Presidio Dr, View Park-Windsor Hills

Located in the hills northwest of Inglewood, View Park is one of the hidden gems of the LA area. Although it is widely overlooked by LA residents, View Park is an affluent, predominantly African American neighborhood filled with large classic manors. It is one of the few places in LA where you can find large Georgian homes painted White House white and highlighted with redbrick front walks, two and half story high Corinthian columns and decorative period lamps. The neighborhood also has the occasional modernized Cape Cod, complete with gambrel roof.

Residents consider the neighborhood to be safe and claim they have no problem walking their dogs at night. Murder stats would seem to bear them out—with no murders in the neighborhood since at least 2006 (perhaps earlier, I just don’t have any stats before then). Other stats point to a different picture however. Looking at the last six months, for example, there have been 11 aggravated assaults and 15 robberies thus putting into the category of one of the more dangerous than average neighborhoods. In terms of property crimes it is even more of a target with 57 burglaries, 23 autothefts, 54 thefts from vehicles.

This is not to overstate matters and imply that this is one of the most dangerous areas in LA—it certainly is not. But, it is also not completely insulated from the nearby crime problems.

Another problem with living here is that the local schools are also not as strong as one would like. The public high schools in the area, in fact, rank as some of the worst in LA. Take nearby Crenshaw High whose API is 200 points below the state average and only manages to get one of five of its student to test proficient in English (according to 2010 STAR tests). Even worse is the math proficiency where only one in forty test proficient. As you would expect Crenshaw students taking the SAT fall 500 below the state average and the high school has missed at least 14 No Child Left Behind milestones four years in a row. (In 2008, they missed all 25.) Put simply, mediocrity would be a positive accomplishment for this school.

Given how beautiful this neighborhood is, it is a shame that crime and education are not stronger in the area. I doubt it would remain a “hidden gem” if they were.