Baldwin Park, CA

Baldwin Park sits almost dead center in the San Gabriel Valley, and that location shapes daily life more than anything else. For a city of its size it packs in a lot of housing on a small footprint. Most blocks are lined with postwar single-story houses, many of them enlarged over the years. Apartments and mobile home parks line the busier roads, so the change from a quiet cul-de-sac to a four-lane boulevard can happen within a single block. Morgan Park on Baldwin Park Boulevard is the civic green, the city's main park, with the library a short walk away. Smaller neighborhood parks dot the grid. For longer walks and bike rides, residents head a few minutes north to Santa Fe Dam Recreation Area, where the river trail runs past a lake with the mountains straight ahead. Maine Avenue is the old main street, with bakeries, taquerias and seafood kitchens. La Cosecha Mexican Bistro there has pushed the menu upscale with bone marrow sopes, a tomahawk steak and weekend brunch. Ramona Boulevard is the long commercial stretch, lined with taco stands, drive-thru coffee and big supermarkets, and a whole string of burger stands nods to the fast food chain that got its start here. The three big boulevards hold the grocery stores and big-box shopping, Foothill Transit runs throughout, and Metrolink trains leave from the station at the Danzas Indigenas artwork toward downtown Los Angeles. The tradeoff is the freeway edge. What Baldwin Park gives back is reach. From these blocks, the mountains, the river trail, Pasadena and downtown are all within a similar drive, and the train covers the commute.