West Compton

When I was little, Compton had the reputation of being Gangland. It was the kind of place that you didn’t want to be a part of at any time of the day, but especially at night. I would like to say that it is no longer the kind of place that average middle class folks are afraid of today, but that is simply not the case. Compton and West Compton remains one of the more dangerous areas in LA. West Compton is in the top forty in both violent and property crime categories. In terms of murders there have been 7 since 2007, though this is a little misleading. 6 of the seven happened in 2008 and the vast majority of these were within a few blocks of one short stretch of Tarrant Avenue that I can only assume to be a gang territory. Most of these were drive by shootings.

Driving along this section of Tarrant, you might not, at first, think of it immediately as being a gang neighborhood. The squat, cozy 50’s era Ranch homes don’t seem particularly gang-like. But a closer look reveals bars on the windows of many of the homes, and many dried up lawns of homes that seem to have been abandoned. In fact, this description of this section of the neighborhood can be carried over to whole neighborhood.

West Compton is home to some 6,000 people and is one of the less dense areas in this area of LA. Largely this is because the entire western half of the neighborhood is made up of office and factory buildings. There are several businesses here dealing with things like metal work, and glass works. You will often see lots with pieces of scrap metal just laying around.

The schools in the area are also ranked as some of the lowest in the area, with terrible objective criteria.

One of the few positives of this neighborhood, however, is JayBee’s BBQ. It’s a bit of an ugly hole in the wall but the BBQ is great. Well worth braving Compton.