You fucking owe me, big time.
Zoom in to your heart’s content, bitches! 
I mean… I’m delighted to have found the map that you have been seeking, Stephen. I hope it helps with your research.
Have a nice day. 
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@HAL9000 Huh? What are you talking about? And why that slang?
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Hal (via some detective work) found a super high-resolution version of Stephen’s map! The slang is just goofing.
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Thanks a lot Hal! That’s amazing, it really helps a lot 
The insane coincidence is that I also asked on alternatehistory.com 's forums just in case and somebody there also found it as well.
… you don’t have an AH.com account, do you? 
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Nope. I copied the image you shared and used it in a Google Lens search that matches images across the web. The Rare Maps site came up as the first result. Checked it out. Was more awesome than I could possibly imagine. Gloated inappropriately about finding it. And now here we are.
You’re welcome!
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Whoaw, new technology is very cool sometimes.
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Ooh, the high-res version is interesting – pretty high granularity, you can definitely see e.g. where the public housing in otherwise high income areas is. Only covers like the southern 40% of the county, but Lancaster, Palmdale, Santa Clarita, etc. were pretty small back in 1960.
There’s a solid interactive version of the 1939 redlining map available here, if that’s helpful.
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That vertical axis running from Downtown to the Harbour Gateway and Harbour district is really interesting to see on the map. Almost like Downtown and the central areas are the least desirable parts of Los Angeles, and all the highest-income housing is in Griffith Park, the Santa Monica Mountains, Malibu, and Palos Verdes.
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Yeah, that’s basically right (though Griffith Park is an actual park, so people don’t live there - what you’re seeing is probably just tracts that include the eastern bits of the Hollywood Hills, which is where many really rich people live).
That line of red going down largely maps to the 110 freeway, which connects downtown to the port - beyond the disruption and pollution caused by the freeway itself, the neighborhoods around it also saw industrial and heavy industrial zoning. Guess where Black people have historically lived in LA? South LA (now more commonly called South LA) and Compton are in that zone. The other major industrial area is just to the east of downtown proper, right on the LA river - this is where a lot of the rail yards wound up, in the southern part of East LA, and warehouses in what’s now the Arts District.
LA’s population explosion happened after cars were a thing, so its settlement patterns are deeply weird if you’re used to older cities - downtown was generally a place you commuted to rather than lived very close to, and the presence of Hollywood as a place for high income jobs created a further-west locus for development that contributed to the city’s weird structure. The physical geography of LA, especially the availability of space and water but relative inaccessibility to downtown of the San Fernando Valley, also play into this. But ask an Angeleno where “midcity” is, they’ll tell you someplace around Fairfax, maybe, well to the west of downtown - they think of downtown as part of the east side!
There has been redevelopment of downtown as the 60s/70s/80s crime increase caused by lead receded, with nicer developments going up in a lot of places since the late 90s - these days there are luxury buildings pushing right up against Skid Row, which contributed to houseless folks getting pushed out of there and distributed through the rest of the city (there are a lot of other factors there too, though).
Edit: the other bit of physical geography to keep in mind is that almost everywhere, low areas are where poorer people live and higher elevations are where richer people try to live, and LA generally does fit that pattern.
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@DeusIrae, your analysis of LA, development, richness and poorness and downtowness made me think of maybe the only thing I know about this LA stuff, which is the short documentary Chavez Ravine by Jordan Mechner (of Karateka and Prince of Persia etc.). You may be interested. Link is direct to his Chavez Ravine page, including Youtube connection to the doco.
-Wade
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Oh, I’ve heard of that but never got around to watching the doc - thanks for the link! Mike Davis also covers the history a bit in City of Quartz, which is a great intro to some of the trends and politics in LA’s development, though it focuses more on the 60s and 70s.
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Yeah, my bad, I typed Griffith Park when I was thinking of Los Feliz. Griffith Park is kind of my default starting point on a map of Los Angeles. One of the first landmarks I try to pinpoint XD
Oh, it’s not called South Central anymore?
I’m a California obsessive, haha, and frankly that’s one of the things that fascinates me about Los Angeles. We don’t have cities like that in Europe that are a bunch of neighbourhoods in search of a city, as the old crack goes. Our cities are usually a city centre and suburbs - whereas in Los Angeles Downtown is less important (not to mention, on street view, the ugliest part of the city. Fuck those skyscrapers. XD)
I think I should probably PM you sometime since the new Twine project I started also takes place in Los Angeles, since you’re like one of two people I know who lives there. XD
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Oh yeah, Los Feliz is nice, though not nearly as fancy as the really well-off areas - I actually lived there for a year about ten years ago, in an apartment building that went back to Old Hollywood.
And yeah, there’s been a conscious effort to rebrand South LA as a neighborhood, partially to get away from some of the negative connotations South Central has, partially to loop in other parts of the community that aren’t as close to Central Ave. (par for the course for LA, “Central Avenue” is actually pretty far east).
Feel feee to PM me, I like talking about LA
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