Sylmar

Sylmar is the most northern part of Los Angeles -- located in the Valley. It is mostly flat and has a lot of trees. It's a really beautiful neighborhood. It looks like a cross between Pleasantville and Scottsdale. Basically, it is very flat and suburban looking with mostly one story houses that were built in the 50's and 60's; and, it has mountains to the north of it.
Sylmar is sort of famous for a lot of natural disasters. It is an earthquake hotspot. The Northridge Earthquake hit Sylmar quite hard resulting in a lot of damage and some lives lost. And, the Sylmar earthquake in 1971 was even more destructive than the famous Northridge quake. UCLA opened a medical center in Sylmar that focused on respiratory problems -- and, the entire facility was obliterated one month later due to the quake. Furthermore, there was a huge fire that swept through Sylmar in 2008 destroying hundreds of acres of land and hundreds of homes as well.
Sylmar has far less smog than the rest of the valley due to winds that come off of the foothills. But, the weather is, generally, the same: hot. It's about 20 degrees warmer than the non-valley parts of Los Angeles.
Aside from the disaster notoriety, Sylmar is famous for two other things: olive trees and the cemetery. The neighborhood is one of the country's leading producers of olives (adding to the enormous amount of trees); and, this olive production has been going on for hundreds of years which is pretty cool. The Pioneer Cemetery is one of the oldest cemeteries in Los Angeles and it is now a historical landmark (rare in a city as young as LA). It's really beautiful if you're into that sort of thing.
Sylmar is a pretty sleepy place. And, because of it's distance from the city proper, the residential aspect of the neighborhood is quite cheap. It's culturally diverse -- the Latino population comprises the highest demographic in the neighborhood. There's not really much to do here as far as nightlife and entertainment goes. I wouldn't live here, but it's not dangerous (people-wise) and it's definitely cheap.