Century City, Los Angeles, CA

Century City in Los Angeles was built on the old 20th Century Fox backlot in the 1960s, and it still reads as a planned district of office towers where people also happen to live. Beverly Hills starts at its eastern edge, and Cheviot Hills and Rancho Park sit across Pico Boulevard to the south. Homes in Century City are almost all condominiums. High-rise towers along Avenue of the Stars and the Century Park streets come with lobbies, valet and pools, and Century Woods offers a lower, townhouse-style complex set back among mature landscaping. Detached houses are close to absent, which is the clearest break from the single-family streets in every direction. The open-air mall finished a major rebuild in 2017 and holds Macy's, Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's and an AMC, while Eataly fills a huge space with an Italian market, counters and sit-down restaurants. Gelson's inside the mall handles real grocery runs, and Blue Bottle and La Colombe pour coffee between the shops. Open space mostly comes as landscaped plazas between buildings. For a real green break, Rancho Park Golf Course and the Cheviot Hills Recreation Center are a short trip across Pico. The Apple Pan, a counter-service burger stand on Pico since 1947, is a short drive west in Rancho Park and still serves its hickory burger and pies. Getting around means sharing the road with a large office workforce. Santa Monica Boulevard, Olympic and Pico all clog during commute hours, and the 405 is close but rarely quick. Evenings and weekends, the sidewalks between towers go quiet, and most of the life moves inside the mall. That is the tradeoff for the convenience. From most buildings here, dinner, a movie and a full grocery run are a walk across a plaza, with no car involved.