Attention Los Angeles: Your map has arrived

After months of study, debate and drawing, the Los Angeles Times is unveiling its interactive map of Los Angeles today. As Times Database Editor Doug Smith explains, drawing boundaries for L.A.'s many neighborhoods turned out to be a hot-button issues on par with leaf-blower noise, carpool lanes and electronic billboards:

There are nearly 30,000 city blocks in Los Angeles, and over the last several weeks, my colleague Maloy Moore and I have examined them all. We've considered each one's size and population density, its racial and ethnic makeup, its proximity to landmarks, its topography and history. Then we listened to what readers told us about the deeply rooted perceptions that make them see a block as belonging in one community instead of another. All this was in service of a project that The Times began months ago to map the city of Los Angeles and make it possible for us to give people neighborhood-by-neighborhood news and information. In February, we posted a first draft of the map on latimes.com, inviting users to send us comments. We received more than 1,500. Today, we're posting an updated map, revised in nearly 100 ways.

Check out the maps here -- and let the debate begin (or at least continue). Smith said he knows the maps won't please everyone. But he also notes that The Times is the first institution to be brave (or foolish) enough to draw neighborhood boundaries for every part of the city. The paper plans to use the map as the geographic bible for determining how we describe neighborhoods in our stories (important to this editor, who recently had to run a correction after wrongly stating that the Charles Manson LaBianca murders took place in Los Feliz instead of Silver Lake).

The maps are a treasure trove of data -- demographics, schools, geography. There is also a news feed on each map zoned with stories of interest to those communities. More data will be added soon, including crime statistics. Reserve some quality net surfing time.

The maps offer readers a vivid snapshot of their neighborhoods. But they probably won't change the geographic judgment that is such a part of L.A. Smith recounted one comment from a reader: "It sucks when a friend moves south of Wilshire and you can no longer joke about that area, for fear of hurting their feelings. I am a snob."

-- Shelby Grad

Comments

[Mick H.]

I applaud your quixotic bravado for even undertaking such a daunting task knowing, as you did, that it would unleash a storm of comments that at times might make getting caught jousting with a windmill and thrown into a mental ward preferable--kudos to the Times staff involved.