Chatsworth

If you're someone who appreciates nature, loves long drives down winding roads, appreciates great views from high up mountain peaks, enjoys clean well kept stores and homes, and likes a slower paced life with a touch of the city...Chatsworth is the place to be. The mountains in chatsworth are for sure some of the most beautiful scenic landscapes you'll see in LA. The vast wide open space offers great hiking, and great parks. The housing is diverse and ranges from smaller starter homes, to huge beautiful mansions. The people are nice. There are some decent schools although the high school is not what it used to be. While there aren't a ton of restaurants there a couple great places here that revival many on the west side. Looking to avoid the traffic? During rush hour you'll find it quiet as can be. There's a definitive country feel here. And while it's pretty far out from the rest of LA it's still close enough to be in the "city" if you need to but enjoy the pleasures of a beautiful quiet neighborhood. Also, you have many suburban stores and food chains in Northridge which is right next door. As far as this being a place for old people....yes there are a good number of older folks here, but there's plenty of young families settling down in Chatsworth and giving their kids a good life. Also, there's a metro that takes you into the city should you chose to commute via public transportation. This is one of the few places in LA where it's actually legal to ride your horse around on the streets. You'll notice that many of the roads have set paths for horses to travel on. Pretty cool! This is one of the nicest areas of the valley. While it's not for everyone, for the right person it's as good as it gets,

Chatsworth seems somewhat like a retirement community to me. It's filled with a lot of sprawling ranch houses on big plots of land (well, big for Los Angeles). It's pretty far out from all of the hullabaloo so there's just not a lot going on. It's a really nice neighborhood / town but I don't know who would want to live here unless you're retired. It's too far from the city and it's really quiet. There is a ton of green in Chatsworth -- hills, canyons, parks etc. And, unfortunately, a bit of the porn industry has trickled over from other valley neighborhoods. There are a couple of the lesser known adult production companies headquartered in Chatsworth; but, other than that, the neighborhood is pretty bereft of questionable activity.
There are a ton of horse stables in Chatsworth which is pretty cool. In fact, there are some Hollywood trail-ish kinds of horse riding tours that end up in Chatsworth. It's a really cool afternoon to take a horse over the canyon if you're into that sort of thing. And, a ton of Westerns have been shot in Chatsworth because of the open, ranchy sorty of vibe to the place.
If you're retired, this place is great. If you're not . .. eh. One cool fact: Kevin Spacey grew up in Chatsworth and thanked his high school drama department in his first Oscar Speech.

Chatsworth has always seemed like an old folks community to me. I mean, I’m sure that there are some young people who live in Chatsworth, but the only ones I’ve ever met were living with their grandparents. There are a lot of old single story houses that were built way back just after World War II ended and the baby boomers moved in, but they seemed to have been little changed since then.

Chatsworth is at the farthest NW point of the valley. If you go any farther on the 118 you start heading out to Simi Valley, which is still pretty much a city surrounded by empty hills—real fire country. This means that you are pretty close to the underdeveloped hills at the edge of the Valley. This is both a blessing and a curse. My grandparents—who lived in Chatsworth until they were too old to take care of themselves used to get coyotes and other critters who would come down from the hills and dig around in their trash bins. On the other hand, I remember that Chatsworth Park has pretty good hiking trails. I know my brother used to sneak out of my grandparents house at night and go hiking around there doing all sorts of crazy stuff like going through dark train tunnels in the middle the night. (I’m surprised he didn’t get himself killed.)

I don’t know if this was true of all of Chatsworth, but I know that in my grandparents neighborhood, they started to get these weird roving bands of what I call only call motorcycle gangs—not like Hell’s Angels, more like local bored rich kids on their crotch rockets. And they went around doing all sorts mischief. Stealing mail boxes, breaking lawn elves, and occasionally leaving graffiti.

All in all, if you’re not like on the AARP mailing list, I would not recommend living here.