Lynwood, CA

Lynwood is a compact, mostly residential Los Angeles County city in the Gateway area, fitted in between Compton, South Gate and Paramount. There is no single downtown. Shopping and dining stretch along a handful of long corridors instead, and the houses fill everything in between. Single-story homes from the 1920s through the 1950s cover most of the map, many of them stucco with a driveway and a patch of lawn out front. The western edge along Alameda Street turns industrial, with rail lines and workshops, while the streets closer to the Paramount side are purely residential. Lynwood Park is the civic hub, with the library and community center on the same grounds and ball fields and open lawn around them. A few smaller parks are scattered across town, including one along Atlantic Avenue with its own community building. Plaza Mexico is where a lot of Lynwood eats. Real de Oaxaca, inside the plaza, serves Oaxacan mole negro and tlayudas, and the food court and small stands around it cover everything from tacos to raspados. Long Beach Boulevard and Imperial Highway are lined with mariscos counters, panaderias and donut shops. Errands run along four roads, Long Beach Boulevard, Atlantic Avenue, Imperial Highway and MLK Boulevard, and most people drive from one to the next. The Metro C Line has a station on Long Beach Boulevard beside the 105, which heads west toward LAX, and the 710 runs just east of town toward the Port of Long Beach. Without a walkable main street, even small errands usually mean getting in the car, and Imperial Highway near the plaza fills up on weekend afternoons. In a city with no old downtown, Plaza Mexico has become the town square, the place people pick when they want to meet up somewhere in town.