Westmont

Like West Athens to the south, Westmont is another highly dangerous gang neighborhood. According to the LA Times, it ranks 7th in terms of most dangerous neighborhoods in all of LA. Given that hundreds of people get murdered in this city every year, this is not something to take lightly. How bad is it? In the last 6 months 7 people have been killed in this neighborhood. There have been 4 rapes reported as well, and hundreds of robberies and aggravated assaults. Since 2007, there have been 68 murders in this neighborhood of 31,000. 68! That means that they average 16.5 murders per year. So if you live in this neighborhood, your chances of getting shot are 1 in 2000. Your chances of being assaulted, 1 in 90 (and that is just in one year).

Even more depressing, many residents say that things are getting worse, not better.

The schools in the area are just as bad. George Washington and Morningside High are both ranked at the very bottom of academic standards. Both having API’s of 1 out of 10 and showing only very small percentages of their students as passing the STAR test. The one positive thing to say about Morningside is that despite its inability to fully prepare its students, it has managed to pass all of its No Child Left Behind standards last year—which means that it is slowly beginning to improve (certainly doing much better than George Washington).

Given these conditions there is little point in me telling you about the Ranch homes that make up the neighborhood or to me talking up the palm trees and the pleasant stopped-in-time quality of many of the streets in this neighborhood. Unfortunately, when crime is out of control as it now is in Westmont, there is little that will draw people here to notice the finer point of this neighborhood.