3. Arts District - Los Angeles, CA

Sandwiched between downtown Los Angeles and the Los Angeles River, the Arts District may be one of the city’s hottest neighborhoods. Located in the city’s Wholesale District, much of its early growth was due to its vicinity to area railyards and to the 1907 opening of the Santa Fe Freight Depot. For much of the early 20th century, the district filled with warehouses serving the region’s citrus industry. After World War II, it declined as the rail freight business gave way to the trucking industry.

Considered the “gritty corner of downtown”, artist began colonizing its vacant buildings into working studios in the 1970s. As a response, in 1981, the City of Los Angeles passed the Artist in Residence (AIR) ordinance, allowing residential use of industrial and commercial zoned buildings. In 2000, the district recieved a major economic boost when the Southern California Institute of Architecture converted the closed Santa Fe Freight Depot into its new educational campus.

Today the Wholesale District remains a place for industrial and wholesale uses. At the same time, its Arts District has become so popular, the area faces legitimate gentrification concerns.