Panorama City, Los Angeles, CA

Panorama City began in 1948 as a master-planned Los Angeles suburb, the first of its kind in the Valley, built by developer Fritz Burns and industrialist Henry J. Kaiser beside the General Motors plant in Van Nuys. The original tract homes are still here, compact postwar ranch houses on regular lots with front lawns and single garages, many of them remodeled and expanded over the decades. New apartment projects have gone up along the main corridors, and The Plant shopping center now covers the old GM site to the south. Parks are neighborhood-sized and busy. Panorama Recreation Center and Sepulveda Recreation Center have fields, courts and gyms, and Blythe Street Park includes a skate park. The LA Kings Valley Ice Center has two rinks for public skating and hockey leagues. For hiking, residents drive to Hansen Dam or the Santa Monica Mountains. The plaza at Woodman and Roscoe is the Valley's best-known stop for Filipino food. Seafood City Supermarket anchors it, with Jollibee, Red Ribbon Bakeshop and Chowking sharing the lot. Bamboo Bistro on Van Nuys Boulevard serves Filipino home cooking, with crispy pork pata and bulalo beef soup on the menu. Errands are all close. Panorama Mall has Walmart and smaller shops, Kaiser Permanente runs a major medical center at Woodman and Roscoe, and grocery options include Vallarta, Food 4 Less and Aldi. Metro's Rapid 761 travels along Van Nuys Boulevard, where a new light rail line is under construction, and the 405 and 5 frame the neighborhood. Density is the tradeoff here. Streets are crowded, parking is scarce on apartment blocks and the boulevards are loud. Weekends in Panorama City show the other side of that density, when the Seafood City lot fills with shoppers picking up fresh fish and pan de sal.