Glendale, CA

Glendale wraps around the Verdugo Mountains between Burbank, Pasadena and the Los Angeles River, and its Los Angeles County ground runs from flat grid to steep canyon. A dense downtown of towers and shopping sits a few miles from canyon roads where deer cross the pavement, and it feels more self-contained than the Los Angeles neighborhoods next door. Downtown around Brand Boulevard stacks new apartments around two big malls, the Americana at Brand and the Galleria, and Tropico, the old railroad district, still has trains pulling into the transit center. Brand Park is the way into the mountains, with the domed Brand Library, a Japanese teahouse and fire roads that climb toward the Verdugo crest. Deukmejian Wilderness Park covers hundreds of acres of chaparral at the north end, Verdugo Park has ballfields and a skatepark, and Griffith Park is right across the river. Food here runs deep, with Armenian bakeries and grills lining West Glenoaks. The coffee people mention is Coffee Commissary in Kenneth Village, a small strip below the hills, open into the evening. Brand Boulevard, Honolulu Avenue and Glenoaks handle most errands, with a Sunday farmers market in Montrose. Beeline and Metro buses cover the main streets, Metrolink and Amtrak stop in Tropico, and the 5, 134, 2 and 210 all pass through. Traffic on Brand, Glenoaks and Colorado runs heavy for much of the day, and parking gets tight on blocks where apartments have gone up. Living in Glendale usually means using both halves in the same week, a fire road above the canopy on Saturday and a bakery counter on Brand by Monday morning.