Where rent goes furthest
This ranking weights affordability far above everything else: it is close to asking, simply, where is rent lowest relative to the rest of the region. The other measures still count for a fifth of the score, so an area that is cheap but has nothing around it and no way to get anywhere will not top the list.
Affordability here is median gross rent from the American Community Survey, blended from the nearest block groups onto a grid of hexagons about a kilometre across. Every score is a percentile against the other 7,600 hexes in LA and Orange County, not against national figures, so a score of 90 means an area is cheaper than 90% of Southern California rather than cheaper than 90% of the country.
Same weighting, on a map of all 7,644 areas, where you can change the balance and see every measure behind a place.
Most affordable areas
Mean score across every measured cell in each neighborhood, ranked against 263 neighborhoods. Names carried by fewer than three measured cells are left out, as are the cluster names this project invented where no established neighborhood name existed.
| # | Neighborhood | Affordability score | Median rent |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pico-Union | 88 | $1,275/mo |
| 2 | Exposition Park | 85 | $1,475/mo |
| 3 | Huntington Park | 85 | $1,350/mo |
| 4 | Westlake | 85 | $1,375/mo |
| 5 | Watts | 84 | $1,225/mo |
| 6 | Historic South-Central | 84 | $1,350/mo |
| 7 | Lincoln Heights | 84 | $1,350/mo |
| 8 | Koreatown | 84 | $1,575/mo |
| 9 | Leimert Park | 84 | $1,275/mo |
| 10 | Boyle Heights | 83 | $1,300/mo |
| 11 | Vermont Square | 83 | $1,375/mo |
| 12 | Vermont-Slauson | 83 | $1,325/mo |
| 13 | Central-Alameda | 83 | $1,425/mo |
| 14 | South Park | 83 | $1,400/mo |
| 15 | Florence-Graham | 81 | $1,450/mo |
| 16 | Chesterfield Square | 81 | $1,400/mo |
| 17 | Walnut Park | 81 | $1,450/mo |
| 18 | Florence | 81 | $1,400/mo |
| 19 | Willowbrook | 80 | $1,250/mo |
| 20 | Bell | 80 | $1,525/mo |
| 21 | Downtown LA | 80 | $1,425/mo |
| 22 | Vernon | 80 | $1,425/mo |
| 23 | West Adams | 80 | $1,600/mo |
| 24 | Lennox | 80 | $1,275/mo |
| 25 | East Hollywood | 79 | $1,625/mo |
Low rent and low cost of living are not the same thing. Several of the areas near the top of this list are cheap partly because getting anywhere from them is expensive in time or fuel, which the location measure only partly captures.
Use this data
Free to reuse with credit, including commercially.
How this is measured
- Affordability 60%. ACS B25064 median gross rent (block group)
- Location access 20%. EPA Smart Location Database walkability, transit access, density
- Environment 10%. CalEnviroScreen 4.0 diesel PM + traffic proximity, NLCD tree canopy
- Lifestyle 10%. OpenStreetMap place counts (restaurant, coffee, grocery, park, gym)
Every measure is a percentile rank from 0 to 100 against all 7,644 populated cells in Los Angeles and Orange County, so a score describes how an area compares within the region rather than against a national baseline. This lens scores 7,644 of them. Block-group figures are blended onto the grid by distance-weighted nearest centroids.
Data compiled 2026-08-20, methodology v1. Free to reuse with credit under CC BY 4.0; place counts come from OpenStreetMap and carry share-alike. Full terms, column definitions and limitations are on the data page.
Other ways to read the index
- Compare two places side by side
Every measure at once for up to four areas, each drawn against the whole region.
- Cheap rent without needing a car
Neighborhoods in LA and Orange County that combine low rent with walkable streets and transit access, ranked from block-group and EPA walkability data.
- Low rent and clean air together
Where lower rent overlaps with cleaner air in LA and Orange County, using CalEnviroScreen diesel particulate and traffic data alongside ACS rents.
- Tree cover, clean air, little traffic
LA and Orange County neighborhoods ranked on air quality, traffic exposure and tree canopy, from CalEnviroScreen and national land-cover data.
- Plenty nearby, easy to get around
LA and Orange County neighborhoods ranked on restaurants, cafes, groceries and parks nearby combined with walkability and transit access.
- Where home prices go furthest
LA and Orange County neighborhoods ranked by ACS median home value, showing where buying costs least relative to the rest of the region.
- The areas with no affordable escape from pollution
LA and Orange County areas where high environmental exposure coincides with high rent burden, combining CalEnviroScreen with ACS rent-to-income data.
- Where police report the fewest incidents
LA and Orange County neighborhoods ranked by police-reported violent and property incident rates, from LAPD, LA County Sheriff and CA DOJ records.
- Where growing up led to higher adult earnings
LA and Orange County neighborhoods ranked on Opportunity Atlas outcomes: what children raised in each area earned as adults, from Census-linked tax records.