A neighborhood-by-neighborhood guide to all that makes L.A. great

It is far too easy for us Angelenos to take our bountiful city for granted — and it’s easy to get complacent as a result, to become tethered to our neighborhood for fear of gridlock or because there are simply so many amazing things to do, eat and see in such a compact radius. With those realities in mind, we at L.A. Weekly thought it would make sense to try something new with our annual Best of Los Angeles issue. This year, for the first time, we bring you the Best of L.A. Neighborhoods — our picks for what you should explore in ’hoods other than your own.

Sometimes we decided to leave out the obvious choices in a given place, for obvious reasons: No matter where you live, you already know about those. We also called on local experts in each of these neighborhoods to give you the inside scoop on what they love best about where they live.

And we held a few spots for some best-in-city awardees, too — including the Best Band, Best Podcast, Best Comedian and Best Twitter Feed — because we felt it was still important to recognize the very best of the best, whether it belonged to a specific neighborhood or not.

Similarly, we asked our readers to tell us what’s the best about L.A. citywide — but we snuck in some questions that referenced our theme: Best Neighborhood for Nightlife, Best Neighborhood for Cheap Eats and Best Up-and-Coming Neighborhood, to name a few.

How do you best go about navigating all of this? Click on the menu to your left and start browsing the neighborhoods, or simply scroll down and click. Trust us: There’s so much L.A. to discover beyond where you live. —Mara Shalhoup

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