You’ve got to love it whenever lifestyle magazines tabulate and compile a list of the best or unique neighborhoods in the good ol' USA. Seems like every 6 months, there is a new one….and we ALWAYS make the cut. Some in the past have been downright honorable.
But it’s the lists we don’t make it on that requires our attention.
After Silver Lake topped Forbes' list of America's Hippest Hipster Neighborhoods this fall, Forbes put out a follow-up report Tuesday listing the Top 10 most diverse big cities and neighborhoods.
Before I even had a chance to pop that champagne, nowhere on the list were we--Los Angeles or Echo Park-Silver Lake-- to be found.
Oh, all the great big urban spots in the country are mentioned--including San Jose, Oakland and San Francisco.
But the only nod to Southern California, the one time infamous melting pot of the nation, has been given to (gasp!) Orange County!
Any Angeleno knows that the O.C. has made great strides in the past couple of decades and has bore fruit to some true ethnically quirky areas.
But we also know that Silver Lake, Echo Park and even Hollywood are inhabited by some of the most uniquely colorful streets we ever come across.
That's why it's a bit of a shocker when, according to Forbes, within the L.A. metro area, the Downtown neighborhood near 7th and Main streets actually has come out on top these days--perhaps because its diversity is split nearly equally over most ethnic categories.
(The Downtown neighborhood along 4th and 5th captured third place in the rankings, which also included Long Beach's Signal Hill, and parts of Fullerton and Buena Park.)
"Hipster" neighborhoods like Silver Lake do get a nod in the piece, however. The report notes that they are "somewhat more mixed," pointing to the 90026's 57% Hispanic, 21% White and 17% Asian population.
I’m still trying to walk away with findings that Orange County and San Francisco pummeled L.A. in the diversity index. Who’d a thought?
