Irwindale, CA

Irwindale fills the broad river wash where the San Gabriel River leaves the mountains, and most of the land is given over to water basins, rock plants and business parks rather than houses. The middle is a grid of warehouses, food plants and deep pits along the 605 and the 210. Homes are confined to a small cluster in the southeast, a few streets of modest single-family houses around the civic center, where new construction is rare and the housing stock changes slowly. Santa Fe Dam Recreation Area has a fishing lake, open grassy slopes, a seasonal swim beach and the mountains filling the skyline to the north. The San Gabriel River Bike Trail runs past it for miles, heading south toward the coast and north toward Azusa, where Azusa River Wilderness Park follows the water up into the canyon. Food in town is mostly a string of counters on Arrow Highway, fine for tacos, chicken or a quick shaved ice. For a longer meal, residents go next door. Cafe Cultura in downtown Azusa handles coffee and brunch, and Route 66 Roadhouse and Tavern in Duarte serves burgers with live music a short drive away. Getting around is easier than the size suggests. With only a few hundred homes in the whole city, listings rarely appear, and there is no supermarket row or retail district of its own, so most shopping happens in the towns around it. For the few who do live in Irwindale, the payoff is space. A lake, a regional bike trail and a mountain view sit just past the end of the street, in a city where people are outnumbered by workers every weekday.