CITY & ITS PEOPLE
Westside × Eastside
In LA, ask someone where they live and they won't name a neighborhood; they'll say 'I'm Westside' or 'I'm Eastside.' Not about which is better; about understanding two personalities of one city, and finding that dividing line nobody can agree on.
Translated from Jasmine’s original Chinese. The illustrated slides are on the interactive reader.
Key points
- Roughly where each side is: LA has no official line.
- Working out: West sweats with an ocean view, east sweats with a city view.
- Grocery stores: Grocery stores aren't the dividing line; people from both sides have met in front of the same row of supplements.
- Rent: Those are asking prices, not what people actually pay.
- Getting around: Silver Lake and Echo Park have no Metro stations.
Full text
Roughly where each side is
The Westside usually means Santa Monica, Venice, Brentwood, Westwood; the Eastside, colloquially, is Silver Lake, Echo Park, Los Feliz to Highland Park. LA has no official line.
So where exactly is the dividing line?
The LA Times collected over 300 reader-drawn maps; the most popular line was the 405, the most-named street was La Cienega, but none got a majority. 'Everyone's dividing line happens to be just east of their own house.'
The story behind the word 'Eastside'
'Eastside' originally meant Boyle Heights and East LA, east of the LA River, an identity of Mexican American communities. In 2014, the Silver Lake neighborhood council even voted to say it isn't the Eastside.
The rhythm of a day
On the Westside, mornings start with a thin haze over the beach and evenings end watching the sun drop into the ocean; on the Eastside, you walk down hillside stairs for morning coffee and watch DTLA's towers light up one by one at dusk.
Coffee
Westside coffee often opens by the beach or inside clothing stores, like Fast Times in Venice; the really serious ones are mostly on the Eastside: the Kumquat family, Maru, Stereoscope.
Matcha
Eastside matcha is a whole street: from Kettl along Sunset to Yala, Rōk, Alfred, Dayglow; Westside matcha is a destination, like Maruwu Seicha in Culver City.
Brunch
The Westside is sea breeze and bowls: Gjusta, Great White, Cobi's; the Eastside is lines and chilaquiles: Sqirl, Little Dom's. Both have lines; one side heads to the beach after, the other to a bookstore.
Working out
The Westside rides the beach bike path and climbs the Santa Monica Stairs; the Eastside hikes Griffith or laps the Silver Lake Reservoir. West sweats with an ocean view, east sweats with a city view.
Grocery stores
Erewhon is on both sides, Silver Lake has one too, and the Eastside also has family-run Lassens. Grocery stores aren't the dividing line; people from both sides have met in front of the same row of supplements.
Outfits
The Westside is linen shirts, logo-free beige and flip-flops; the Eastside is Birkenstocks with thick socks, vintage and cowboy boots fresh from the desert. Honestly, the most common thing on both sides is athleisure.
Weekends
The Westside strolls Abbot Kinney and hits the Santa Monica farmers market on Wednesdays; the Eastside loops Echo Park Lake and walks York Blvd. What both sides have in common: nobody wants to get on the freeway on the weekend >_<
The Palisades, coming home
The January 2025 fire destroyed 6,837 structures and killed 12 people. Palisades Village reopened in August 2026 and thousands of homes have started rebuilding; if you go, drive slow, and don't take photos in front of construction sites.
Rent
Zumper's October 2026 average one-bedroom listings: Santa Monica $2,895, Venice $2,650, Silver Lake $2,495, Highland Park $2,090. Those are asking prices, not what people actually pay.
Getting around
The E Line runs from Santa Monica all the way to Atlantic station in East LA, a scheduled 69 minutes end to end; the A Line goes through Highland Park. Silver Lake and Echo Park have no Metro stations.
Which side are you?
A six-question quiz: check whether the beach is foggy first, or what time the coffee shop opens? Sunset dropping into the ocean, or the city lighting up? Question 4, 'can we meet in the middle?', gets the exact same answer on both sides >_<
Two-city mirror
Taipei's west side is the old city of Mengjia and Dadaocheng, and the east side is Xinyi, which grew up later; LA's two sides aren't new and old, they're ocean and mountains. 'Taipei's east and west differ in time; LA's differ in distance.'
Places in this story
In this series
An original JSLALALAND field guide by Jasmine Chang (@jslalaland).