Altadena

Altadena is a great family community located on the outskirts of LA and just south of the Angeles National Forest. I love the fact that you are so close to nature, in a serene rural atmosphere zoned for horses, yet less than five miles from Pasadena. This is the perfect place to live if you are an outdoor lover yet want the convenience to a big city.

If you are looking for condos or apartments, you won’t find many here. Neighborhoods are family friendly and many back up to trails to make this a truly unique Los Angeles community. There are some very nice parks and hiking trails with a hugely popular farmer’s market on West Palm Ave.

One of the most popular attractions is Altadena’s Christmas Tree Lane. People come from all over to see a bit of holiday magic and every year just gets better and better, Perhaps its because these sort of displays are few and far between within LA.

Education is very good with schools included in the Pasadena Unified School District. Private schools are nearby as well and all have a very good reputation.

Overall, Altadena is a community geared toward families and those that enjoy the great outdoors which is my kind of place. Most people that move here rarely leave.

Squeezed between the giants of Glendale and Pasadena, Altadena is a nice upper-middle class neighborhood that is very diverse. With the mountains forming the northern border, this is yet another of the neighborhood that hides in the Las Verdugas area of Los Angeles. One of the testaments to the diversity of the area are the number of religious institutions that you can find along North Lake Blvd.—from a number of Baptist and Methodist Churches to a mosque.

Altadena, as the name somewhat suggests, is a sloping community. Up near the mountains, the homes are larger and squat, most of them being the fancier sorts of Ranch homes. These were the sorts of homes that when I was a kid, I would associate with a certain amount of wealth, though now they seem a little bit dated. The streets in this higher elevation area of Altadena are leafy, the lawns are big and there are no sidewalks. Grass grows where you might normally see sidewalks.

Altadena also boasts a number of parks. They are all quite nice but the General Farnsworth is probably the best. Not only does it have tennis courts and baseball field, it also has an open air amphitheatre.

Mountain View Cemetery is also in this section.

Despite its upper middle class feel, Altadena does have some crime problems on it western edge, hear the border with Tujunga. There have been approximately two murders every year since 2007. Overall, however, Altadena is about average for the LA area in terms of overall crime stats. Of the 8 murders that have taken place since 2007, six of them were under the age of 30, which implies this may have something to gang activity.