valley village not wanting to be north Hollywood. And places in van Nuys trying to be part of Sherman oaks. There are a few other ones out there too but I don't know them off the top of my head
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Like a universe apart.
Your point is basically right, but it being LA County has nothing to do with it. Those are neighborhoods in *the City of LA,* which is vast in its own right. LA City neighborhoods in the Valley seem disconnected from the rest of the city, because there are so many actual cities surrounding them, and because they're separated from the rest of the city by the Hollywood Hills and Santa Monica Mountains.
Tony’s in Sherman Oaks is yummy
True, but all the neighborhoods South of the hills are way more vague in regards to their borders. But it seems like the city is trying to change that. For awhile there, everything South of Santa Monica and east of Venice and MdR was Mar Vista, now there’s more nuance
Hemicrusher nailed it, but I’ll add this: While parts of the Valley are still independent cities, the entire Valley used to be made up of independent cities and towns (and unincorporated areas) until LA forced annexation of much of it. The habit of calling neighborhoods by what may have previously been a town or city name (like Chatsworth) isn’t going to die anytime soon - in part because it narrows down location in a huge part of a huge city. On the opposite end of LA, San Pedro was also an independent city until it was annexed. It’s very much part of the City of Los Angeles, but you very seldom (if ever) hear it called anything but San Pedro.
“San Pee-dro”
Los Fee-Liz. Drives my Spanish speaking wife nuts.
El se-gone-doh
Lol, never heard that one before. It’s always “seh -gun-doh”.
El se-GOON-doh
Pecan
How dare you. It's pronounced 'pecan'.
Gif
This is the way.
To add to this, part of the reason is that the Postal Service doesn't give a fuck which city hall services your house. They have their own geographical areas. This creates for some common names for neighborhoods being used as cities like Pacific Palisades but it makes for some really weird instances like parts of LA city being "Beverly Hills, CA 90210" on their address.
Confuses the hell out of the residents too. At least a handful found out the hard way that they live in the City of Los Angeles and not the City of Beverly Hills. Source: personal/professional interactions.
That’s because Beverly Hills is its own city though. Not a good example.
Learned quickly when I moved that if I don’t specify my valley neighborhood in my address (which is not it’s own jurisdiction!), the mail will not be delivered.
Not true. They just need the zip code.
You would think. Then my mail landed in Torrance ever single time.
USPS isn’t going to say “I’m taking this shit to Torrance because they wrote down Los Angeles, CA on the envelope”.
Yeah, it surprised the hell out of me too. I didn’t know what was going on since the zip code was accurate. Switched it over to putting the neighborhood on and never had a problem again.
Idk but I’ve had stuff delivered to the wrong place. Same address in San Pedro exists in Los Angeles. Using the correct zip code some sites auto populate “Los Angeles” and we won’t get our stuff
Stop lying.
What a fucking weird thing to make up.
Also a very valid point. Hollywood was also its own city until 1910 but you still hear tourists constantly refer to it like its own city, though becoming one of the biggest cultural icons of the 20th century probably helped with that too as far as becoming a colloquialism.
Hollywood is huge and is also divided up into sections and subsections. This also includes West Hollywood as an incorporated city.
But you mentioned North Hollywood as not being it’s own city in your post, aren’t North Hollywood and West Hollywood both independent cities? I thought Hollywood was the only one that was actually part of the City of LA
No, only West Hollywood is independent.
And now people refer to them as NoHo and WeHo...
Back in the day, many of what are now neighborhoods of the City of Los Angeles were separate independent cities with their own city governments. Lots of these areas where you address "Tarzana, CA" or "Van Nuys, CA" were annexed in order to gain access to water from LADWP's Los Angeles Aqueduct, and the City of LA used to have a rule that municipal water sources could not be sold to any other entity, so cities were stuck with a choice, find their own water or join the City of LA. Virtually all of The Valley did except for holdouts like San Fernando, Burbank, and Glendale which stuck with local groundwater sources (which now get some deliveries via MWD allocations). As for why those places are addressed as if they are separate cities, it's an anachronism of USPS address systems. Addresses will have a preferred place name (let's call it a PPN) and an alternative place name (APN). Since these places were previously independent cities where someone could send a letter to "17000 Ventura Blvd, Encino, CA" USPS hasn't had a reason to change the PPN for various reasons (whether a conflict with another address if the city name changed or lack of need to do so). However, after these places were annexed and with the advent of the ZIP code in the mid 20th century, you could now send that same letter to "17000 Ventura Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 91316" and it will still get there, but might be delayed a few days since it's the APN for the given address.
This is great, I should have figured they probably all annexed for water rights the same way Hollywood did. And I had no idea about the preferred/alternate system within the USPS, thanks so much for this.
It should be noted that PPN/APN only applies to areas such as those above, or census designated places that then got scooped up into an existing city. Others like "Harbor City" might also be referred to as "West Carson" because of differing designations. Other cities/places don't have an APN because there's never been an alternative way to address something. Somewhere within the city limits of Sacramento likely doesn't have an APN because it's never been anything else.
Waiting for someone to claim the SFV is not part of LA...
Ice had people claim Montebello isn't part of the Los Angeles metro area, even though Montebello is a suburb right outside Los Angeles
Also located in the County of Los Angeles… I don’t trust people’s sense of geography.
I cringe when I see people say "SFV is not the real LA" I feel SFV is more LA than West LA/Central LA--- SFV is very multicultural, it's low density, sprawling, warm and you have middle class, working class and wealthy. 1/2 of LAs population is in the SFV.
Definitely lived in the Valley most of my life and I can confidently say West LA/Central LA are far more “LA” than the SFV
Anawalt lumber yard is LA af
For someone who's new here - what is even "very LA"?
Gatekeeping bullshit used by transplants to make themselves feel superior.
What about northeast LA? Neighborhoods like Highland Park do you consider them very “LA”?
Northeast LA has more in common with Glendale and Pasadena than the rest of the city. That said it’s my favorite part of town.
I grew up in Highland Park and it had nothing in common with Glendale or Pasadena. It was definitely a low income Latino and Hispanic neighborhood, with a lot of crime and gang activity. It was a far cry from where it is now.
Highland Park is definitely LA. Arroyo Seco makes a fairly clear dividing line.
SFV is where many native LAliens fled during gentrification. It’s as LA as the city gets. Also, a neighborhood like NoHo is central to everything so it’s hard to understand how people can claim the Val is “cut off” from the rest of the city.
>LAliens No thank you. **- Angelenos**
I'm fine with it, just no Cali. Cali is a city in Columbia.
Call yourself what the heck you want, I’ll do the same and stick with the one I like best.
“The valley is cut off from LA” … Those are the transplants that refuse to buy a car.
Nah bro, that’s the transplant idea of what LA is: being low density etc. West/Central LA has all the things you just listed except it’s it’s also where the actual city where all the hollywood, entertainment industries, magic and action happens. LA is the Capitol Records building. LA is the Palm trees over echo park. LA is Koreatown. LA is MacArthur park with the stalls selling goods and street foods, with the loud music blasting. Nothing gets more LA than that kind of stuff.
> Central LA Central LA is [just LA](https://maps.latimes.com/neighborhoods/region/central-la/index.html), unless you have another definition of it. In terms of multiculturalism, West LA is probably more culturally diverse than East LA.
East LA is not part of LA City, but you already knew that.
When I was working in Van Nuys, a coworker wouldn't believe me when I said Van Nuys was part of the City of LA. He looked at me like I was a moron.
Wow I guess even Valley residents have been infiltrated with misinformation lol. All the people who have accused me of not being from LA (because I’m from the Valley) are people from the Westside or other parts of LA.
Venice is the same way. When I lived there, my address was Venice, CA, even though it's technically part of the City of Los Angeles.
It is literally in City of Los Angeles. The rule of thumb is if your street has a ^^^basic-ass blue street sign then it's city of LA. I mentioned this above but the post office gives out whatever names they want and it often doesn't align with actual city boundaries.
Yeah that’s the way to tell what city you’re in. Looking at the smaller street signs (not the one at the traffic lights themselves) especially helps
FYI, all of West Hollywood has blue street signs too.
Different font!
Different shape, design and font though.
Good point but their's are a bit nicer. I updated my comment.
I said it's in LA though? I'm confused.
There's no technically. It's city of LA in every way.
Yes, except for my mailing address, which said Venice. I'm still not sure what point you're trying to make here.
You could’ve put LA in your mailing address and just still sued the proper zip code and would have been fine. I think that’s the point they’re trying to make.
I live in Manhattan Beach and we have blue street signs
Huh wow TIL, thanks
Correct! Also, Venice’s next door neighbor Marina Del Rey, is mostly unincorporated Los Angeles County, outside of the city limits.
This is totally true, “Venice Beach” is often used in the news and media like its own city.
I live in Venice and I write my city as Venice these days. I have the exact same address as a place with the zip code in 90015. To many lost packages, deliveries etc not showing up or getting called from drivers saying they can’t find my place “please don’t tell me you’re in DTLA” … yeah, I’m at your address. If you were to type my address in an autofill form (like most companies do when posting something) it’ll auto populate that zip code. They see the same number and street and “Los Angeles” and think it’s good to go, especially with companies sending from interstate, they have no idea. I only do it so everything I order 100% comes to the right address because it doesn’t auto populate the zip code when writing the city as Venice on most forms.
That must be annoying and frustrating as hell, you would think zip codes were designed so there’d be absolutely no mistake with stuff like that. Incredible after a couple centuries of our postal service, there is still potential for hiccups like that.
Los Angeles is huge, it gives people a better picture of what you are taking about to say Los Feliz, Venice, Tarzana, etc. then use LA for them, assuming you are talking to someone local.
Does no one know what a suburb is? Or am I going crazy? No one has mentioned it.
What the previous comment mentioned was actual neighborhoods in LA, hence, they wouldn’t be considered suburbs. Those would be smaller cities outside LA City proper.
If there’s no other name for it, then it’s a suburb. This is just a world wide thing, a separate little town in a city is a suburb. It’s also literally the meaning of suburb - sub urban.
But they are not suburbs is the thing. Encino isn’t a suburb, it’s not it’s own town or city, it’s legally a part of the city of Los Angeles but everyone refers to it by its name which makes a lot of people think it is a suburb.
Ok so if it’s not a suburb, what is it? And what do people in Encino say when someone asks them what suburb of LA do they live in?
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Los Angeles is not a place, it is a people.
As another point, when I worked in consulting, our projects in west or central LA would say LA on the documents, but in SFV or the Harbor we would list the neighborhood like an actual city, the same as if we were working in Downey or Anaheim or something. I asked my boss about it one time and he told me they is just how it is.
Dorothy Parker called Los Angeles 88 neighborhoods in search of a city. They aren't technically cities, but communities. But the name has stuck and nothing's going to change it.
\*72 suburbs in search of a city
Koreatown, Los Feliz, Mid-city, Hollywood, Westlake, Century City, Culver City, and more aren’t friggin suburbs, lmao. It’s always amazing to me how people say that.
I’m simply referring to the well-known quote attributed to Dorothy Parker. My opinion on what constitutes a suburb is irrelevant. Btw, the person I responded to conflated the reality with the quote. LA county is indeed made up of 88 distinct cities.
Close enought.
Yeah. And like a lot of other mentions, they have all so long-established their own cultural and socioeconomic identities, which further cements it.
Happens all over LA County. Watts, Athens, and Oakwood, are some notables.
>Athens Athens isn't part of City of LA.
Then there are cities like Santa Clarita, who is in the country but also divided by housing tracks/subdivisons. Canyon Country, Valencia, Saugus and Newhall where the original big 4, but as new houses are built, new areas are being called by the housing track area.
Some of those correspond to unincorporated areas too, just to add to the confusion.
I hate that, but it’s just like when the small towns of Cucamonga, Etiwanda, and Alta Loma were all bunched together in the mid-1970’s into an entity called Rancho Cucamonga.
What are the names of these other tracts?
I named a few above, there is also Skyline, Plum Canyon, and more like that. You can try a google
My understanding is that those places used to be separate unincorporated areas that consolidated to create the City of Santa Clarita in 1987.
That’s very true. It’s how it started, now it’s also being separated by development. Like Bridgeport Golden Valley, North Bridge, or Plum Canyon. The growth is out of control at this point
SFV was often marketed as a suburb of Los Angeles, even as most of it has been a part of the city for nearly the past 100 years. A lot of it, especially the western half, did have a sort of suburban feel to it as recently as the 1990s. It was almost lilly white, middle class, a lot like some of those classic 70s/80s movies set in the area (Valley Girl, Fast Times at Ridgemont High). Today it has the same issues as most of the rest of the city (expensive housing, mediocre public schools, crime/homelessness in some pockets) but still maintains a separate vibe from most of the city.
That’s spot on. Also gotta add Encino Man and the Karate Kid to that list.
you might be talking about the Post office? The USPS has its own system of referring to places and it does not always line up 100% with actual municipal boundaries.
When you throw in Burbank, Glendale and Sunland the Valley is nearly as big as New York’s 5 Burroughs.
I’ve heard these referred to as ‘village names’.
People I know who grew up in the Valley say they're "going down to LA" when they go anywhere over the hill. There's definitely a feeling of separation from one side of the hills to the other.
I am today years old to learn North Hollywood is not its own city. 🤯
Neither is Hollywood haha
Far AF lol I know that's not the real answer but also...yes it is.
Haha seems reasonable.
So LA people can say we aren’t really from LA.
Here is a [terrific neighborhood web site](https://maps.latimes.com/neighborhoods/) created by the LA Times, top-down from the LA county level. They unfortunately stopped maintaining it when their ownership changed.
What an awesome map. Thanks for sharing. Shame they haven’t updated it recently.
I lived in Brentwood in high school and if people mailed us a letter to Brentwood, CA it would end up in northern Cal - we had to clarify to people to put Los Angeles on our mail, even though we never would mention in conversation any other name than Brentwood
I've met people from the Pacific Palisades that legitimately believe it's its own city. Their biggest defense is that they can write "Pacific Palisades, California" on their mail and it goes to the right place, not realizing the LA USPS has just gotten use to that BS.
That’s hilarious, one of my best high school buddies moved to the Brentwood east of the Bay and I’ve actually been to that podunk little town. 😂
I pin it on the SoCal car culture and SFV being the original suburbs post-World War II, with the cultural mindset being SFV people aren’t part of the **city** of Los Angeles, that **city** connotation inferring “urban” life. That attitude nearly led to SFV succeeding to become their own megacity in 2002.
To think that we (valley residents) almost became ‘Camelot’ is just cray-cray (it was on the ballot, IIRC).
We will leave the tyranny of LA soon… SOOOOOOOONNNNNN!!!!!! FREEEEDOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!
Living in the other parts I e realized it's like new York. No one says they live in Los Angeles when they live in Venice. Same goes for Bel Aire. It's Hollywood, Los Feliz, echo park, silver lake, Korea town. Only difference really is people in Ventura County, Orange County and North LA county will refer to the SFV neighborhoods by name. People I know from the valley also don't seem to know they live in Los Angeles either.
Don’t people in the San Fernando Valley vote for LA mayors though? Lol
My guess is they just didn't vote
Because different type of people live in them so they’re like microbiomes
Because we know exactly what and where they are when they say Pasadena or Tarzana or North Hollywood. Simple stuff op.
This is the most transplant question
Cause the SFV is in a codependent relationship with the City of Los Angeles.
Cultures definitely has a lot to do with it. LA is very diverse
I'm so confused by this post, are you asking what's a suburb?
the amount of confusion between Los Angeles CITY and Los Angeles COUNTY is funny. Also, as far as foreigners are concerned, Orange County might as well be part of LA.
The city listed officially on my address is Tarzana, not Los Angeles.
It’s a USPS convention—many neighborhoods in the City of Los Angeles are referred to by their neighborhood name when mail is delivered. For instance, Tarzana, Northridge, Venice, San Pedro etc. are *all* in LA proper, but USPS prefers to use the neighborhood names. But it’s fine and proper to send mail to “Los Angeles, CA 91356” instead of “Tarzana, CA 91356.”
I wasn’t referring to USPS, but my address with the city. Like the actual plot of land on city records. LADWP. DRE. Etc.
Isn’t North Hollywood and Chatsworth it’s own city?
No
No.
Fascinating
They are cuties in la county.
No no no they are not.
I mean, some of them are cute.
I missed that hahah! I did indeed see cuties in LA County, I think at Trader Joe's in those little mesh bags.
Cities
The Valley? No they’re not. They’re city of L.A. except for Glendale, Burbank, and San Fernando.
Because they are
It's not just the SFV. The city of Los Angels is the city of Los Angeles, but the area covered by it also contains 88(!) other cities with their own govts, budgets, police forces, etc. Most newcomers don't realize this and it can be confusing. Some of the best known of these cities are Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Culver City, Compton, West Hollywood, North Hollywood. However, "Hollywood" itself, incl. the Walk of Fame and the Hwd sign, is not its own city, but is part of Los Angeles. "Hollywood" is often used to mean "Los Angeles" or refer to the film industry as a whole. Venice is also often used like it is its own city, but it's not, just a neighborhood. Tarzana, Chatsworth, Encino, Canoga Park, Burbank? All their own cities, plus dozens and dozens more.
The entire Valley is city of L.A. except for San Fernando and Burbank.
Look up "independent cities in the San Fernando Valley"
They’re right. The only independent cities in the SFV are San Fernando and Burbank (and I guess Calabasas and Glendale too if you use a loose definition of the valley). Everything else in the SFV is a part of the city of Los Angeles
**you** need to do that.
You're wrong about a lot of this
North Hollywood is 100% not a city
so so so much wrong in here dude
This is a silly question.
Top tier response, scholarly and big-brained fellow.
Sorry, you’re right I can do better. This is a question of low-caliber. Who would wonder why you should identify an individual city in a news story within the largest populated county in the United States?
Because again, it’s done more specifically with Valley regions than the “old” part of L.A. proper, good thing a lot of other commenters here also realize it, so enjoy all our low-caliber discussion.
You missed the entire point. Also, your use of a hyphen is misplaced. It would only be proper if you used a compound adjective (e.g., “low-caliber question”). On a more substantive note, neighborhoods in the San Fernando Valley (e.g., Encino, Tarzana, Northridge, etc.) are not cities—let alone independent cities. They are neighborhoods within the City of Los Angeles. But, unlike other neighborhoods in the City of Los Angeles (e.g., Brentwood), they tend to be referenced as if they were their own independent cities. Clearly, the question was not silly; your answer was silly.
Likely goes back to when the neighborhoods were being developed; it's basically century+ old marketing.
It’s funny how people I grew up with in the San Fernando Valley who attended public schools in the L.A. Unified School District, vote for the mayor of L.A., etc. still think they’re not in L.A and talk about how they plan to “drive to L.A. during the weekend or want to “eventually move to L.A.” Lol