Schools of the Westside

When considering a place to live one must take many things into account. If you have young children, schooling should be at the top of the list of considerations. Knowing which schools are available and the distances to the schools is important. For young children it is beneficial that they live near their school so that they may develop friendships and have access to friends they attend class with.

The Westside of Los Angeles is a very desirable place to live and has an abundance of schools to choose from. I produced a map showing the schools of the Westside. I selected schools, both public and private, in Pacific Palisades, Brentwood, Westwood and Santa Monica. I created three buffers around each school one at ¼ mile, the second at ½ mile and finally at a distance of one mile. Each of these distances are reasonable walking distances in a place where walking is rare.

As can be seen in the Schools of the Westside map, the schools, in general, seem to appear in clusters with many ¼ buffers overlapping. Not surprisingly the number of private schools outnumber public schools in this affluent part of Los Angeles. The densest cluster I found to be in the town I live in, Pacific Palisades. There are four schools within a 3-block area and it appears as a dense cluster in the Palisades Cluster map. Three of these schools are private and the other is public. Less than ¼ mile away is a Palisades Charter High School, where my daughter is a student.

It is important to consider schooling options when choosing a place to live if you have children. Maps such as these, produced using ArcMap, can help give a visual display of which neighborhoods offer the best options for those with school-aged children. There are of course many other considerations to bear in mind when finding a home to settle into. By adding more layers to this map, such as potential jobs, recreational desires, doctors, etc., one could find a home that will afford them the luxury of spending more time doing something they enjoy and less time on the road.