La Crescenta-Montrose

La Crescenta-Montrose is a quiet upper middle class Las Verdugas community of nearly 20,000, hidden away against the northern hills. Its isolation is partly its blessing keeping it largely safe from the sort of crime and congestion problems that plague much of the rest of the Los Angeles area.

One of the greatest assets of the area is its high schools, Clark Magnet and Crescenta Valley. Crescenta Valley is the larger and more diverse of the two with a population that more closely reflects the demographics of the neighborhood: 4 of 5 students are white, one in eight Asian (mostly of Korean heritage) and the rest are for the most part Hispanic. Test scores are high and the school does not have the sorts of problems with gangs or drugs on the scale that other programs in LA Unified do.

Clark Magnet has an even more impressive track record. Clark is a Magnet focused on technology and it offers students courses in animation, computer science and general technology that prepare students not only for college but for jobs in the tech industry (in fact, several students are offered jobs with Disney right on graduation from Clark). Clark is also well-known for it robotics club that consistently challenges for awards. Many students, however, find the workload at Clark oppressive, and the limited school size and focus on science excludes sports, languages outside of Spanish and some of the music and arts programs that students might like to be exposed to at regular schools.

In addition to its great schools, many residents are drawn to La Crescenta-Montrose by its low crime rate. Although there are the usual sorts of property crime that most any community must expect as being part of a large metropolitan area, La Crescenta-Montrose does not have the kinds of violent crime that residents really fear. There has not been a murder in the area for years, and compared to other neighborhoods, La Crescenta is consistently ranked as one of the lowest crime areas in LA. In the past six months, for example, only thirteen violent crimes were reported—a very low number even when taken on a per-capita basis.

The leafy hilly residential lanes of the neighborhood offer an assortment of architectural styles from which to choose. Although Ranch and Prairie type homes tend to be the most common, it is not unusual to see a Tudor style cottage or a Mediterranean style house. Of course, with hills you inevitably will get some wild life wandering in, but an occasional garbage can knocked over by coyotes is well worth the seclusion.

The major thoroughfare is Foothill Blvd. and although it does not have anything more exotic than a Starbucks, it still has all the basic things you could want from a commercial avenue. Overall it is a great place to raise kids.

La Crescenta is great. It has a very friendly, family feel. It is a quiet neighborhood and it is mostly for people in the 30s to 40s that have already created a family. Everything is always very clean. I have yet to have a problem with cleanliness or with bugs, etc. The nightlife is not very good because like i said before it is a very quiet neighborhood. I like to say that the city goes to bed at 7 pm. That's when theres not that many people on the streets and it just becomes a more quiet atmosphere. That's all i have to say about it.