

Its a nice area with some large houses and some small houses, also some apartments. There's not a lot of crime, although you do always want to lock your car to avoid getting broken into. Many of the people plant low water plants in their yard instead of a lawn, to save water. Also most of the houses are owned by the people that live there. This doesn't seem important, but they tend to take better care of it than people who rent. There are also nice parks here. Lots of people have dogs, they walk them all day and night, so it always seems like there's somebody on the streets. It's a neighborly place. Down the street is not such a nice area, but if you don't go there are night, everything's fine. Restaurants are within walking distance. Mostly Mexican restaurants, but also some fancy places. It's all pretty nice. There is only one grocery store in the neighborhood. It's an Albertsons, and kind of old. It's not the fanciest place, and they don't have the most fresh produce in town. I don't shop there much, personally. Many of the houses in this area were built in the early part of the 1900's so they are Craftsman in nature. A lot of wood frames and big porches. The streets are surprisingly wide, because they were probably built before many cars, or at least before cars were as large and numerous as now. None of the houses here have basements, I don't know why. Maybe because of earthquakes. It's nice to find an old hardwood floor in a house here. Entire sections of town, including this one, were built to house workers for certain companies, the military, local industries, etc. At around the time this neighborhood was built, it was probably the railroad and the brickyards which were attracting a lot of employees. By the time World War Two rolled around, there were tons of people working in the shipyards and making bullets and things for the war effort. It seems that, back in the day, you could be a blue collar working person and still afford a nice place to live. These houses must have been really nice when they were built. They are still nice, when they are taken care of, but it's impossible to imagine somebody working in a factory affording a new house as nice as these old houses were when they were new. A lot of them have two bedrooms, usually they are pretty small. People made do with less space back then. It makes you think about ways to make your life more simple. I would prefer to live in this neighborhood than anywhere else in town, even if people drive down the street too loud sometimes, the houses are set far enough back from the street that you can still sleep at night. 

