My Town

 Any time that I am more than 50 miles from home and someone asks me where I live, my answer is either “LA” or more formally “Los Angeles”.  Even when traveling overseas, that response is sufficient.  Los Angeles, California is easily recognized with its geographic location clearly identified on maps.    Yet, within that pinpoint on a map are really 88 cities ranging in size from less than 1,000 residents to many with a 100,000 + and, of course, Los Angeles City proper with a population of over 4 million.   LA County also has a tremendous population in the unincorporated portions of the County for a total of over 10 million people.  This makes it a highly concentrated center of human activity with widely diverse physical and cultural environments. 

In reality, my actual residence for the last seven years is in one of the several beach communities within LA County.  Hermosa Beach has just over 19,000 residents with a definite beach atmosphere promoting a fun sand and sun experience.  There is a full range of city council and public services, fire and police departments, cultural activities, community center, retail establishments and restaurants, and a lively night life along with family oriented events.   It is a great place to live if you want to walk less than 1 mile from anywhere in the city to reach the ocean’s edge.

Following my retirement, I decided to walk each street and really get to know this town I called home from a street level perspective.  After each walk, I would highlight my detailed Chamber of Commerce map showing my travelled path for that day.  This really helped in learning short cuts about town.   The many narrow one-way streets that always seemed confusing when driving were much easier on foot.  The changes in street names as I hit the borders between neighboring cities of Manhattan Beach (pop. 36,000+) and Redondo Beach (pop. 68,000+) stood out more clearly as I walked along sidewalks in Hermosa Beach looking across the street into another city’s landscape.

As I journeyed along these border edges, I realized that the actual land area of the city wasn’t that large – yet how little I knew of the people and the city itself.  My resolution, at that point, was to join and participate in a community activity to make this ‘my town’.