Westwood
Homes For Sale Overview
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Westwood
homes for sale can range from the very expensive to the relatively
reasonable. The
winding two-mile section of Wilshire Boulevard to the east of Westwood Village
is dominated by residential high-rises, and is variously known as the
Millionaire's Mile, the Golden Mile or the Wilshire Corridor. Penthouse
apartments in the corridor's high-rise condominiums routinely sell for amounts
in excess of $20 million. Countless celebrities maintain an address on
Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood. Westwood is a district in western Los
Angeles, California. Developed by the Janss family in the 1920s, it is best
known as the home of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The
eastern portions of the district are often thought of as a distinctly
different neighborhood, Holmby Hills. Westwood is the site of Walker
mansion and statues of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. The town of Westwood
claims to be the hometown of Paul Bunyan. Westwood was once featured on
Ripleys Believe it or Not for being a town that had more dogs than people.
Westwood has a MOW (Maintenence of Way) station for the Burlington Northern
Santa Fe Railway. There is also a siding in Westwood that is used to store
BNSF snow fighting equipment. A center of movie-going on the Westside
and the site of many movie premieres, Westwood is home to several vintage
movie theaters, including the Art Deco Crest, the Mann Village (once called
the Fox Theatre) and the Mann Bruin. Westwood is also home to the Westwood
Village Memorial Park Cemetery, the last resting place of many of Hollywood's
biggest stars. A museum named for and endowed by activist and philanthropist
Armand Hammer, longtime head of Occidental Petroleum (which maintains its
headquarters on Wilshire Boulevard), has become one of Los Angeles' trendiest
cultural attractions since UCLA assumed its management in the 1990s. The
Hammer, as it is commonly known, is particularly notable for its collection of
Impressionist art and cutting-edge modern art exhibitions.
Westwood Homes For Sale Geography
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Located
in the northern central portion of Los Angeles' West Side, Westwood is bordered
by Brentwood on the west, Bel-Air on the north, Century City and Beverly Hills
on the east, West Los Angeles on the southwest, Rancho Park on the southeast,
and unincorporated Sawtelle on the south and southwest. The district's
boundaries are generally considered to be Olympic Blvd. (or Pico Blvd. and, by
some, Santa Monica Blvd.) on the southeast, the city limits of Beverly Hills on
the northeast, and Sunset Boulevard on the north; its southwestern boundary is
the San Diego Freeway between Santa Monica and Wilshire boulevards, and Veteran
Avenue between Wilshire and Sunset..
Westwood Homes For Sale
Demographics
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Many
of the area's permanent residents are of European and Persian ancestry
and generally affluent, living in high-rise apartment buildings and,
in Holmby Hills, some of the most luxurious single-family houses in
Los Angeles. Single-family homes tend to be east and southeast of
UCLA, particularly in the areas behind the LDS temple. Housing in the
portion of the district bounded by Sepulveda, Santa Monica, Westwood,
and Wilshire Boulevards is mostly low- or medium-rise apartment
buildings catering to upscale young professionals, as well as some
UCLA students. Most UCLA students in Westwood, however, live in the
hilly area of low-rise apartments between Veteran Avenue and the
campus' western boundary. Because of consistently high demand and the
district's proximity to so many Westside attractions and businesses,
rental housing in Westwood is very expensive relative to most areas of
Los Angeles. For all but the wealthiest UCLA students, living
off-campus in a Westwood apartment necessitates sharing a room. As a
result, many UCLA students live 5 miles south of campus in Culver City
and the Los Angeles districts of Mar Vista and Palms, both in private
housing and in large UCLA-owned apartment complexes. Significant
numbers of UCLA students also live in the San Fernando Valley, but
heavy traffic congestion through the Sepulveda Pass and Beverly Glen
can wreak havoc on commutes between the Valley and Westwood.
Businesses owned or operated by the Iranian community are clustered
along Westwood Blvd., earning it the sobriquet Little Persia. As
of the censusGR2 of 2000, there were 1,998 people, 795 households, and
520 families residing in the CDP. The population density was
140.0/km˛ (362.5/mi˛). There were 1,048 housing units at an average
density of 73.4/km˛ (190.1/mi˛). The racial makeup of the CDP was
88.39% White, 5.26% Native American, 0.25% Asian, 0.55% Pacific
Islander, 2.70% from other races, and 2.85% from two or more races.
Hispanic or Latino of any race were 8.51% of the population. There
were 795 households out of which 36.5% had children under the age of
18 living with them, 46.4% were married couples living together, 12.6%
had a female householder with no husband present, and 34.5% were
non-families. 28.1% of all households were made up of individuals and
10.2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The
average household size was 2.51 and the average family size was 3.10.
In the CDP the population was spread out with 31.4% under the age of
18, 6.1% from 18 to 24, 26.9% from 25 to 44, 24.3% from 45 to 64, and
11.3% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years.
For every 100 females there were 100.6 males. For every 100 females
age 18 and over, there were 96.8 males. The median income for a
household in the CDP was $24,148, and the median income for a family
was $30,195. Males had a median income of $29,219 versus $23,646 for
females. The per capita income for the CDP was $13,178. About 16.7% of
families and 22.5% of the population were below the poverty line,
including 30.0% of those under age 18 and 1.9% of those age 65 or
over.
Westwood Homes For Sale
Westwood Village
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Built
by the Janss family and wildly successful from its earliest stages, the Westwood
Village shopping district successfully retained its cozy village atmosphere even
as the San Diego Freeway came through the area in the 1950s and high-rise office
towers went up around it in the following decades. However, much of this
construction was planned around the never-built Beverly Hills Freeway; in
combination with a severe parking shortage at UCLA, high-density development in
Westwood has created some of the worst traffic congestion in Los Angeles. Even
with the opening of numerous municipal parking structures in the 1990s and
2000s, finding a parking spot in Westwood Village is still a notoriously
difficult task, and parking and traffic issues dominate local planning debates.
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