Trying to pick the right Long Beach neighborhood? Diverse and coastal, Long Beach offers everything from walkable downtown living to charming beach-town streets and canal-front homes — often at better value than much of coastal LA. “Best” depends on your budget and whether you want the beach, downtown energy, or a leafy residential feel.

Long Beach neighborhoods to know

Belmont Shore & Naples

Beach-town charm on 2nd Street and the canals of Naples Island — walkable, coveted, and full of shops and restaurants.

Downtown & the East Village Arts District

Walkable, waterfront-adjacent living with nightlife, galleries and value — popular with young professionals.

Bixby Knolls & California Heights

Historic, tree-lined single-family neighborhoods with character homes and good value — favorites for families.

Alamitos Beach & the beach areas

Close to the sand with a mix of apartments and bungalows.

How to choose your Long Beach neighborhood

Weigh your budget, your commute, and whether you want beach charm, downtown-walkable, or a leafy residential street. Then get the honest read from locals.

What Long Beach locals actually say

Which areas are worth it, where the value is versus LA, which spots fit your lifestyle — that comes from people who live here. On Neighborhood Nurturers’ Long Beach community, real neighbors give candid takes on where to live. See also things to do in Long Beach. Join your Long Beach neighbors free →

The Long Beach angle

Every neighborhood here has a distinct feel, and the right fit depends on how you actually live. Half the fun of finding the right neighborhood in Long Beach is stringing it together with the places nearby. Belmont Shore is the landmark most people orient around, but neighbors will tell you the El Dorado Nature Center and the Naples canals are where the town really shows its character, with Bluff Park worth a look if you have the time. Use those as your reference points and this guide slots neatly into a day that feels like Long Beach, not a checklist.

Keep exploring Long Beach

If this was useful, these companion guides cover Long Beach from angles that pair naturally with it: Moving to Long Beach, Cost of living in Long Beach, Things to do in Long Beach. Together they add up to a full weekend without leaving town.

Ask a Long Beach neighbor

The best tips never make the guidebooks — they come from neighbors who know which spot is worth it this week. That is what the Long Beach community on Neighborhood Nurturers is for. Ask Long Beach locals what they would do, or join free and get honest answers from people who actually know Long Beach.

The Long Beach neighbourhood names locals actually use

Long Beach is roughly 97 recognised neighbourhoods across about fifty square miles, which means the city-level generalisations you read elsewhere are close to useless. What follows is the set of names that come up constantly in local conversation, what each one is actually like, and who each one suits.

Belmont Shore — the walkable Second Street blocks with the beach behind them. Older, smaller housing stock, priced at a premium for the location, and the most consistently busy commercial street in the city. Suits people who will genuinely use walkability and are willing to pay for it and to fight for parking. Full detail in our Belmont Shore guide.

Naples Island — the canal islands between Belmont Shore and the marina. This is the most expensive residential pocket in Long Beach and the most photographed. Quiet, small, and genuinely unusual: canal-front homes with footpaths behind them and gondolas going past. See the Naples Island guide.

Bixby Knolls — north Long Beach, along Atlantic Avenue. Bigger lots, mid-century homes, mature trees, and a commercial strip that locals half-jokingly call Brewery Knolls because of the concentration of breweries and taprooms that opened along it. This is the answer for people who want space and a yard without leaving the city, and it is the neighbourhood most often recommended to families priced out of the coast.

Cambodia Town — the stretch of Anaheim Street formally designated as Cambodia Town. Long Beach is home to the largest Cambodian population outside Southeast Asia, and this corridor is where that shows up in daily life: markets, bakeries, and a concentration of Cambodian restaurants that exists nowhere else in the country at this density. It is one of the genuinely singular things about this city and it is routinely left off visitor guides.

Retro Row — the Fourth Street corridor, known locally as Retro Row and sometimes as Funky Fourth Street. Vintage clothing, record shops, independent coffee, small bars. It is the counterweight to Second Street: smaller, scruffier, less polished, and much less crowded on a Saturday.

Downtown Long Beach and the East Village — the dense part. Apartment towers, the convention centre, the waterfront, and the East Village arts district immediately east of it. Suits people who want to rent, want no car dependence, and want the nightlife within walking distance. It is also the part of the city where the difference between two adjacent blocks is largest, which is why walking a specific block at a specific hour matters more here than anywhere else in Long Beach.

Bluff Park — the historic district on the bluff above Ocean Boulevard, east of downtown. Craftsman and Spanish revival homes, ocean views, a designated historic landmark district. Quiet, expensive, and the most architecturally interesting few blocks in the city.

California Heights — another historic district, inland, with a tight concentration of 1920s and 1930s Spanish and Tudor revival homes. Similar appeal to Bluff Park at a lower price, because it is not on the water.

Los Altos — east Long Beach, post-war tract housing, close to Cal State Long Beach. Practical, unglamorous, and the neighbourhood most often chosen by people who want a straightforward single-family home with a driveway and a school run that works.

Alamitos Beach — between downtown and Bluff Park, right on the sand. Predominantly older apartment buildings, and one of the few places in coastal Los Angeles County where you can rent within a block of a beach without a Newport or Santa Monica budget.

Wrigley — west of the 710, north of downtown. Modest, largely single-family, and one of the more affordable parts of the city with a real neighbourhood identity.

How to choose between them

Three questions settle most of it. First: do you want to walk to things, or do you want a yard? Long Beach makes you pick, and the coastal walkable neighbourhoods charge a lot for that answer. Second: how much does the beach actually matter to you? Being four miles inland in Bixby Knolls or Los Altos buys meaningfully more house, and plenty of people who move to the coast for the beach visit it less than they expected. Third: are you buying or renting? The rental stock is concentrated downtown, in Alamitos Beach, and in the older apartment blocks near the water, while the inland districts skew heavily toward ownership.

Long Beach overall runs about 52% above the national cost-of-living average, with a median home value near $847,495 and median rent around $2,287. That is the city figure, and it spreads widely: the coastal and historic districts sit well above it while the northern and western neighbourhoods sit below. Our Long Beach cost of living guide breaks that down further.

On safety, the honest version is more nuanced than the headline. Long Beach carries a mediocre citywide grade in the commercial neighbourhood-rating products, but roughly 80% of its 97 neighbourhoods rate in the A or B band within those same products. That gap is the whole point: a citywide number tells you almost nothing about a specific street. Our Long Beach safety guide names areas and cites the underlying figures instead of averaging them into a single letter.

The last step is the one no guide can do for you: walk the specific blocks, at the hour you would actually be there, on a weekday and again on a weekend night. Neighbourhood boundaries on a map are much sharper than the reality on the ground.

Long Beach Neighborhoods, One by One

Long Beach has 97 distinct neighbourhoods, which is a lot for a city of its size and is the main reason blanket statements about “what Long Beach is like” fall apart. The city changes character every mile. Here are the areas people actually mean when they name a neighbourhood, with what each is genuinely like.

Belmont Shore

The walkable coastal favourite, built around fifteen blocks of 2nd Street from Livingston Drive to Bay Shore Avenue with more than 150 businesses and the beach at the end. Housing is dense and small-lot: 1920s bungalows, Spanish revival duplexes and newer three-storey rebuilds. It is among the most expensive parts of the city and among the most social. You trade space and easy parking for being able to walk to everything. Full detail in our Belmont Shore guide.

Naples Island

Three man-made islands in Alamitos Bay around the only Venetian canal system on the West Coast, developed from 1905 under Arthur Parsons. Waterfront homes with private docks, Italian street names, five Italianate bridges and a public canal walkway. This is the top of the local housing market and is quiet, residential and almost entirely non-commercial. See the Naples Island guide.

Bixby Knolls

About five miles north of downtown, historic and leafy, with Craftsman homes and a good stock of mid-century moderns on tree-lined streets. Atlantic Avenue is its main street and holds the highest concentration of breweries in Long Beach, which is why locals call it “Brewery Knolls”, with a monthly First Fridays evening. Its largest green space, Scherer Park, covers 26 acres with a community centre, duck pond paths and a dog park. It reads as a settled family neighbourhood rather than a beach one, and parking is easy.

Alamitos Beach

Coastal, central, and one of the more budget-friendly ways to live near the water. Its nightlife concentrates along Fourth Street and Broadway, which hold many of the city’s best-known LGBTQ+ bars alongside a strong restaurant list. It is denser and more urban than the eastern beach neighbourhoods, and it puts you within walking distance of both the sand and Retro Row.

Rose Park

A designated historic district named for the small circular park on Orizaba Avenue at 8th Street, donated to the city in 1910 by the Alamitos Land Company. The area was first settled in 1905 with subdivision continuing to 1921, and the housing stock is dominated by Craftsman bungalows from that period. It is one of the most architecturally coherent neighbourhoods in the city.

California Heights

A Long Beach-designated historic district bordering Bixby Knolls to the south, with a notably strong neighbourhood identity and recurring community events including an annual home and garden tour. Period housing, quiet streets, and an active residents’ scene.

Wrigley and Wrigley Heights

Named after the chewing gum magnate, Wrigley Heights began as a 12-acre development of Spanish-inspired homes built in 1927, and the area around Eucalyptus Avenue is a City Council-designated historic district still holding many of the original Spanish-style houses. Its position between the 405 and the 710 makes it the most commuter-practical of the historic neighbourhoods, with quick access both north to Los Angeles and south toward Orange County.

Cambodia Town and Retro Row

Cambodia Town runs along Anaheim Street between Atlantic and Junipero and is the cultural heart of the largest Cambodian community of any city outside Southeast Asia, with restaurants, Khmer temples and community organisations along the corridor. Retro Row is three blocks of 4th Street between Cherry and Junipero, the vintage district, home to the oldest operating single-screen cinema in Long Beach, opened 1924.

Choosing an Area

If walkability matters most: Belmont Shore, Alamitos Beach or Retro Row. If you want space and quiet: Bixby Knolls, California Heights or Wrigley. If budget is the constraint and the beach is not negotiable: Alamitos Beach. If you are commuting north or south daily: Wrigley, for freeway access. If period architecture is the draw: Rose Park, California Heights or Wrigley Heights.

Citywide context: Long Beach runs about 52% above the national average on cost of living, with a median home price near $847,000 and median rent around $2,287. The coastal eastern neighbourhoods sit well above those figures and the northern and central ones below. See cost of living in Long Beach, is Long Beach safe, schools in Long Beach and moving to Long Beach.

Frequently asked questions

What are the best neighborhoods in Long Beach?

Belmont Shore and Naples for beach-town charm and canals; Downtown and the East Village Arts District for walkable, waterfront-adjacent living; and Bixby Knolls and California Heights for historic family homes and value.

Is Long Beach cheaper than LA?

Often, yes — Long Beach frequently offers better value than much of coastal LA while keeping beach access and walkable neighborhoods.

Is Long Beach a good place to live?

Many love it for the diverse, walkable beach neighborhoods, the waterfront, and better value than nearby LA, with options from beach charm to historic family streets.