Southwood Riviera

Let’s start with one of the standouts of the neighborhood, the high school. South High, like many of the schools in Torrance is really outstanding. To begin, the objective measures are great. South High has not only a really high Academic Performance rating (8 of 10) but also very good SAT scores (1600 on average). South High students also do remarkably well on the STAR test, with about a third testing proficient in Math and two thirds in the English. It’s not all about academics for the South High Spartans, however. The school offers more than a dozen individual sports, many of which have done well in the past—as the girls soccer team did this last year, for example. The marching band is also quite strong. Finally, it was also the location shoot site for one of my favorite films: American Beauty.

As to the Southwood Riviera neighborhood, it is also like much of the rest of Torrance. This is a neighborhood that had its big growth boom during the Fifties and Sixties. This means, of course, lots of split-level Ranch homes. It is also the kind of place that still has a 1970’s feel to it. On the far south of the neighborhood, there is a park without a name as far as I can tell. The Riviera Little League uses the baseball courts here and there are also a pair of basketball courts.

The very south end of the neighborhood is also a bit of an apartment city. These are largely some of those somewhat nicer 1960’s style apartments with a center court that stretches like a long wide aisle to the back with the two tiers of apartments staring in at it from both sides.

The Pacific Coast Highway forms the southern border of the neighborhood. Along it, a number of businesses can be found inside of bland looking strip malls. Eateries here are largely parts of chain restaurants like Subway and Fusion Sushi. The businesses are of a similarly forgettable variety. Nothing that is really unique to this area.

On the north side of the neighborhood, you find Star View Adolescent Center. This is a psychiatric treatment center that caters to teens in crisis. This is an accredited hospital and most of the patients here are in-patients trying to find a resolution to their problems. They also run a private high school, South Bay High, especially designed to help their trouble teens.

Overall, this is a solid though unremarkable neighborhood. Exactly the sort of place that is good for raising kids.