El Segundo, CA

El Segundo is a small beach town with a giant office district attached to its east side. Wedged into the Los Angeles County coast from the airport south to Manhattan Beach, it has the feel of a village on weekends and the energy of a major employment center on weekdays, when aerospace engineers and tech workers pour in from all over the region. The town splits cleanly along Sepulveda Boulevard. West of it is the residential grid, with downtown on Main and Richmond streets and the old brick workshops of Smoky Hollow just beside it. The refinery fills the southwest corner, and the south end along Pacific Coast Highway is a commercial strip of restaurants and shops. Housing on the west side is mostly small postwar houses, Craftsman and Spanish-style cottages and low condo buildings, packed onto narrow lots within walking or biking distance of downtown. More owners are replacing one-story originals with two-story houses, and townhomes keep filling in where older buildings come down. Outdoor time centers on the water. El Segundo Beach, at the bottom of Grand Avenue, is wide and uncrowded, and the Marvin Braude Bike Trail runs along the sand north toward Venice and Santa Monica. Small parks and ball fields are scattered through the residential blocks. Downtown carries the food scene. Tapizon on Main Street serves Brazilian cooking with Japanese touches, and Smoky Hollow Roasters, a few blocks away on Sierra Street, is where locals line up for coffee. The tradeoff is the weekday crush. Evenings are different. Once the office lots empty out, downtown El Segundo goes back to being a place where people walk to dinner and nod at their neighbors on the way.