South Pasadena, CA

South Pasadena is a small city squeezed between Pasadena, Highland Park, Alhambra and San Marino, and it has spent decades defending that size. The Los Angeles County town famously fought off a plan to push the 710 Freeway through its neighborhoods, and the victory left its old houses and big street trees largely intact. That preservation is what you notice first. Most of the city is older single-family housing, with Craftsman bungalows and Victorians next to Spanish and Colonial Revival homes, many dating to the decades around 1900. The western and southern edges climb into hills with winding streets, while the middle of town runs flat and regular. The Arroyo Seco is the city's big outdoor room. Arroyo Seco Park stretches up the ravine in the direction of Pasadena. Skaters and dog owners each have their own corner of it, and it is where most longer runs start. Smaller neighborhood parks are scattered through town, and old oaks shade many of them. Mission Street by the Metro stop is the gathering place, a few blocks of early twentieth century storefronts that fill up for the weekly farmers market. La Monarca Bakery sells Mexican pan dulce and cafe de olla, and The Munch Company nearby builds sandwiches and salads for a lunch in the park. Daily errands split between that walkable district and Fair Oaks Avenue, where supermarkets and drugstores sit along a wide road. The A Line connects to Pasadena and downtown Los Angeles, and the 110 runs along the Arroyo on the western edge. With no freeway through the middle, commuters from neighboring cities cut through on Fair Oaks and Huntington, and rush hour can crawl. That is the price of the missing freeway, and South Pasadena pays it for a town where the old houses, the trees and a real main street all survived at once.