Low rent and clean air together
Pollution exposure in Los Angeles is distributed along the freeways and the goods-movement corridors, and housing beside them is cheaper for exactly that reason. That correlation makes the areas that break it worth finding: places where rent is below the regional norm and the air is still comparatively clean.
The environment measure blends diesel particulate matter and traffic proximity from CalEnviroScreen 4.0 with tree canopy from the national land-cover dataset. This lens weights it equally with affordability so neither can carry an area on its own.
Same weighting, on a map of all 7,644 areas, where you can change the balance and see every measure behind a place.
Lower rent with cleaner air
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 | Combined score | Median rent |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lake Los Angeles | 82 | $1,325/mo |
| 2 | Quartz Hill | 81 | $1,600/mo |
| 3 | Leimert Park | 76 | $1,275/mo |
| 4 | Lancaster | 72 | $1,650/mo |
| 5 | Highland Park | 72 | $1,750/mo |
| 6 | Sierra Madre | 72 | $1,950/mo |
| 7 | Sunland | 71 | $1,550/mo |
| 8 | Palmdale | 70 | $1,750/mo |
| 9 | Chesterfield Square | 69 | $1,400/mo |
| 10 | Montecito Heights | 69 | $1,675/mo |
| 11 | San Fernando | 69 | $1,675/mo |
| 12 | Exposition Park | 69 | $1,475/mo |
| 13 | Vermont Square | 68 | $1,375/mo |
| 14 | Huntington Park | 68 | $1,350/mo |
| 15 | Central-Alameda | 68 | $1,425/mo |
| 16 | South Park | 68 | $1,400/mo |
| 17 | Walnut Park | 67 | $1,450/mo |
| 18 | View Park-Windsor Hills | 67 | $1,775/mo |
| 19 | Jefferson Park | 66 | $1,550/mo |
| 20 | Altadena | 66 | $2,375/mo |
| 21 | Florence-Graham | 66 | $1,450/mo |
| 22 | El Sereno | 66 | $1,575/mo |
| 23 | Hyde Park | 66 | $1,700/mo |
| 24 | Mount Washington | 65 | $1,875/mo |
| 25 | Duarte | 65 | $1,375/mo |
Clean relative to Los Angeles is not clean in absolute terms. These are percentile ranks within a region that has some of the worst air quality in the country, so a high score means better than most of Southern California, not good by national standards.
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Free to reuse with credit, including commercially.
How this is measured
- Affordability 40%. ACS B25064 median gross rent (block group)
- Environment 40%. CalEnviroScreen 4.0 diesel PM + traffic proximity, NLCD tree canopy
- Location access 15%. EPA Smart Location Database walkability, transit access, density
- Lifestyle 5%. 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.
- Where rent goes furthest
Neighborhoods across LA and Orange County ranked by median rent against every other area in the region, using ACS block-group data.
- 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.
- 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.