Eastern Lakewood, Lakewood, CA

Eastern Lakewood is the part of the city that sits across the San Gabriel River from the rest of it, out past the 605 freeway where Lakewood meets Cerritos and Hawaiian Gardens. Its streets were mostly built a decade after the famous 1950s tracts to the west, and the area is served by ABC Unified School District. Ranch houses from the 1960s make up most of the streets, and a scattering of older cottages from the 1920s and 1930s hints at what was here before the subdivisions. Condos and townhomes fill in along the bigger roads, and Lakewood Shores, a mobile home park on Centralia Street, adds another option. Palms Park on 207th Street is the neighborhood's own park, next door to Palms Elementary. It has lighted fields, baseball diamonds, basketball courts, a wading pool and a paved walking loop, and its community center is home to the city's gymnastics program. Centralia Street is where the food is, and it covers a lot of ground for a few strip centers. Over on Norwalk Boulevard, Fitos Birrieria draws people in for birria, and Donut City handles the morning run. Daily life here depends on a car. Long Beach Transit covers the main roads, but errands, the commute and trips to Long Beach Towne Center a couple of miles south all start in the driveway. The 605 is close by for getting north or down toward the beach cities. The tradeoff is that the neighborhood is split up by big roads and the freeway, so it has fewer quiet walking loops than the older parts of town. What it offers instead is range, with a Korean barbecue dinner, a plate of birria and a gymnastics class for the evening all within a few minutes of home.