East Los Angeles (region) - Built Environment

Built Environment

In appearance, while northern East Los Angeles may vary in character, much of East Los Angeles is a throwback to Los Angeles' early 20th century heritage. The dusty streets up and down the Monterey Hills, on which much of the region sits, are often winding and narrow. On primary and secondary thoroughfares, at times busy industrial concerns and/or shops sit side-by-side with single-family residences, in contrast to heavily zoned areas like parts of the San Fernando Valley and the Westside, where it is less common. In some areas backyard agriculture is still widely practiced, as was colorfully depicted in the films My Family (also called Mi Familia) and Stand and Deliver (which was set in an East L.A. high school representing James A. Garfield High School). Of these, many families maintained chicken coops and citrus groves in their backyards long after most of Los Angeles had abandoned these vestiges of its rural past. In some areas, however, this is less common or non-existent, such as Montecito Heights and Mt. Washington, among others.