By Karen Sternheimer

I love exploring Los Angeles. Even though I have lived here for more than 30 years, there’s always someplace new to see. As a temporary local, living across town from my former home, I recently had the chance to explore Angelino Heights for the first time.

Angelino Heights is a small community just north of downtown, famous for well-preserved Victorian homes. It’s approximately 4 miles from where I am living now, and one summer morning I decided to check it out on foot. My morning run to the community made me think about the paradox of urban spaces. One the one hand, gentrification means people like me feel comfortable traversing them on my own, while some long-time residents can no longer afford to live there. And communities with status like Angelino Heights fight change to maintain their historical value, limiting who can live within them. Housing is complicated indeed.

The first part of my journey led me through Silver Lake, a part of town once known as hipster central and a pioneering LGBTQ+ community, but is now too expensive to enable struggling artists or people without resources to live there. The median home costs about $1.5 million, and average rent for a one-bedroom apartment is well above $2,000 a month.

Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake retains its funky feel, with interesting shops and restaurants. It used to be a major venue for music and LGBTQ+ bars, but many of those establishments are shuttered now. Several city blocks are punctuated with places that appear to have been abandoned or distressed, like the building below

Sunset Boulevard, Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. Photo courtesy of the author

As I moved east on Sunset, I crossed into Echo Park. The transition is somewhat stark. A couple blocks have no businesses but plenty of trash on the streets. Homeless encampments are more common there than in Silver Lake. The median home price and rentals are a bit lower than in Silver Lake, but not by much anymore. This area became an artsy, hipster enclave when Silver Lake got very expensive. This is changing, though, as people are being priced out of this neighborhood. Its proximity to downtown and other desirable neighborhoods have made Echo Park very appealing to developers.

Massive construction projects line the main boulevards of Echo Park, with new modern condos, apartments, and townhomes. One brand-new apartment complex offers 300 square foot studio apartments starting at $1,745. A new Sprouts Farmer’s Market featuring organic foods opened on one main thoroughfare. A new yoga studio opened up a block from a sex shop near a freeway offramp.

Angelino Heights is a historic overlay zone surrounded by Echo Park (and less than a mile from Dodger Stadium). An overlay zone requires any new project to go through another layer of approval to protect the character of the neighborhood. As you can see from the photos below, the homes in Angelino Heights are beautiful.  Some are famous for their television and movie appearances; Michael Jackson’s Thriller music video was shot at a house on the street pictured.

Photos courtesy of the author

This neighborhood made me feel like I was transported back to another time, as house after house featured Victorian-era charm not often associated with Los Angeles.

Several homes had signs in front, pictured below, with a bulldozer apparently about to eat a Victorian house. The website on the sign warns of developers who would create multifamily housing in the quaint neighborhood.

Photo courtesy of the author

My gut reaction after seeing the giant bulldozer sign was fear—is this beautiful place threatened? Homeowners with resources don’t always win these fights, but they can hire attorneys and make things more difficult for developers, even dissuading future projects from being conceptualized.

The movement to save Echo Park hasn’t been entirely successful, by contrast. Local businesses have been cleared for new development. Burrito King, a neighborhood taco stand on Sunset Boulevard for 58 years, closed earlier this year. Taix, a 99-year-old French restaurant down the street closed as well, its site now vacant with a new apartment complex under construction where it once stood. Chain restaurants like Chipotle, Pitfire Pizza, and Habit Burger have moved in where small local businesses once operated.

The Los Angeles area has a housing shortage, so more housing in a centrally-located neighborhood makes sense. My quick tour of gentrified, gentrifying, and privileged neighborhoods is a reminder that changes to urban spaces are fraught, rooted in economics, politics, and power. It is almost always a zero-sum game, where some people experience gains (cleaner streets, new housing) while other experience losses (unaffordable housing, displacement, loss of businesses).

What other paradoxes of urban spaces can you think of? Is there a way to create new urban housing that doesn’t come with loss? Share your thoughts in the comments below.