NEW YORK (MONEY Magazine) - Orange County is nothing if not suburban, but don't call it a suburb of Los Angeles. Two of its cities -- Anaheim and Santa Ana -- are bigger than either Pittsburgh or St. Louis, and both are growing fast enough to rank ahead of L.A. on the MONEY Popularity index.
| Best places to live around Los Angeles
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Mission Viejo
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Echo Park
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Silverlake
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Redondo Beach
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The county's home-grown attractions include good jobs in the biotech firms clustered around Irvine and major performing-arts venues in Santa Ana and Costa Mesa. And how about those Angels?
"There's the beautiful climate, the mountains, the water," says third-generation Orange County resident Joan DeLozier, 65. "Every amenity is available to me here."
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| Mission Viejo |
Residents of Mission Viejo enjoy some of the best the county has to offer. Nestled in the foothills of the Saddleback Mountains, the master-planned town has its own huge man-made lake for swimming and fishing. Schools rival those in more-expensive Irvine, the county's best.
But not everyone who lives in Southern California wants Orange County's brand of suburbia. Back up north in L.A., the neighborhoods of Silverlake and Echo Park are part of the urban renaissance taking place just outside downtown.
Silverlake was a hideaway for Hollywood stars in the 1920s and '30s, until they decamped for ostentatious digs in Beverly Hills. Now it's attracting bourgeois bohemians priced out of the nearby Hollywood Hills and Los Feliz. Sunset, the main shopping strip, is full of street bustle and even -- can it be? in L.A.? -- pedestrians.
Silverlake is known for vibrant murals that adorn everything from coffee houses to clothing shops, a nod to the community's large Latino population. Homes in Silverlake average $350,000 for 1,200 square feet; Echo Park costs less and is a popular alternative for those looking to get in on the Silverlake scene.
And what about the beach? Redondo Beach, just south of L.A., is the quintessential beach town and a more affordable alternative to Santa Monica. The best part of town is South Redondo, where there's a light dusting of sand on most of the streets, and you're as likely to see rollerbladers as cars passing by.
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