Beverly Hills, California

Best things about Beverly Hills compared to Santa Monica and West Hollywood?

Beverly Hills if obviously a nicer and safer area compared to areas that are already nicer and safer than most anywhere else. You won't get the freaks, weirdos, homeless and troublemakers who seem to be drawn to Santa Monica (or come up from Venice Beach), even though Santa Monica itself is nice. Especially Ocean Park, Ocean Avenue and North of Montana (the nicest part of SM).

Beverly Hills is older, more expensive, and is more where people live and shop rather than where they work or play. The BHPD pretty much exists to serve (they're more like a private security company than an actual police department like LAPD), and will be exceedingly polite and deferential to most residents. The response time is unreal. They're never more than half a minute away. They keep the riff-raff out and are focused on the area. Unlike West Hollywood, which has the LASD. I don't think the LASD even likes West Hollywood.

West Hollywood is where a lot of people (especially well-heeled LGBT) go to party. If you're not into the club scene, or the LGBT scene, then West Hollywood may not do much for you. It's not particularly safe, and has one of the highest incidence rates of reported assaults (mostly drunk gay bros indulging in lover's quarrels).

Culver City bores me.

Silver Lake isn't a city. It's just a neighborhood that might as well be on the moon if you're living in any of the other places mentioned during peak hours.

Would you rather live in Los Feliz or Beverly Hills?

I used to live in Los Feliz and currently live in Beverly Hills; enjoyed both, so my advice would be to go with whichever is closer to work.

Beverly Hills Pros: Very walkable (if you're in the flats, versus the hills), pretty tree-lined streets, quiet, small-town feel, very well maintained streets and public spaces, great service from the city (you don't have to sort trash versus recycling for example, you throw it all away in the same trash bag and they sort it for you), close-ish to the beach, close to low key nature spots like TreePeople or Franklin Canyon, homeless problem isn't as bad as the rest of LA (though definitely still exists), and that sample sale place on Canon Drive is pretty awesome (I know it's a dumb thing to include on the list, but it's this space that hosts sample sales from different brands every week where you can get some crazy good deals on designer clothing).

Cons: not much to do at night unless you want to hang out at a hotel bar or Wally's or urth caffe lol. And everything is a crappier version of itself (like the Whole Foods is tiny with half the selection of other locations, the Thai and Chinese food around here is bland, little things like that), and this next one is weird…but…lots of assholes in loud cars. Like all of a sudden at 3am you'll hear a loud roar because some dick decided to show off his Lamborghini. Also a lot of tourists and kids taking photos for social media. I know that doesn't sound like a big deal, but the other day I missed a left turn because a couple of girls had hopped into the middle of the street to do a tik tok dance lol, and that happens almost daily.

Best things about Beverly Hills compared to Santa Monica and West Hollywood?

All 3 are great, but for different reasons.

Santa Monica has the mildest temperatures of the 3. It rarely gets hotter than 79 degrees. The public schools are good. Many family oriented neighborhoods. Very walkable. Bike friendly.

Safety wise, Santa Monica is good, but it's been declining over the past few years. The decline is most pronounced in the downtown area, where there has been more homeless problems. With that being said, other neighborhoods in Santa Monica like Ocean Park, Sunset Park, and Montana are still fantastic areas to live in and remain very safe.

West Hollywood is vibrant and more geared towards people that want to be out and about. Nightlife, bars, fancy restaurants, etc. It's quite walkable but some parts are hilly, FYI. You will experience more crime incidents because that's inevitable with so much drinking and partying going on. Generally speaking though, WeHo feels safe. I've never felt on edge over there compared with other more questionable nightlife hotspots like Downtown LA or Central Hollywood. I would not describe WeHo as family oriented.

Beverly Hills is geared towards 3 types of people: 1.) Those who have zero tolerance for riff raff 2.) Very wealthy people 3.) Older people

If you fit into any of those 3 buckets, you will like Beverly Hills.

I like the southern part of BH (around Beverly Dr). Feels less billionaire fancy and more neighborhoody.

Pros and Cons of Living in Beverly Hills!