Bellflower, CA

An old rail line runs straight through the middle of Bellflower, and following it on foot is a good way to understand this southeast Los Angeles County city. Apartment buildings fill whole streets, especially near the main boulevards, and several mobile home parks sit along Artesia and Lakewood boulevards. Most of the recent building has landed around the downtown core, in the form of townhome clusters. SteelCraft, the container food hall at Oak Street, anchors a stretch of storefronts and patios. The weekly farmers market and summer events keep the blocks nearby busy in the evenings, and a handful of Dutch grocers scattered around town still stock imported goods from the Netherlands, a holdover from the dairy years. For outdoor time, the Bellflower Bike Trail is the everyday route for walkers and slow cyclists, since it cuts across town with few street crossings. City parks are spread out on both sides of the path, most with ball fields, playgrounds and shaded picnic tables. Three freeways, the 91, the 105 and the 605, reach the edges of town, and the arterials carry heavy traffic at rush hour. A light rail line called the Southeast Gateway Line is planned to bring back a station here, though it remains in the planning stage, so commuters today drive or take the bus. Until that train arrives, a commute from here means sitting in freeway traffic, and street parking on the denser blocks takes patience. What makes up for it in Bellflower is a downtown you can walk to that stays lively after dark, which most towns this close to the 605 do without.